Book Club Girl - Book Group Recommendations, Reading Group Guides, Audio Book Club Podcasts

Books Make Great Gifts

You may have noticed the lovely new button on the left-hand side of the blog here that shouts "Buy Books for the Holidays!". The ingenious Amy, of My Friend Amy, creator of the extravaganza that was Book Blogger's Appreciation Week, has done it again with the launch of a campaign for bloggers to encourage the purchase of books as gifts this holiday season! The button will take you to this great blog, filled with suggestions of great gift ideas along with reasons why books make wonderful presents.

If you're a book blogger, join her campaign here to commit to buying books for the holidays and spread the word. And if you're a consumer, consider books when doing your holiday shopping. We'll all be watching our dollars so carefully this year and books come in all price ranges (not to mention that they always fit!). Rather than buying yet another toy for the child in your life, why not buy them a book, a gift that truly keeps on giving, each time you read it with them, or they read it on their own! Giving a book to your friends and family is like giving them multiple gifts because they will open it and find something new for days and days as they read it!

Get to Know Our President-Elect!

No matter who you voted for, there's no denying that our country has reached an historic moment of which, as John McCain said, we can all be proud. Why not use your book group setting to learn more about President-Elect Barack Obama by reading either one (or both) of his bestselling memoirs -- Dreams from My Fatherand The Audacity of Hope. Read an excerpt from Dreams here, and from Audacity here.

There's also no denying that John McCain has served his country most faithfully, and for nearly his entire lifetime. Read an excerpt from his compelling memoir Faith of My Fathers here.

I'm being nicely bipartisan, I hope everyone will follow suit in the comments!

Read a Sneak Peek and Enter to Win the New Novel by Wally Lamb!

Wally Lamb fans have been waiting a long time for his new novel. His acclaimed She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True were not only both picked by Oprah for her book club, both have been huge reading group favorites for years. Next Tuesday his third novel, The Hour I First Believed, will be published, and you can read a sneak peek of it now, plus enter to win one of five free copies of the book!

In The Hour I First Believed, Lamb tells the story of forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, who move to Littleton, Colorado, and both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues in this extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character.

To enter to win one of five copies of the book, simply click on over to read the sneak peek and come back here and comment on what you've read. I'll choose five random winners from all the comments received by midnight this Friday, November 7th!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

No matter who we vote for, we all must exercise the right we have, and that people died to ensure us, to vote today, November 4th. And in the spirit of voting, I offer you a book recommendation -- Tom Perrotta's scathing and hilarious Election. Tracy Flick wants to be president of Winwood High and will do anything to win and it looks like she will, until she comes up against Mr. McAllister, a teacher who is a bit too obsessed with seeing her lose. The book was made into the nearly pitch perfect film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. If you haven't read this book, buy it, check it out of your library, borrow it from a friend and give yourself a treat. If you haven't seen the movie, rent it.