Book Club Girl

Club du Livre Reads and Discusses Because of Winn Dixie -- Guest Post!

Our resident Book Club Girl Jr. book club, Club du Livre des Filles has sent in their latest post (along with a great photo of the group!) about their discussion this past weekend of Kate diCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. I remember reading this book to my daughters, and having a little trouble reading aloud through the tears at points. Here is an excerpt and the reading guide. Read Club du Livre's review of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, here.

In attendance: Abigail, Stella, Sage, Natasha, Sylvie, Jacquie, Jenny, Kate, Zoe

BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE

Introduction by Sylvie, Kate, and Zoe

Today, April 27, 2008, our book club discussed the book Because of Winn-Dixie. We also watched three scenes from the movie. We all agreed that the movie is not as good as the book. We also chose who will host the book club and picked the next book.

Summary of Because of Winn-Dixie by Stella and Jacquie

Because of Winn-Dixie is a touching story about a girl named Opal and her dog, Winn-Dixie. One day Opal receives a note from her Dad, asking her to go to a grocery store called Winn-Dixie. Soon she finds herself looking at the shaggy face and black eyes of a stray dog, soon to be called Winn-Dixie.

Opal and Winn-Dixie soon find themselves becoming best friends. They go on many adventures and make a lot of new friends together.

Just as Opal and Winn-Dixie are at a party prepared by them, a fierce thunderstorm occurs.

Opal soon recruits her dad to help look for Winn-Dixie, after he supposedly ran away during the thunderstorm. When they have no luck finding Winn-Dixie, they return to the house, where Winn-Dixie is waiting for them under the bed.

As you can see, Because of Winn-Dixie is an intriguing book that many young readers will enjoy.

Five Things Different From the Book in the Movie – by Abigail and Natasha

1)      Winn-Dixie is hiding under the bed in the book, and he ran away in the movie.

2)      Mr. Alfred, Opal’s neighbor, is not a character in the book.

3)      In the book, Otis does not give Opal a dog collar for Winn-Dixie at the party.

4)      In the book, Stevie Dewberry races Opal, not his brother, at the party.

5)      In the book, Opal and her father do not look for Winn-Dixie using a car.

A Summary about the Main Character, Opal – by Sage and Jenny

Opal is a very open and imaginative girl. She’s also very brave. She makes the best out of a bad situation. She loves Winn-Dixie and her father more than anything. Opal shows her courage by trusting herself that Gloria Dump is not a witch. Opal is able to befriend many people such as Gloria Dump, Mrs. Franny Block, the Dewberry boys, Amanda Pinkleton, Otis, and Sweetie Pie Thompson. All in all, we think everyone should have a friend like Opal.

Next Meeting

Sylvie will host the next meeting; she selected Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, by Judy Blume.

Hear Nancy Pearl and Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain on Blog Talk Radio this Wednesday!

Tune in this Wednesday, April 30th at 1 pm EST to the premiere episode of I Love Libraries hosted by Virginia Stanley of Harper Collins. In the first half hour of the show, Stanley will talk with Nancy Pearl, librarian extraordinaire, along with Carrie Kania, Publisher of Harper Perennial, about publishing lost classics. In the second half of the show, Pearl and other librarians calling in will talk with Garth Stein, author of the soon-to-be-released novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain. Stein's book has been getting great advance buzz and was just named the next Starbucks pick! You can read a sneak peek of it here. Set your reminder for the show here.

Elinor Lipman's Then She Found Me Hits the Big Screen

I've always loved Elinor Lipman, author of Then She Found Me, which is on the big screen now as Helen Hunt's directorial debut (not to mention her return to the screen after what seems like a long absence). The film also stars other actors I love, including Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler. I remember reading Then She Found Me years ago, it was either my first or second Lipman novel and it is so fresh and funny and touching. I highly recommend for a book club read. If anyone's seen the movie, I'd love to hear what you think. The NY Times review was reservedly positive I thought. Watch the trailer here. And you can enter to win a call from Lipman to your book group here, but enter quickly, entries must be received by Wed, 4/30.

Jane Austen Winner Announced!

Thanks everyone for your participation in the Jane Austen contest! The random drawing for the winner is completed and BCG reader Kim will be receiving the DVD of the most popular adapation as voted on by all of you -- Pride and Prejudice (no surprise) along with these great Austen inspired books: Darcy's Story, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Lost in Austen, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen and an advance copy of Cassandra and Jane by guest reviewer Jill Pitkeathley. This was the biggest response we've gotten to a contest so far, so thank you all!

Announcing My Next Blog Talk Radio Show with Thrity Umrigar, author of the Book Club Favorite The Space Between Us

Mark your calendars for Thursday, May 22nd for my next blog talk radio show! I'll be talking to Thrity Umrigar, author of the acclaimed reading group favorite The Space Between Us, as well as a book group.We'll also be taking calls from anyone who'd like to join the discussion. Umrigar's The Space Between Us tells the story of two women in India -- Sera Dubash is an upper middle class housewife whose opulent lifestyle hides her abusive marriage and Bhima is the stoic, hardened illiterate woman who has worked in her household for more than twenty years. This powerful and perceptive novel demonstrates how the lives of the rich and poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and how the strong bonds of womanhood are eternally opposed by the divisions of class and culture.

The first ten people to respond in comments that they want to participate in the show will recieve a free copy of the book. Browse inside the book here, read a Q&A with Umrigar here, here's the reading group guide and set your reminder for the show here.

Do the Books You Most Enjoy Reading Make for the Best Book Club Discussions?

I ruminate on that in my guest post over at ReadingGroupGuides.com.

Celebrate Earth Day and Win an Advance Paperback of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

In honor of Earth Day today, I'm welcoming tips on how you can make a difference in your home or life to help the earth. I'll do a random drawing of the tips received in comments and award two lucky winners an Ecojot journal made of 100% recycled paper, plus the paperback of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which goes on sale on in one week!

And here's my tip directed specifically to book groups -- next time you pick your book, rather than buying new copies, why not check your books out of the library -- library books are the ultimate in earth-conscious reading as they are shared over and over again. And many libraries offer "book club kits" where multiples of the same book are packaged together with a reading group guide and other supplemental reading.

More Great Book Club Picks

Thanks to Kristen, over at Book Club Classics, for pointing out this new list of Best Books for Book Clubs, as chosen by readers of Nancy Pearl's Book Lust. Says Pearl, "I think the best books for groups to discuss are those in which the ending is deliberately ambiguous, so that every reader will have a different answer to the question 'Well, what really did happen?' Or books in which the main character is faced with a difficult choice that resonates with readers no matter their age or race or ethnicity."

Here is the list, each link will take you to the book's reading group guide, which will also give you a brief description
The Boy on the Bus by Deborah Schupack
Heart, You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen
The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy
Spilling Clarence and The Disapparation of James by Anne Ursu
The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer

My Book Group Met Tonight to Discuss The Post-Birthday World

My book group met tonight to discuss Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World, and while not everyone had finished it, we still had a pretty interesting conversation. Many were fascinated by the alternating chapters, and how the same conversation and interaction can be interpreted in two completely different ways, depending on your context. And thinking about how your life can change, and you can change, based on one decision--to kiss or not kiss a person--gave us all pause. For those interested in more, here's a discussion of the book plus a q&a with the author on the blog Everyday I Write the Book.

We voted on our next selection, and had six to choose from this time, all, save one, with a YA theme of sorts, or teenagers in the plot.
Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble -- you know how I feel about this one
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison -- which I've already read and loved
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

After a three-way tie for second place, we were deciding between the very different Angus, Thongs -- a lighthearted look inside the mind of a 14-year-old British girl and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas -- in which the Holocaust is seen through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy. We opted for the more serious and discussable Boy. Here is the reading group guide, the author's website, and it looks like it's set to be a film later this year.

New Book Club Discussion Announced at Everyday I Write the Book

Everyday I Write the Book, the blog that ran the online book group discussion of Lionel Shriver's Post-Birthday World last month, has announced their newest discussion, of Joshua Henkin's Matrimony. Here is Gayle's (of EDIWTB) initial review of the book from last year. Head on over to her blog if you'd like to participate in the discussion and to request a book -- and please only request the book if you plan to read it and comment during the book club as quantities are limited.

E.M. Forster's A Room with a View on Masterpiece Sunday Night

I recall with such fondness the Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith adaptation of A Room with a View. I think that movie poster was in every other room in my dorm freshman year. It's been a long time since that film and tomorrow night Masterpiece will air a new adaptation of E.M. Forster's classic novel about a young woman's awakening in Italy. Read a bio of Forster here, watch a preview here and see Andrew Davies discuss this film's new ending based on a Forster postscript here. For book clubs (like mine actually) looking to add a classic to the mix, A Room with a View would be a terrific choice.

Book Club Favorite The Memory Keeper's Daughter on TV this Weekend!

I know many of you read and loved The Memory Keeper's Daughter, a book that is on virtually all book group favorites lists. This weekend Lifetime is airing the adaptation of the book, starring Dermot Mulroney, Emily Watson and Gretchen Mol. Watch a clip plus insights with the cast here. It looks great and I can't wait to see how they transform the book into a movie and would love to hear what you all think. It airs this Saturday night at 9 PM ET/PT. Read the first chapter of the book here, enter to win a signed copy here and read a Q&A with author Kim Edwards, plus listen to a podcast and get book group discussion questions here!

Listen to the Book Club Conversation with Katrina Kittle, author of The Kindness of Strangers

What a great conversation we had tonight with Katrina Kittle, author of The Kindness of Strangers. We learned about her inspiration for the book as well as how it evolved while she was writing it. It was such an enlightening discussion and she answered many of the questions you all sent in. You can listen to the show here.

You can also find out more about organizations who help children who are victims of abuse at www.darkness2light.org

Thank you so much to Katrina Kittle and everyone who called in!

Katrina's two previous books, Traveling Light and Two Truths and a Lie will be reissued in June.

Zora Neale Hurston on PBS' American Masters

Tonight's American Masters series on PBS examines the life and literature of Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God. If you, like me, didn't come to know Hurston's works until college or even later, with Oprah's fine adaptation of the book , please treat yourself to this show to learn more about one of our country's most acclaimed authors. See clips from the show here and check the time it will air on your local PBS station here. Should the show inspire you to read Their Eyes in your book group, here's the reading group guide.

Read My Guest Post on Young Adult Books at ReadingGroupGuides.com

Today I blogged about my love of YA books over on ReadingGroupGuides.com. And thanks to the My Little Life blog for this great photo!

Are You Ready for My Radio Show with Katrina Kittle, Author of The Kindness of Strangers?

Don't forget, tomorrow night at 8pm EST is my book group call in radio show with Katrina Kittle, author of The Kindness of Strangers. I hope you've all been enjoying the book -- I found it such a page-turner, I nearly missed a couple of subway stops finishing it.

While I hope you'll all be able to call in and ask her your questions directly (and that I can figure out how to patch you in....), if there is a question that you want to ask, and fear the call-in format, or won't be able to listen to the show live, please post it in the comments. I'll gather up any questions at the end of the day tomorrow and do my best to get them answered on air, or at the very least, on the blog. Can't wait to hear from you tomorrow night! Set a reminder for the show, and share it with your friends here (see options in upper-right-hand corner when you click through).

Elizabeth Noble's New Novel Things I Want My Daughters To Know On Sale Today!

The new novel by Elizabeth Noble, author of The Reading Group, is on sale today and I can attest that it is amazing. I had a chance to read Things I Want My Daughters To Know a few months ago and I just loved it. In the novel, four daughters are left with letters and a journal from their mother who has just passed away. In her letters and journal, Barbara hopes to pass along both her wisdom and her love to the girls she's had to leave too soon. You will cry, and you will laugh, and I guarantee you will recognize yourself in any one--or more--of the women Noble portrays. A guaranteed meaty book group discussion will come from reading this book and sharing your stories of growing up with your own mother and how that has affected you and your own mothering today.
Visit Elizabeth's Blog
Read Barbara's Letters to Her Daughters and Send Your Own Note to Someone Dear to You
Read an Excerpt
Reading Group Guide

Guest Review of Sense & Sensibility Plus a Contest to Win Jane Austen Books and a DVD!

Masterpiece's Complete Jane Austen concluded tonight with the wonderful adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. Here is a review of the film from Jill Pitkeathley, author of the forthcoming novel about Austen and her sister, Cassandra and Jane. Read her review of Emma here.

After the review, check out my Jane Austen contest!

Making a seduction scene the introduction to an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel is a bold step and one for which Andrew Davies has been much criticised. Yet the ruin of Colonel Brandon's ward by Willoughby is central to the plot of Sense & Sensibility, so illustrating how the poor young girl was deceived and abandoned by him is surely not a distortion of what Jane Austen wanted her readers to understand. Indeed, though she lived and died a virgin, Jane was by no means ignorant of both the fact and the effect of sex outside marriage. She lived, after all, in the robust days of the Regency and before the times of Queen Victoria when young ladies were not expected to know about such things. Jane was quite well aware of what loss of virtue in a woman meant and seduction features in Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park as well as in Sense and Sensibility.

S&S as she called it, was the first of Jane's books to be published, after Pride and Prejudice had been rejected by one publisher by return of post! It was written at the end of the 18th centurty and first took the 'epistolary' form as a series of letters between the two main characters. She was writing it perhaps when she herself had a brief romance with Tom LeFroy, a young Irishman whom she met when he was over from Ireland visiting his relatives. She may have been in love with him but his family was poor and they both knew he would be obliged to marry well--an alliance with the daughter of a poor clergyman was out of the question as Jane would have well understood. Perhaps Elinor and Marianne represent the two sides of Jane's character--Marianne the romantic and headstrong, Elinor the practical and reserved. Jane later spent a good deal of time revising the manuscript into the narrative form we know now so that it is unclear which parts were written by a 22-year-old Jane and which by the woman of 36 as she was when it was eventually published in 1811. Of course her identity was not then known at all -- it was attributed only to 'A Lady.'

Although much of the book was probably written when Jane was in her early twenties, it shows all the maturity of form and characterisation that we expct hof her novels. She allows the characters to develop and our opinions of them to change as the story unfolds. Mrs. Jennings is at first ridiculous and heartless in her teasing of the sisters but shows real sympathy and warmth during Marianne's illness. The growth of Marianne's respect and love for the Colonel is shown clearly as the story progresses and perhaps comes from the understanding of Jane herself that a man of six and thirty can still be an acceptable lover, even if he does need a flannel waistcoat!

Mrs. John Dashwood is an odious character with a grasping and callous nature which enables her to persuade her husband from his original idea of giving his half sisters one thousand pounds apiece to merely making them a present of fish and game in season--and still is able to think himself generous.

Mrs. Dashwood, the mother, is very like Marianne--driven by her emotions, and so easily overlooks the needs of her elder daughter in her absorption with Marianne and Willoughby, by whom she is also taken in. But Elinor is perhaps not a very appealing character--to judgmental and critcial to elicit our sympathy, somehow she shows perhaps a little too MUCH sense. It makes her rather dull and I sometimes think that in that respect, she and Edward are very well suited to each other!

If I have one reservation about Andrew Davies' adaptation which in all other respects I loved, it is the portrayal of Willoughby. To my mind he is not sufficiently handsome and nowhere near aristocrative enough. The meeting of Willoughby and Marianne on that rain swept hillside is the most dramatic and romantic in all Jane Austen's works and he needs to be the most dramatic and romantic person to match the occasion--the sort of whom Marianne dreams. He is a scoundrel--we suspect from the beginning, but we need to see how he can sweep a girl off her feet figuratively as well as literally!

Many a young woman identified with Marianne when S&S first came out--including the heiress to the Throne, Princess Charlotte, who remarked that 'me and Marianne are very much alike.' Sadly, unlike Marianne who survives her putrid fever to make a wise and sensible marriage, Princess Charlotte was destined to die giving birth to a still born son, leaving the throne of England to Queen Victoria though Jane Austen did not live to see this as she herself died in 1817 at the early age of 41.
--Jill Pitkeathly, author of Cassandra and Jane, coming in September 2008

As you all know, I added a poll to the blog where we can all vote for our favorite adaptation. But I want to know why you picked the one you did -- so I'm running a contest.

Tell me in the comments which adaptation was your favorite and why, and you'll be entered into a random drawing to win a collection of Austen inspired novels including Darcy's Story, an advance reader's edition of Cassandra & Jane, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Lost in Austen and The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen as well as the DVD of the most popular adaptation, as chosen by all of you! The contest will end and polls will close next Monday April 14th.

Reading Group Choices Announces the Most Discussible Books List for 2007

"Lists were always her comfort....for years she had made lists about books she must read, good habits she must acquire, things she must do to make herself prettier--like brushing her hair a hundred strokes at night and manicuring her fingernails and doing calisthenics before an open window in the morning (that one hadn't lasted long)." -- Betsy and the Great World, by Maud Hart Lovelace

Betsy loved lists and so do I, and I really love seeing lists other people make--it's an immediate challenge to me -- have I read all the books? can I? should my group? Reading Group Choices has announced their new list of the most discussible books from the past year, which many of you, along with reading group leaders representing more than 50,000 book group members, helped to select! Below, Barbara Mead, of Reading Group Choices, shares her thoughts on the new list, which then follows. Looks like my own group is well on our way towards completing this list!

The list shows many repeats from one year to another--clearly, "reading group classics." The phenomenon of the memoir is still strong with three appearing on the list. And reading groups don't discriminate-- number 9 is a YA book! The discussion topics from all of these books could be considered similar, but manifest themselves in different ways in the various books -- love, cultural and social issues, controversial topis, history, and personal struggle. That's what reading groups are all about -- books, conversation, and fun. Who says the American literary dialogue is dead?!

#1 Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
#2 The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
#3 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
#4 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
#5 The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
#6 TIE: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
#6 TIE: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
#7 My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
#8 Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
#9 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
#10 Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Daivd Oliver Relin

--Barbara Mead, President, Reading Group Choices

In addition to the top ten, or I guess, eleven books, many other titles were standouts for generating a lot of discussion, including The Year of Magical Thinking, The Madonnas of Leningrad, Diana Lively is Falling Down (this title is so great, I have to check it out), The Shadow of the Wind, The Space Between Us, and Atonement.

Get a Sneak Peek of Josh-Kilmer's Forthcoming Novel Candy Everybody Wants and a Chance to Star in a 1980's Nighttime Soap Parody -- Really

The aforementioned Josh Kilmer-Purcell (and friend of Edith's)has a new novel coming out in just over a month called Candy Everybody Wants. This is a fantastically funny novel about Jayson, young gay man from Wisconsin who dreams of making it big in Hollywood (Josh swears it's not autobiographical ;)). You can read an advance sneak peek of the first chapter here.

Jayson's solution to making it big is to film a pilot episode of a primetime soap opera that he creates, writes, directs, and stars in himself – in his own backyard. He’s actually his own costars as well, since, given the lack of other potential celebrities in Oconocomowoc, Wisconsin, he has to play almost all of the roles himself. Even the female ones. In drag, of course. (It’s fiction. Really.) The name of the show? "Dallasty: Oconocomowoc Landing."

If you, or someone you know, wants to be a star themselves, click on over to Josh's blog where he's running a contest in which you can record yourself performing a typically over-the-top 1980's soap scene from "Dallasty." Josh will take parts from all the videos he receives to create one 'lost episode' of Dallasty that he'll post on MySpace on the book's on-sale date of 5/13. This could be your time to shine!

Take the Jane Austen Poll

Check out the poll I added to the site last night at the suggestion of Nancy. Please vote for your favorite adaptation from the current Masterpiece Complete Jane Austen series. And look for a contest I'll announce at the completion of the series next Sunday night. The DVD of the most popular movie will be included in the prize package so vote now to help your favorite win!

Save Edith Wharton's House!

Here's a good literary cause: it appears that Edith Wharton's home, The Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts is being threatened with foreclosure. This would be like closing Austen's home in the UK and that would never be stood for there. Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of the memoir I Am Not Myself These Days and the forthcoming novel, Candy Everybody Wants is spreading the word to Save the Mount on his blog. (visit his blog so you can also learn about his late cat, named for Wharton and who was really pretty!)

Why not choose a Wharton book for book club this month, and then ask that everyone bring $10-20 toward the cause when you meet. Mulitplied times the number of members in your group, that's quite a nice contribution and a small price to pay to save a historic landmark.

Book Club Favorite Marisa de los Santos' New Novel is On Sale Today! -- Updated Post

Marisa de los Santos burst on the reading group scene with her first novel, Love Walked In. Book groups around the country helped to drive her debut onto national bestseller lists. Needless to say, a great many people are eagerly awaiting her new novel, Belong to Me, which goes on sale today. In this compelling novel de los Santos illuminates the leaps of faith and twists of fate from which our human connections are made as she examines the lives of Cornelia Brown who is newly transplanted to the suburbs, her seemingly perfect neighbor Piper and her feisty and her charismatic new friend Lake. As their stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another.

Watch Marisa talk about Belong to Me
Browse Inside the Book
Catch Marisa on Tour
Reading Group Guide
Visit Her Site

Watch Marisa talking with a Borders Book Group Here!

Diane Rehm's New Reader's Review is Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men

In keeping with the political bent of some of her choices in this election year, Diane Rehm's new book club pick is Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Discussion of the book will take place on her show on Wednesday, April 30th. Here's the reading guide.

This selection reminds me of a great line I heard this weekend when my daughter and I went to see a local production of Steel Magnolias -- uttered by Clairee (played beautifully by Kelly Bishop, late of Gilmore Girls), about Louisiana politicians. It's late an