Book Club Links

I know my posts have been short the last couple of days, but as I reported here, I am immersed in reading my 2 assigned finalists for the Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Project.  I am committed to giving each the attention they deserve.  So far, I have to say, I am quite impressed by what I am reading.

I am also preparing for my book club Monday [a planned postponement by a week due to the President’s Day holiday] as well as working on 2 upcoming book discussion programs that I will be delivering soon and a new article on leading book groups for NoveList.

I have to say, after a few years of little interest in my book discussion consulting, I have been receiving a flurry of questions and inquiries from book discussion facilitators about how to bring their groups to the next level.

This is all very exciting and fulfilling for me because one of the common threads through all the work I have done with leisure readers, facilitating book discussions has not only remained one of my personal strengths, but quite honestly, one of my biggest loves.  If I stopped doing everything else and only was allowed to lead book clubs, I would still be happy.

So, while I am finalizing my specific articles and programs on leading better book discussions, I do have some links I thought were worth sharing:

• One of my favorite annual lists is Reading Group Guides Reader Favorites. The 2013 list just came out. If you want a quick boost to re-energize your book club, one of these books could do the trick.
• Speaking of reader favs, don’t forget that Book Movement, a social networking site for book groups, compiles a weekly list of the top book club picks as well as their own annual list [which interestingly differs from the Reading Group Guides one]. Even better, they include actual comments from readers.  These are better than using Goodreads or Amazon customer comments because on Book Movement, the comments are focused on the book as a discussion option, not just as a good book to read.  There can be quite a difference in how I would rate a book for these 2 different purposes. This reminds us that it is important to use the correct resource for the right circumstances.
• Finally, the popular BPL Book Lover’s Club got back on track with our January 2014 meeting. [Its a long story, but we needed to wait for our location to be reopened.]  The notes on the books we discussed are now live on the Browser’s Corner.

If you have specific questions about your book group, fell free to contact me and we can talk about it or click here to pull up all of the posts I have had on the topic.