Book Club Girl

OK, Really, I'm Back

If anyone's been concerned the last few days, why you weren't either finding the blog or finding it looking like an unformatted mess, you weren't alone -- I was freaking out. My poor husband. In any case, it seems to all be fixed now and everything is looking as it should.

Good thing too, as I have things to report. First is a new book in paperback that is, in the words of Bluestalking Reader's Lisa Guidarini, "a fantastic book group choice." The book? The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis. It does sound great -- the story of an unlikely friendship between a dynamic woman and one who's worn down by life. Much like A Ticket to Ride (though at a different time in life) this is a story of one woman's adulation of another. Until things start to go wrong. Read Lisa's full review at the link above. And please spread the word about this book, Patry Francis would be on a book tour now, but cancer is keeping her home and unable to travel. Send karmic vibes out for her recovery by telling others you know about her wonderful novel. For more information, here's a synopsis, the inspiration behind the book, praise and her blog.

Oprah's New Book Club Pick is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth!

Oprah's new book club selection announced today is the inspirational book The New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. This looks like a great pick, especially for this time of year, a kind of "new year, new you" for the soul! And this time the book club has a new twist -- you can register now for a 10-week online class, or webinar, to be held every Monday night with Oprah and Tolle himself. Sign up now and find out what your homework is for Monday, March 3rd!
Find out more about the book and here is the reading guide.

I'm Back!!!

Sorry for the absence of the blog yesterday, we were experiencing technical difficulties, but I'm back! Watch this space for news of Oprah's new pick soon, it's announced today!!

The Pulpwood Queen's Book!

You first read about the Pulpwood Queen's Book Club (on this blog that is) here, when Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict author Laurie Viera Rigler posted about her hilarious trip to Kathy Patrick's Beauty and the Book bookshop. Now Patrick herself is an author, with the newly released, The Pulpwood Queen's Tiara Wearing Book Sharing Guide to Life, which tells Patrick's own story of going from publishing sales rep to bookstore owner and leader of one of the largest book discussion groups in the country. Patrick offers her tips on how to start a book club, lists of great books and recipes to accompany them. Read an excerpt, check out the reading group guide and see if you can catch Kathy on tour. Tonight she was in Natchitoches -- a name I love (even more so thanks to Lucinda Williams). Patrick's favorite book of all time? The recently blogged about To Kill a Mockingbird.

Jane, Jane, Jane...Part 3

Don't forget, Mansfield Park is tomorrow night, or tonight, depending on when you read this. Watch the trailer here. And I just figured out how they're going to squeeze the Colin Firth P&P adaptation in -- it will air over three weeks from 2/10 - 24. Before that, and after Mansfield, we'll have the biopic Miss Austen Regrets, starring Olivia Williams--and, thanks to imdb.com, I've finally realized where I remember her from -- the Peter Pan from a few years back.

I Think This Would Make Harper Lee Smile

Having had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Lee once, I think she would find this recent Onion article quite amusing. Thanks Jenne, for sending it in!

Welcome Book Group Buzz!

Booklist, a magazine of the publishing trade, has just started a book group blog, called Book Group Buzz. Check it out for recommendations and I'll add it to the resources on the right as well.

Book Club Girl's Hometown Paper Discusses What Makes a Great Book Club

Imagine my delight to find this article from the town where I grew up that celebrates book clubs. And who knew there were 234 libraries in NH--one for every town and city! There are some good tips in here plus it should give you an "I'm-in-a-book-club-feel-good" glow just reading it.

Debut Novel Getting Rave Reviews

Paula McLain is a poet who has just penned her first novel and it's getting rave reviews--everyone remembers that older teenage girl who seemed so much cooler than everyone else, who we emulated, adored and occasionally followed into potentially bad situations? That's the story she tells in A Ticket to Ride, about which Bust magazine just wrote: "McLain's writing is lyrical...and the characters are achingly real. This is truly the sort of novel that, once started, is difficult to put down." And the Cleveland Plain Dealer said: "McLain has put a poet's ear to the urgency of adolescence and come back with a strong throb of a first novel."
For more info, visit her website at her name above, check out the reading guide, see if you can catch her on tour and click here to browse inside the book itself.

Diane Rehm's Latest Reader's Review Title(s)

Ok, I'm completely late on this one, and it seems my link to her on the right went away (it's back now) and I missed last month's book. But in the interest of being complete (and who doesn't like a good recommendation, even if they don't have time to read the book for the show) I give you:  Diane Rehm's listeners will be tuning in this Wednesday to discuss Anne Morrow Lindbergh's lyrical memoir Gift from the Sea. And last month, I'm sure they had a great discussion of a book already discussed here, the late Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

Watch this space on Wednesday am for news of Oprah's new pick, set to be announced that day!

The Next Book Club Books?

We hit Target today as part of our holiday weekend--the girls had gift cards from Christmas burning holes in their pockets and I needed another one of those so-heavy-you-can-barely-lift-it bottles of detergent.  I managed to spend a fair amount of time in the book area which is always so great. While Target obviously doesn't stock a ton of books, the ones they do are very well chosen, especially in the trade paperback area. I always come upon books I haven't heard of, which is one of the true pleasures of browsing any book store. And they have the big new releases as well, and a nice kids section. To that end, my purchases--and perhaps book club picks on down the line--were:
The Friday Night Knitting Club -- because I love to knit and the cover features gorgeous skeins of yarn
The Romance Readers' Book Club -- because of the quote from Mary Kay Andrews on the front and the one from Michael Lee West on the back -- I'm looking forward to a good southern read here (here's the reading guide)
The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller -- because I love her and any novel that can combine story with my current obsession of politics is the book for me (here's the reading guide)
And lastly: The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats -- because I hope we have one soon and in the meantime I read it to my 22-month old tonight so he can at least begin to understand the concept of snow

Jane, Jane, Jane...Part 2

"Perhaps after all it is posible to read too many novels."
--Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey

This just in from Masterpiece Theater: "Sundays with Jane continues this weekend, with Andrew Davies' adaptation of Austen's parody of a gothic novel. Catherine Morland has an ordinary life and a feverish imagination. When she gets invited to Bath, Catherine is immersed in a world of elaborate balls and handsome men. When one suitor takes her to his family estate, Northanger Abbey, Catherine becomes mired in a world of fact and fantasy. Is there a dark mystery behind the locked doors of Northanger Abbey? Why has her budding romance suddenly been cut short?" I distinctly remember reading NA when studying abroad in the north of England in college. Realizing what Jane was up to when she wrote this hilarious book, I experienced one of my first literary revelations, if you will. I should see if I still have that paper I wrote....

PBS has jazzed up the official Complete Jane Austen website with more features, including an interview with director Andrew Davies and a feature on the men of Austen, oh my.

My Book Group Met Tonight to Discuss Eat, Pray, Love

My book group met tonight to discuss Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and it was a spirited discussion. Most of us really liked the book, and even those who had problems with it found parts of what Gilbert went through that they could identify with. We all longed to go to Italy and some of us particularly loved how she named what verbs describe particular cities -- "sex" for Rome and "conform" for Stockholm and "achieve" for New York and "succeed" for LA. Our British member suggested that London's verb might be "queue."

Her descriptions of yoga and meditation made me long to fulfill a New Year's resolution (it's not too late, is it?) to start a regular yoga practice. The only time I've been regular about it was when I went to pre-natal yoga.

We all talked about times we've travelled, mostly during or after college. I think we all longed for the freedom that Gilbert had to travel in her thirties, when we're all a little older and wiser and she does acknowledge that she is fortunate to be able to do so. I think this was one of our best discussions in a long while.

We also voted on next month's book and this time, we had six options, due to a last-minute change in location for tonight's meeting and a few people quickly grabbing books off their shelves and bedside tables. The candidates were:
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Saturday by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan won out and I am thrilled, and not just because I've already read it, but because I really loved this novel. Here are some resources:
Excerpt
Ian McEwan Biography
Reading Group Guide
Ian McEwan's Website

Calling All Book Club Girls

I met a librarian from Williamsburg, VA this past weekend who's conducting a survey of book group members to better understand what we're all reading and looking for and how our groups are made up. He was a really nice guy and he's doing it for the ALA's National Reader's Advisory Commmitte so it would be great if you all could take a minute or two and fill out this survey. Click on the link that says "Book Group Survey" on the left when you get there. To be fair, I just filled it out as well, and it took me under 5 minutes. The more we're able to reveal about the inner workings of our book groups and the books we like, the better libraries everywhere will be able to serve us!

A Great ALA

I had a great time in Philadelphia at the mid winter ALA meeting. We had a fantastic dinner last night with our panel authors (see below) plus authors Marisa de los Santos, author of Love Walked In and the forthcoming Belong to Me and Jennifer McMahon, author of Promise Not to Tell and the forthcoming Island of Lost Girls. We were joined by librarians at the delicious Fork restaurant and gourmet shop. It was scrumptious.

This am I was up (very) bright and early for the appropriately named Sunrise Panel Series to talk about book groups and it was such a good back-and-forth, with excellent questions from the attending librarians. Carol Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Noble, Victoria Lustbader and Shireen Dodson and I talked about what a great year 2008 is shaping up to be for women's fiction and how  books that reflect women's lives make for such meaty discussion. My position has always been that no matter what kind of book we discuss in our book group, the second half (or last two thirds) of the night are spent talking about what's really going on in all of our lives. If we read a book about women and the relationships they have with their mothers, children and spouses, I think the conversation is all the richer.

As an aside -- turns out Shireen's group and mine are both currently reading Eat, Pray, Love, while Elizabeth's is reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Book Club Girl is Off to Mid-Winter ALA

I'm off to Philadelphia this weekend to attend the mid-winter American Library Association meeting. We have a lot of authors scheduled to appear and sign books and on Monday morning I'll be on a panel about reading groups with Shireen Dodson, author of the The Mother-Daughter Book Club; Victoria Lustbader, author of the forthcoming novel Stone Creek; and Elizabeth Noble, author of the forthcoming Things I Want My Daughters to Know, moderated by ReadingGroupGuides.com's book maven Carol Fitzgerald. It should be a great discussion about the outlook for women's fiction this coming year.

Jane, Jane, Jane

Here's a great link sent in on the comments below to the Kansas City Public Library's all things Jane roundup, or as they call it, Jane-uary. There's a book listed on this site that is just out now, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen that another BCG reader just told me she won on our fave site ReadingGroupGuides.com. So, since the book has come up a couple of times quite organically, I thought it was high time to write about it formally.

The premise of this novel is terrific. What if, hidden in an attic, we were to find the lost memoirs of Jane Austen -- a woman whose own life we know little about, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Much like this summer's Becoming Jane, The Lost Memoirs supposes a romance between Jane and one Mr. Ashford, a man quite her equal in intellect and temperament, who could perhaps have been inspiration for the love stories she went on to write. The author Syrie James spins a wonderful tale for all lovers of Jane Austen. Check out her website, her author Q&A, and the reading group guide.

Barnes & Noble Reveals New Online Book Club Features

Check out Barnes & Noble's all-new Book Club section online. They've introduced a feature they're calling "Center Stage," where one author is featured a week with whom you can chat online. This week's author is Luanne Rice, and upcoming authors include Dennis Lehane, Jim Cramer and Deanna Raybourn. They also have a First Look Book Club in which registered readers can read a book before its release. The current selection is Kate Morton's The House at Riverton. 

Peyton Manning Skips Book Group

This is a cute story.

Invite Your Book Group Over In Style!

Forget that regular old typed email to your book group next time  it's your turn to host and send out the reminder -- thanks Jenne, for sending the link (in comments to the Persuasion post) to
E-vites Book Group themed e-invitations!

Sundays with Jane Starts a Week from Tonight

Set your TIVOs or VCRS, or just plan to be in front of your TV next Sunday night for the first of Masterpiece Theater's Jane Austen fest, first reported here. The series kicks off with Persuasion, which was given a very nice review in this week's Entertainment Weekly (I apologize for either my inability to find said review online, or their ability to post it). While some of the shows in this series are adaptations we've seen, I was glad to see that this one was not a re-airing of the film starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds from a few year's past. I did quite enjoy that film, but am looking forward to seeing something new. Visit the PBS site as well for a chance to win Austen books and to join their Book & Film Club.

Happy New Year!

Here's to a year of great reads in 2008. You can start with this list of favorites from the New York Times' book critics -- it's not their "best of" list per se, but those books they most enjoyed reading this past year (I'm not sure how that's different, but I love lists in all their guises, so I'm not complaining).