Introducing a new monthly Book Club Girl photo contest! Starting this month, book clubs will have the chance to enter to win books and other book club swag by submitting a photo on a particular theme.
To get things started, we want to get to know your book club! Here's a picture of mine with author Will Allison, to (hopefully) inspire sharing yours! Simply upload a photo of your group (no author necessary) and then encourage your friends to vote for it starting March 20th.
Full details and entry instructions can be found here - spread the word to your friends and fellow book club members - remember, once your photo has been submitted, you need them to vote for it - can't wait to "see" all of you and good luck!
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.
This is the story of Quinn—born Prudence Quinn O'Malley—a confused young Manhattan attorney who loses her father on that tragic September morning that changed everything. Now, at an existential crossroads in her life, Quinn must confront impossible questions about commitment and career, love and loss. Her idealistic beau desperately wants a wedding, and whisks her away to Paris just to propose. But then Quinn has a dream featuring judges and handcuffs and Nietzsche and Britney . . . and far too many grooms. Suddenly, her future isn't so clear. Quinn's world has become a minefield of men—some living, some gone, and traversing it safely is going to take a lot more than numerous glasses of pinot grigio.
Life After Yes is a blisteringly honest, thoroughly modern tale of life and love in chaos, marking the arrival of a truly exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.
I have 10 copies of Life After Yes to give away to the first 10 people who comment that they'd like to participate in the show on Monday June 14th. Set your reminder for the show here.
Amy Wilson perfectly expresses the feeling of so many women, who suddenly find themselves with a child or two--all the illusions they had about motherhood have flown out the window and all they (read: I) really want is some peace and quiet and to sleep in one morning (ANY morning!). She is the author of the off-Broadway hit Mother Load which is now on tour, and today, her memoir, How Did I Get Like This? The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer & Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be goes on sale. I'm so pleased to have this guest post from her about how she's reclaiming reading in her mommy life. Read on, I think many of you will relate.
I am so excited to write a guest post for Book Club Girl, because for me, 2010 has been the year of Rediscovering Reading. For most of my life, I was a voracious reader; I finished at least forty Agatha Christie mysteries from the library up the street the summer that I turned eleven. But after having three kids in five years, the only reading I was doing was Skippyjon Jones. Every single night. Once the kids were in bed, I’d flop on the couch, watch something inane on the DVR, then stumble to bed, too exhausted to do anything else.
But this year, two things happened to bring the joy of reading back into my life. First, my older two children became old enough to enjoy chapter books read to them at bedtime. We began last summer with Little House in the Big Woods. I prepared myself to not be too disappointed when my two sons had no patience for Half-Pint and her adventures in pioneer Wisconsin. But they hung on Wilder’s every word. Since finishing that series, we have gotten through the first two and half Harry Potter books, and I am at least as excited as the boys to snuggle on my seven-year-old’s bed to find out what happens next at Hogwarts.
Second, I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project (I know you liked it too Book Club Girl!), which stressed the importance of refinding the things in which you take great joy, but have let fall away. For me that’s reading, I thought, but I just don’t have the energy. I’m too tired. It took a moment for it to dawn on me that at that moment, I was reading, and it was later than ten p.m., and I’d read two chapters, and I wasn’t snoring yet. My baby is two-and-a-half now. I sleep through the night now. I can once again make time for the things that I love the most—even for things that are just for me.
And so I haved vowed to read more (and watch TV less) in 2010, and I have, and it makes me very happy. Last month I devoured Game Change and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and now I’m on to A Gate at the Stairs. I don’t belong to a book club—yet—but that’s my next project. I may just start my own: Formerly Exhausted Mothers Who Have Reclaimed Their Reading Time.
To find out more about When Did I Get Like This? check out the hilarious video below. Browse inside the book, look for Amy on tour near you and, you can also follow her on Twitter and friend her on Facebook. You won't be sorry you did.
Joining the What's On Your Nightstand meme sponsored by Jennifer at 5 Minutes for Books, here's what's currently on my nightstand (will probably have forgotten a few as I'm not actually near my nightstand at the moment, alas). Oh, but wait, last time I organized it, I took a picture and tweeted it and not much has changed since then, so let's take a peek.....aha, there's Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project; Maud Hart Lovelace's Emily of Deep Valley - which we're reissuing this coming fall with a new foreword by the fabulous Mitali Perkins; Jacqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate which I'm dying to read because it's set in the Betsy-Tacy era; Little House, Long Shadow because I'm revisiting Little House these days; and Pride & Prejudice, because, well, it's almost always on my nightstand, just in case.
Gretchen Rubin, whose Happiness Project blog spawned the #1 New York Times bestselling book of the same name, spent more than a year discovering what would make her happy. As we find ourselves finally leaving February (which for me has always felt, ironically, like the longest month of the year), this is a book that I am finding myself turning to again and again as I seek to find and create happiness in my life. One piece of advice has really stood out for me so far - "Act the way you want to feel." I've tried this, at times when I'm not feeling particularly well or happy, to act as though I do feel better, and I'm telling you, it works, I really do start to feel happier.
It's no surprise to those of us in book clubs (or who write book blogs) that one's book club can bring great joy. It's the same for Gretchen, and if something brings you pleasure, why stop at just one? Gretchen is in three book groups! I know many readers are also in multiple groups and can relate to this. I'm so happy, no pun intended, to have Gretchen's guest post today about her book club experiences. I'm also pleased to report that I have 3 signed copies of The Happiness Project to give away. To enter to win, simply tell me in the comments how your book club makes you happy. I'll choose 3 winners from all comments received by midnight Friday, February 26th.
One thing that contributes most to my happiness is my book groups. I’m in three!
One is a traditional book group. I joined when I moved to New York City ten years ago. For a while, the membership changed frequently, but now it has been stable for several years, and I imagine this group will continue to meet for the next several decades. It’s a source of happiness for me for so many reasons.
In particular, it makes me happy because it gives me a reason to read books that I’d never otherwise choose. I wouldn’t have read Wolf Hall or Wild Swans or Garden of the Brave in War, but I loved them.
Also, it gives me a chance to see my friends. The time we spend catching up is important, because in many cases, the book group is the only chance I get to see these friends for months at a time. Because of the book group, I know I’ll see these women at least once a month. Also, because we’re discussing a book, we connect at a deeper level. At other social occasions, we might spend our time talking about schools or vacation plans, but the books we read prompt us to talk about more transcendant issues.
The other two book group read only children’s literature or young-adult literature. I have a crazy passion for children’s literature, but for a long time, I didn’t spend much time reading these books. For my happiness project, I decided to bring this passion into the forefront of my life – and forming a specialized book group was one strategy I used to accomplish this.
When I got the idea to start the first group, I thought I was probably the only adult in New York City who loved kidlit so much. Well, that group got so large we had to close it to new members, and I started a second group – and that one is quite big now, too!
Nothing makes me happier than sitting around a table with a lot of bookish people and debating the merits of the three novels of the His Dark Materials trilogy, or arguing about whether Sarah Crewe is an extraordinarily winning heroine or an annoying prig. (I’m in the first camp.) We read the classics, and also the new works that are being written today; right now is a Golden Age for children’s literature.
Because book groups play such an important role in my life, it has been thrilling to hear that so many book groups have chosen The Happiness Project.
Interested in reading The Happiness Project in your book group? Check out the reading group guide. Remember to post a comment about how your book club-or clubs-make you happy by midnight Friday, February 26th to be entered to win 1 of 3 signed copies. And does all this have you thinking of starting your own Happiness Project? Learn more at the Happiness Project blog and let the video below be your inspiration!
Book Club Girl is: a member of a book club and an avid reader who spent most of her childhood immersed in a book, an English major who considered library school until she realized it was all about computers, so turned to publishing, where she now works (but she vows to talk about books from all over and not to simply flog those from her own house). She was single, lived in the city, met a man, moved to the 'burbs, and is now a wife, a stepmother, a mother, and in her spare time, a fledgling blogger dedicated to sharing great books, news and tips with book club girls everywhere.
My Review Policy
I review fiction and nonfiction that is appropriate for book clubs. This includes literary and some women's commercial fiction as well as memoir and narrative nonfiction. I do not review self-help, thrillers, mysteries, horror, or fantasy. I have a fondness for YA literature and while the blog is not devoted to it (well, except for my obsession with the Betsy-Tacy series), I will occasionally review some YA books. The best way to reach me to request a review is to email me at bookclubgirl AT gmail DOT com.
