The Power of Book Club Buzz
ReadingGroupGuides.com contributor Heather Johnson's latest book club selection was an unknown title --- or so she thought. Read on to find out what novel is garnering some serious book club buzz...
It seems to me that many book clubs are reading the same books, and my club is no exception. Over the past few years we've read The Kite Runner, Eat Pray Love, Life of Pi, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and The Secret Life of Bees among others. So I was pretty excited when the book chosen for our September meeting was one most of us had never heard of...Redeeming Love.
Imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, I was seeing this title everywhere! There was an eight-person waiting list for it at the library. Book bloggers were posting reviews of it. Other book clubs said they had read or planned to read it this year. And then recently on this very site a guest blogger wrote about her club's experience with it.
Why the sudden interest in this book? Most of the popular book club titles are new books, but Redeeming Love was first published in the 1990s (although it was re-released in hardcover last year). And it's technically Christian Fiction; that's not a genre most book clubs usually go for. I can't figure it out...
Regardless of what started it, there's no denying that this is a hot book in book club circles right now. It just goes to show the power of book clubs --- the power of word-of-mouth --- to bring attention to an otherwise overlooked book.
FYI, our meeting was last Thursday, and most of the girls in my club loved this book. Of the 11 who read it, 7 gave it an 8 or higher (on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best). The remaining 4 members just thought it was "meh".
Now I want to hear from you! Have you heard of Redeeming Love? Where did you hear about it? Has your book club read it? Do you have any ideas about what started its recent popularity? Please share your thoughts...this inquiring mind wants to know.
---Heather Johnson
It seems to me that many book clubs are reading the same books, and my club is no exception. Over the past few years we've read The Kite Runner, Eat Pray Love, Life of Pi, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and The Secret Life of Bees among others. So I was pretty excited when the book chosen for our September meeting was one most of us had never heard of...Redeeming Love.
Imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, I was seeing this title everywhere! There was an eight-person waiting list for it at the library. Book bloggers were posting reviews of it. Other book clubs said they had read or planned to read it this year. And then recently on this very site a guest blogger wrote about her club's experience with it.Why the sudden interest in this book? Most of the popular book club titles are new books, but Redeeming Love was first published in the 1990s (although it was re-released in hardcover last year). And it's technically Christian Fiction; that's not a genre most book clubs usually go for. I can't figure it out...
Regardless of what started it, there's no denying that this is a hot book in book club circles right now. It just goes to show the power of book clubs --- the power of word-of-mouth --- to bring attention to an otherwise overlooked book.
FYI, our meeting was last Thursday, and most of the girls in my club loved this book. Of the 11 who read it, 7 gave it an 8 or higher (on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best). The remaining 4 members just thought it was "meh".
Now I want to hear from you! Have you heard of Redeeming Love? Where did you hear about it? Has your book club read it? Do you have any ideas about what started its recent popularity? Please share your thoughts...this inquiring mind wants to know.
---Heather Johnson
posted by Carol Fitzgerald at
11:38 AM
4 Comments:
Yep, I had never heard of it (and apparently the person who suggested it for our group didn't even realize it was Christian Fiction)! This was probably one of the most liked books we as a group have ever read and had it not been for my group, I would have never had the chance to read it. Yeah book clubs!
I actually had to read your bio to make sure you weren't my sister-in-law, Heather Johnson, as she recently told me about this book (spooky!).
I am looking forward to borrowing it from her and reading it!
I read this book when it first came out and Francese Rivers was not known as a Christian writer, but a romance writer. It was a very powerful book for a romance novel, and I remembered it for years. When I re-read it several years ago after finding Rivers was one of my favorite Christian authors, it still made an impact. I think the lessons of the book of Hosea are timeless and the concepts of forgiveness and redeeming love are both hard to understand and ones we would like to have more in our lives. I'm glad Rivers is being discovered by a "non-Christian" audience. She's a great writer and her books are certainly not trite and simplistic.
I'm glad that book clubs are discovering Redeeming Love. I read it a year or two ago and enjoyed it, though I don't think it would be something for my book club. Francine Rivers is an excellent author, and if you liked Redeeming Love, I'd highly recommend A Voice in the Wind, and then the sequel to that, An Echo in the Darkness.
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