September 22, 2010 – 6:19 pm
Shop Indie Bookstores Now that vacation time is over, I will attempt to focus on what has been happening in book world while I’ve been frolicking down under in Australia. In one word Freedom. The week before my trip, at our annual book club Pitch-a-Pick, Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom came up as a possible choice [...]
September 16, 2010 – 1:30 pm
Shop Indie Bookstores Two stories intertwine. A modern day murder mystery involving a Polygamist sect in rural Utah and an historical fiction account of Brigham Young’s 19th wife Anne Eliza Young. The result is a contemporary AND historical look inside the world of Polygamy. Great book club selection. Lots to talk about here. Book Author: [...]
Both Nora Rawlinson at Earlyword and Kaite Stover over at Booklist Book Group Buzz have posted recently on their predictions for what titles book clubs will favor next season once they come out in trade paperback. Booklist is championing Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simondson, Bloodroot by Amy Greene and Pictures of You by [...]
This is my own version of the St. Petersburg Times’ online monthly feature Read and Feed that cleverly provides book club selections and food themed suggestions matched to the book’s plot. THE BOOK: Shop Indie Bookstores The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (2008) This is the upstairs-downstairs story of Renee, a middle age [...]
February 25, 2010 – 9:07 pm
Good news for book clubs. “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave, a book that got a lot of buzz when it first came out in hardback, is now out in paperback. This is a book I have on my ‘to read’ list, but since I have not read the book, the following is taken from a [...]
February 7, 2010 – 1:28 pm
SO WHAT’S EVERYONE READING? The Huffington Post reports that the general public is reading more spirituality, more history, and fewer big brand new bestsellers this winter. Bookmovement, a site that keeps a running tally on what book clubs are reading, lists The Help, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Sarah’s Key, The Guernsey Literary Potatoe Peel [...]
October 16, 2009 – 4:08 pm
I mentioned in a previous post that I was adapting the Read and Feed format originated by Tampabay.com that pairs books popular with local book clubs with food to serve at meetings. Since my book club just read and discussed Citizen Vince, I thought it the appropriate book to launch Read ‘em And Eat. THE [...]
I was lucky enough to snag an ARC (advanced readers copy) of Sarah Dunant’s latest novel Sacred Hearts to take with me on vacation last week. This is the third in this historical fiction trilogy (The Birth of Venus, In The Company of the Courtesan) that revolves around the different lives and fates of women [...]
This was my book club’s April pick. The story line revolves around Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book expert, who is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of a very REAL book known as the Sarajevo Haggadah ( a book used in the Jewish passover services). The book originated in Spain, during [...]
