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

Book Club Girl on Air Welcomes Chandra Hoffman to Discuss Chosen on Wednesday, December 7th at 7pm ET!

I’m so excited to welcome Chandra Hoffman to Book Club Girl on Air on Wednesday, December 7th at 7pm ET to discuss her novel, Chosen! 

It all begins with a fantasy: the caseworker in her “signing paperwork” charcoal suit, paired with the beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn, against a fluorescent-lit delivery room backdrop. It’s this blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of The Chosen Child’s domestic adoption program, happy juggling the high demands of her boss and the incessant needs of both adoptive and biological parents.

But the job that offers her refuge from her turbulent personal life and Portland’s winter rains soon becomes a battleground itself involving three very different couples: the Novas, college sweethearts who suffered fertility problems but are now expecting their own baby; the McAdoos, a wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance; and Jason and Penny, an impoverished couple who have nothing—except the baby everyone wants. But when a child is kidnapped, dreams dissolve into nightmares, and everyone is forced to examine what went wrong…

I have 10 copies of Chosen to give out to the first 10 people who comment that they can participate in the show on Wednesday, December 7th at 7pm ET. Set your reminder for the show, read the first chapter of Chosen, and check out the reading group guide. For more with Chandra, become a fan on Facebook, follow her on Twitter, and visit her website!

Book Bloggers! Win a Ticket to Club Read - A Reader's Retreat with 12 Amazing Authors...and You!

My thanks go out to Bethanne Patrick, aka The Book Maven for putting together this amazing contest to allow book bloggers to win a ticket to attend Club Read - a weekend getaway for book lovers with 12 amazing authors in attendance: Adriana Trigiani, Sena Jeter Naslund, Gretchen Rubin, Joyce Maynard, Greg Olear, Matthew Norman, Susan Henderson, Heather Newton, Amy Stolls, Caroline Todd (of Charles Todd), Dolen Perkins-Valdez and Jessica Anya Blau!

 
Book Club Girl is a sponsor of Club Read along with FridayReads, SIBA, NAIBA and Reading Group Choices.

The Book Maven said it best, so herewith, her post - enter on her blog!

Club Read 2011 is brought to you by the fine folks at SIBA and Book Club Girl, and it’s a 24-hour readers’ wonderland being held on October 15-16 in Huddleston, Virginia at The Mariner’s Landing Resort and Conference Center. A dozen authors (Adriana Trigiani! Gretchen Rubin! Greg Olear! MORE!) will join a few more dozen readers of all sorts to talk about books, reading, and other passionate pursuits (think cooking, crafts, games, and fitness, to mention a few).

NOTA BENE: FridayReads is a proud sponsor of Club Read 2011–which is why I am providing this blog entry for all.

THE CLUB READ 2011 BOOK BLOGGER CHALLENGE

ONE free ticket (a $500 value that covers ALL meals and lodging and events on the program! The only things you have to pay for are your travel expenses, and any shopping crimes you commit) will be awarded to the blogger who accumulates the most over 10,000 pointsby 9.30.11.

Time period of this challenge is September 15-September 30, 2011

• One tweet about #ClubRead = 50 points
• One Facebook post about #ClubRead = 200 points (cannot be same as a tweet; has to have more substance)
• One blog post about Club Read (WITH TAG) = 500 points
• One verified recommendation that results in ticket sale = 2,000 points

For more about Club Read, click here.
For more about the Club Read schedule, click here.
For a list of authors attending, click here.
Full details at The Book Maven's blog!

Join Adriana Trigiani, Joyce Maynard, Sena Jeter Naslund, Gretchen Rubin and Me at Club Read!

How would you like to spend the weekend with Adriana Trigiani, Joyce Maynard, Sena Jeter Naslund, Gretchen Rubin, Jessica Anya Blau, Amy Stolls, Matthew Norman, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Heather Newton, Greg Olear, Caroline Todd (of Charles Todd), and Susan Henderson? All of these acclaimed authors will be at the Mariner's Landing Resort in Huddleston, VA from October 15th - 16th celebrating books and book clubs with readers at Club Read!

Club Read: A Reader's Retreat Where Books Mean the World, which is co-sponsored by Book Club Girl, will run from noon on Saturday October 15th through 2 pm on Sunday October 16th. The weekend will kick off with a Happiness Project lunch with #1 New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin and will conclude on Sunday with book club maven Adriana Trigiani regaling readers at a Don't Sing at the Table luncheon. In between, authors will speak at panels, meals and other fun events, and readers will get to mix and mingle with authors both favorite and new. You can see the current schedule of events here and the complete list of attending authors here. Club Read will take place at the Mariner's Landing Resort in Huddleston, VA and the ticket price includes food and lodging for the day and a half event.

You can buy a ticket either at one of the participating bookstores, or via the website. Club Read is brought to readers by the North Atlantic Independent Bookselling Association and the Southern Independent Bookselling Association. Additional sponsors include Reading Group Choices and Authors Around the South.

Follow Club Read on Twitter and friend them on Facebook for news and updates.

We really hope that you join us - find more information, including how to register, here!

Book Club Girl's BEA Day 1! Hot Book Club Books, Tea with Adriana Trigiani and a Celebration of Book Bloggers!

I'm a bit delinquent in my BEA posts, but that midweek BEA completely threw me. While I do love having my weekend back, losing essentially a week in the office, followed by a long weekend meant that I returned to work on Tuesday not remembering much pre-BEA or for that matter, that much from BEA week itself. But of course, I exaggerate, I remember quite a bit, because this was one of the busiest and most productive BEAs I've had in a long while. Why, you ask? Well, mainly because of book bloggers. Between events and meetings, I had more fantastic conversations with book bloggers, a group I continue to call the most optimistic and important in the publishing industry today.

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny and after a lovely walk from Penn Station to the Javits Center, I met our wonderful videographers for our To Kill a Mockingbird 50th anniversary celebration (more on that later), stashed my stuff in the booth and headed to the Hot Book Club Titles Fall 2010 Panel moderated by the amazing Carol Fitzgerald of Reading Group Guides.com and the Book Reporter Network. My fellow panelists were Michael Croy of Simon & Schuster, Patrick Nolan of Penguin, Talia Sherer of Macmillan, Karen Torres of Hachette and Jane von Mehren of Random House. We each presented 5 great book group books coming this fall. Check out the complete list of books here.

I followed the panel with a meeting with the charming Barbara and Charlie Mead of ReadingGroupChoices.com, I always love spending time with them. Next I headed to the Charlesbridge booth to meet, for only the second time, but it seems like we've spent so much time together (thank you Twitter), the dynamic Mitali Perkins, who just that morning had wowed the crowd at the Children's Author Breakfast (let's put it this way, I heard more about her speech than I heard about the Duchess of York's, that's how great she is). Mitali was signing galleys of her upcoming novel Bamboo People and the Charlesbridge folks graciously allowed me to insert flyers for the reissue of Emily of Deep Valley which will feature a new foreword by Mitali, into the books. It was so fun spending time with her and her fans. Though it was far too brief an encounter - thank goodness ALA is just around the corner.

Next up was a quick return to our booth where I was meeting the 5 book bloggers who won tea with Adriana Trigiani. It was so nice to see Dawn from She is Too Fond of Books, Julie from Booking Mama, Kathy from Bermuda Onion and Lenore from Presenting Lenore again and to meet Sheila from Book Journey. We also invited Trish from Hey Lady, Whatcha Readin as she helped pull the entire contest together. We headed out into the now blazing heat to meet up with Adriana and dive into horrendous midtown traffic (that is, once we got a car, slight glitch there). We finally arrived at the upper east side location of Alice's Tea Cup, a simply delightful tea shop where we were served a traditional high tea in our own room, painted a deep teal and decorated beautifully. There were personalized signed books for all the bloggers and absolutely delicious food. I have a particular weakness for clotted cream, which I spread liberally on my scones. Thanks to Dawn for this great picture of the entire group - though missing from the photo (and behind the camera) was Stephanie, aka @book_chatter on Twitter.

 
  
That would have been quite a day had it ended there, but there was more! After a quick stop into the office to refresh and redress, we headed to the famed Algonquin Hotel for the Celebration of Book Bloggers: The New Literary Roundtable that we gave with Susan Henderson of Lit Park and the upcoming novel Up From the Blue. It was an amazing night  - so much fun to meet so many people I've known just from their blogs or twitter handles. I left fairly exhausted just past 9, running to Penn Station with Amy, after saying a quick goodbye to the Algonquin's lobby cat Matilda.

Reading Group Choices Book Clubs Have Spoken! Their Top 10 Books for 2009!

The results of Reading Group Choices annual survey are in, and here are the top 10 discussible books for book clubs from last year, as chosen by reading groups themselves! It's nice to see many books my book club has read on here (The Help, Guernsey and Olive Kittredge) and many we've yet to read! Enjoy:

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult)

2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press)

3. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (Ballantine Books)

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

5. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout  (Random House Trade Paperbacks)

6. TIE: Still Alice by Lisa Genova (Pocket Books) and Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (St. Martin's Griffin)

7. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin Books)

8. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin Books)

9. The Shack by William P. Young (Windblown Media)

10. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (Harper Paperbacks)

Take the Reading Group Choices Survey and Your Group Could Win $75!

Each year Reading Group Choices, the site of amazing resources for book clubs, (not to mention their newsletter of the same name and wonderful annual print publication), surveys reading groups about their favorite books of the year, their habits, etc. As an added incentive, everyone who takes the survey is entered to win $75 that you can spend on food, books, whatever your group decides! I just took the survey myself and can attest that it only takes a few minutes to complete and it was interesting to revisit my group's favorites of the past year.

As an added incentive to take the survey, I have 5 copies of Reading Group Choices 2010 - their annual booklet of wonderful book recommendations to give away! To enter to win, take the survey and then leave a comment here that you've done so. I'll choose 5 random winners from all entries received by midnight Sunday, January 24th.

Reading Group Choices 2010 is Here!

Reading Group Choices 2010, the annual publication from the fantastic book club resource, Reading Group Choices, has arrived! This wonderful booklet contains 75 books carefully chosen to be of interest to book groups and comes complete with Conversation Starters to facilitate lively book club discussion. You can buy Reading Group Choices 2010 online at their site (special discounts available to reading groups, and you can even buy books from each year to make a complete set), and look for it at your local bookstore and library! Be sure to sign up for Reading Group Choices newsletter as well for monthly book club recommendations, contests and more.