Books Clubs and Black Friday

Today, the official start of the holiday shopping season, North Carolina bookseller Jamie Layton talks about books as gifts, supporting local businesses, and a new book club --- with a twist --- she's launching in January 2009. Read on, because no matter where you live you can be a part of it.


Happy Thanksgiving to all RGG.com readers! I hope every one of you had as joyful a day as I did! Well, here we are --- Black Friday. Typically the biggest shopping day of the year, but will it prove to be so in this tumultuous economic time? I know everyone --- retailers, consumers, Washington --- is holding their breath, watching and waiting.

Whether you're going shopping today, have already been out to the early bird sales or are saving your excursions for the weeks ahead, keep in mind that books make great gifts --- for everybody! For children and grandchildren, parents and grandparents, husbands, mothers, fathers, wives, friends and lovers. No matter the recipient, there is a book out there for them. One of the new IndieBound slogans says it perfectly: "A book. The perfect gift for someone with everything. The perfect gift for someone with nothing." (IndieBound is the new marketing initiative of the American Booksellers Association that has come onto the scene with some strong messages about shopping at independent bookstores and other businesses.)

In these unpredictable times, booksellers are turning to lots of different avenues to try and maintain our market share and compete with the allure of the chain stores. My bookstore is in a resort area so I only see many of my customers once a year during their Outer Banks vacation. Sure, we have a website and a monthly e-mail newsletter, but it's hard to find ways to stay in front of them the other 51 weeks a year. So with the holidays in mind, I've started a new book club at Duck's Cottage. Its members will probably never meet and they'll never know what they're reading next, but so far it has generated a lot of interest. It's called Jamie's Book Club and is a subscription type book-of-the-month club albeit on a bi-monthly basis.

Members will receive a book on or about the first of every other month, beginning in January 2009, that I have hand selected for what I think is either its wide-ranging appeal, lack of deserved media attention or because it's something worth reading that most people wouldn't pick up on their own. I'm trying to stick to paperbacks so I can keep the cost of each book under $20 (shipping via media mail will have nominal fees). Members will also get our standard 20% discount off each selection. Once things get going in January, I'm going to turn my attention to creating a blog which club members can use to discuss the book among themselves, comment on the selection, etc. --- sort of a "cyber" book club. Interested? Keep reading.

Here's a Christmas idea for your book club from our in-house reading group at Duck's Cottage: incorporate a book swap with your holiday meeting. Last year I asked each member of our group to choose a book, new or used, that meant something special to them. They wrapped it, brought it to our discussion and we placed them all on a table. We took turns describing our individual books, without giving away the title or author, and shared the reason or story behind why we had chosen it for the swap. For some it was their favorite book EVER, for others it was a book they heard about on NPR and really connected with. I took an extra copy I had of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. I read this timeless message about being a strong, independent woman over and over during my divorce. (In fact, it still had my married name written inside so technically it was a collector's item!) After everyone had finished, we drew numbers and, beginning with number one, each chose a book from the pile whose story had intrigued us. Amazingly, everyone got the book they wanted. ( I went home with John Berendt's City of Falling Angels, which I had been dying to read.) It was a really special meeting, and everyone begged me to do it again this year. I hope your group will try it!

Have a wonderful holiday season, nurture your community --- shop Indie --- and when debating between a book and any other item you're thinking about gifting this year, consider this IndieBound ad: "Why a book? Because a scented candle never changed anyone's life."

Oh, and if you want great books, hand-picked by an independent bookseller, delivered to your door with no membership fee and a 20% discount, join Jamie's Book Club at DucksCottage.com.

---Jamie Layton

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One-Day Thanksgiving Book Club

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am jotting this blog post before I race off to make Thanksgiving dinner. Since cooking Thanksgiving dinner is all about chopping and I am not good at brandishing a knife, I should add band aids to the list of ingredients to have on hand. I also just remembered I am going to need to make gravy tomorrow, and I confess that never is my favorite thing. However, making pecan pie, stuffing and cranberry sauce should make up for that. Those I do enjoy.

As you gather with family and friends, I am sure that you will be asking what they are reading. I am all for informal book club discussions over the stove, the sink and the dinner table. I think that conversations about books while stirring, washing and drying will make the time fly by. And think what you will learn about your dining companions. Think of this as the one-day book club, and Thanksgiving will take on a whole new angle.

Also, another Thanksgiving weekend task: peruse others' bookshelves, especially if you do not know them well. You can get to know people better by the books that they read, or at least display.

Have a great Thanksgiving...we give thanks for you!

Brunonia Barry: Books, Cupcakes, Mea Culpas and a Mini Pomeranian Fighting Goldfish

Novelist Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader, is getting us into the holiday spirit with this story of how her family's Christmas gift-giving tradition turned into a book club. Click here for Brunonia's blog, "The Bru-Haha," and if you'd like to read her previous ReadingGroupGuides.com post, click here.


The Barry family is a savory mix of high emotions, quirky personalities and a healthy helping of New England sarcasm. As the family has grown, gift-giving has become more costly and time-consuming, so one year we decided that while the children would still receive huge piles of gifts, the adults would pick a name out of a hat at Thanksgiving and purchase a Christmas gift for that person that cost no more than thirty dollars. The pressure was intense because each person was receiving only one gift, so you had to get them something they actually wanted. And since the family was now spread out across the country, it was often difficult to know that Uncle Mort had stopped playing golf 8 years ago or that Whitney's new boyfriend didn't like gift certificates for electronics because he hated to buy batteries for environmental reasons.

And so, at Thanksgiving, when we chose our names out of the hat, we also began swapping "suggested" (i.e. don't get me anything but this) gift ideas. They ranged from a simple request for white cotton socks from cousin Charlie to a mini Pomeranian fighting goldfish (salt water variety) for a niece's former boyfriend whom she was bringing anyway because they had purchased their plane tickets months ago and who knows, maybe they'll get back together again for the fiftieth time. This system started to unravel when everyone realized that you now essentially had a personal shopper bound to do your bidding. For instance, my 80-year-old aunt once requested a pair of non-slip, arch support, felt lined slippers (fuzzy but not too fuzzy) that matched her 15-year-old chenille robe. This meant that you had to go to pick up the robe (2 hour minimum visit), wash it (she's 80 years old, laundry is no longer her forte), and then carry it around with you from store to store while fending off salespeople ("Why don't you just buy her a new robe with matching slippers?"). It only took one holiday season like that for us to realize that the new system wasn't working.

Now, in my family, the saying is "If it's broken, put it in the closet for a few years and maybe it will fix itself." But in this case, drastic measures were needed. We actually had to do something different. So we did what any logical New England family eventually does. We switched to a Yankee swap. It seemed the perfect solution. Everybody buys just one gift. Then, when you are all together, each person picks a number out of a hat and, in order, chooses a wrapped gift. If you happen to love one of the gifts that has already been opened, you can exchange your unopened gift with the person who chose the gift you covet. Simple. Fun. A perfect solution except that we got the rules wrong. In typical Barry fashion, we inadvertently changed the game. Instead of exchanging an unopened gift, we each opened our chosen gift first and then decided whether or not we liked it. If not, we immediately exchanged it for one we liked better. Naturally, this led to more joking, jabs, and once or twice someone actually stormed out of the room. At last, we had found a system that was perfect for us! Could this get any better? Yes! Why? Because this system also had one massive hidden advantage...annual re-gifting! The person who ended up with the most rejected gift from last year would invariably give it again the following Christmas. In fact, for five holidays now we have re-gifted a huge, hideous ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a giant, mutant cupcake that someone made in one of those ill-fated classes that were popping up everywhere in the '90s. It is ugly, enormous and useless. The perfect family holiday gift.

But then, after several years of the Modified Yankee Swap, something changed. I fear that the latest wrinkle in the system might just indicate that we are mellowing with age or growing less sarcastic. Or maybe we just got smart and decided to start bringing gifts that people would actually enjoy, realizing that, if all else failed, you could always choose the gift that you had brought, insuring at least the chance at one good gift that Christmas (even if it was a gift you had to give yourself). In any case, somewhere along the way, we all started to bring the same kind of gift. We started bringing books. Diverse as we may be, our family has one thing in common: we are all insatiable readers. For the last several Christmas seasons, almost every gift under our tree has been a hardcover book. Two years ago, six of us actually brought (and chose to keep) the same book. Thus, the Barry Family Book Club began, giving us the opportunity to meet more often, argue over book choices and mercilessly criticize each other's critical thinking capabilities. We meet every few months and have never been happier.

Last Christmas, I found that I already had copies of all of the books that were offered under the tree, so I chose the cupcake jar as my gift. I can't wait to see the look on my niece's new boyfriend's face this year when I hand it to him in exchange for some really good book that I can't wait to read.

Happy Holidays!

---Brunonia Barry

Books and the Holidays

There's something magical about giving and getting books during the holiday season. A favorite of mine has had a place on my bookshelf for many years: a well-worn copy of The Night Before Christmas given to me in 1961 and inscribed with a message from my aunt and uncle.

Coming across this beloved book inspired a feature we're bringing readers on the Bookreporter.com blog. Over the next several weeks, authors will be sharing their favorite stories of giving and getting books at the holidays. We begin today with Mary Higgins Clark, and we'll have a different story each day.

I am hoping their stories inspire you and your fellow book club members to create your own holiday magic with book giving this holiday season --- and to put a book or two on your own holiday lists.

What's your favorite memory of giving or getting a book during the holidays? We'd love to know if you'd like to share it in the comments section.

Discussing THE GLASS CASTLE

Heather Johnson's book club recently discussed Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle. Read on to find out what she and the other members of her group thought of the journalist's memoir. Click here to watch a video of Walls discussing The Glass Castle.


On Saturday, fourteen members of my book club got together to discuss The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I'll admit I was skeptical about this one as I don't usually enjoy memoirs of the "horrible childhood" variety. But I was surprised to find that it's an excellent book! And I'm not alone in my opinion; there wasn't a single gal who didn't enjoy reading it.

Our discussion touched on homelessness, poverty, mental illness, family love, overcoming your past, and much more. It sounds depressing when you list it all out like that, but it really wasn't! Walls is able to present her childhood in an unflinching yet not depressing way. Despite everything she goes through the book is not sad and neither was our discussion.

In keeping with the holiday season we decided to do a "Thanksgiving Leftovers" themed meal. Rather than cooking a turkey we just used sliced turkey from the deli (sort of like what you'd have left over the day after), and the gals each brought a side dish or dessert that they enjoy at Thanksgiving. It was an easy meal and gave us all lots of ideas for our own holiday dinners!

Our next meeting is our annual Christmas party and includes our ever-popular book exchange. Does your club have any holiday traditions?

---Heather Johnson

Book Clubs in the News

Occasionally we highlight news articles featuring book clubs across the country. This month's round-up spans two continents and offers a look at just how diverse --- and long lasting --- book clubs can be.


Daily Camera: Author to Visit Jail for Inmate Book Club
A book club at the Boulder County Jail in Boulder, Colorado, is inspired to discuss Plainsong with its author, Kent Haruf.

Express India: Culturally Charged
A poetry reading group and a ladies' book club meet at a cafe in India, where, says the proprietor, "there is no agenda...just a purely mutual sense of enriching our lives, widening our horizons and sharing some happy moments over high tea."

Minnesota Women's Press: Book Talk
Carol Caywood of Minneapolis talks about her reading group's selection of Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, what other book by a female author they would recommend, and more.

The Mount Airy News: Picture Books Book Club Takes New Approach
A North Carolina library attracts teens and their parents with a reading group that pairs books and movies.

Nashoba Publishing: Groton Book Club Lives On
The sole original member of the Groton Book Club, founded in 1946, talks about how the club is still going strong.

The Villages Daily Sun: Avid readers get together to discuss 'whodunit'
For the Mystery Lovers Book Club in Florida, it's all about suspenseful reads, discovering new writers, and taking their love of mystery beyond the page.

C.W. Gortner: The Endless Dance

Today's guest blogger is C.W. Gortner, author of the historical novels The Secret Lion and The Last Queen. Here he talks about the insights he's gained from talking to reading group members about The Last Queen, in which he imagines the life of Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood to inherit her country's throne. Click here to visit C.W.'s blog about historical fiction, including author interviews, and the writing life.


It is true that much of what we write comes from an autobiographical fount. Even though I strive to remove myself as much as possible from my characters so that they can breathe and live for readers as individuals, fragments of who I am inform my characters as much as fragments of who the reader is informs the experience of meeting those characters.

It is an endlessly entwined dance between writer and reader, one that depends on the other's candor; this is why book groups teach me more about why I write than anything else. It never ceases to amaze me how insightful reader groups can be. Every time I do an author chat over the phone or visit a group in person, I'm always delighted to discover how much readers find in my work, sometimes more than even I supposed.

In my novel The Last Queen, several themes exist but the most important one was something I didn't see until I was meeting with a book group. We'd been discussing my central character's struggle to win her throne upon her return to Spain and one of the group members said, "I think Juana [the lead character] struggles with this feeling of estrangement her entire life. Like the Moors who were vanquished, she fights to retain her rightful place in a country she loves but where she has become a stranger." Another group member nodded and added, "I know how she feels. I was born in Canada and raised here, and sometimes I feel as though I don't know where I belong." As other group members nodded in agreement, she looked at me. "Did you empathize with Juana because you've also felt this?"

Her question gave me pause. I'd never considered it before; yet as I mentally gazed back over the years I'd spent researching and writing, I realized that of course my own sense of estrangement permeated the book. How could it not? Like Juana, I was raised in Spain but I left in my early teens and when I returned after years of absence, so much had changed it felt like a different world. Somehow, I had found within the story of a 16th century queen a means to come to terms with my own yearning for a place I had left behind; I had, through writing, found common ground with my protagonist.

And my readers had found common ground with her, as well, seeing parts of themselves in Juana's quest. Moments like these are invaluable to a writer; and are why I'm always so eager to meet book groups and hear their varied impressions of my work. What I take away from these groups strengthens my writing and illuminates my character's souls in ways I'd never know otherwise.

It is a dance I want never to end.

---C.W. Gortner

Camilla Morton: More Book Club Advice

Yesterday we shared Camilla Morton's advice on how to start a book club. Today the author of A Year in High Heels: The Girl's Guide to Everything from Jane Austen to the A-list talks about getting prepared, including making the all-important first book selection and having a fun inaugural gathering.


THE BEGINNING

For your first book club meeting come with a list of, say, five books you have loved and read, and a list of three you are dying to read. This will help establish what you enjoy and what you all have in common. See what everyone else suggests, and if there are groans or anguished looks over a suggested favorite title, consider if (a) this is the book you want to slog through or (b) this is the right mix of members for the group.

You can get an idea of how a book club works in the novel The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Perhaps this should be set as the first book.

This club is founded by Jocelyn in Sacramento Valley, California, a thousand miles away from Austen's original setting but where her novels are discussed by a potpourri of new characters. The book weaves the modern-day lives of the club members together with Austen's work. Each month is dedicated to a different Austen work, and each month another character reveals a chink in his or her armor. It's the perfect mix of how to set up a book club, what the meetings will be like, and what to discuss, with a topical sprinkling of Austen.

Before you back out, don't fret, there doesn't need to be as much self-discovery or revelation in your group as there is in Fowler's, nor does the club have to be limited to only one author. The only unbreakable rules are that meetings have to be regular and anyone attending has to have read the book.

When deciding on a book for your club you could always start with diaries, such as Bridget Jones's Diary or "blooks," like Belle de Jour, the diary of a London call girl. However noble it is to propose Samuel Pepys' diary, you will find your members falling at the first hurdle. Break in gently to the RRR (Regular Reading Regimen).

Why not suggest you start the year with a book that is set in London? Or find out if there's a novel set in your hometown. Pick a theme for each month and suggest selecting titles around this. Ideally you choose a book that all the group will be reading for the first time.

Once the title has been agreed on, set a deadline --- say a month --- when you will all come back and dissect it, just as you would a date, a bad day in the office, or indeed one of your favorite soaps.


THE EVENING ITSELF

As well as the book there is the social element of bringing like-minded literary bods together. If you are hosting the discussion evening why not take elements from the book and theme it? For The Jane Austen Book Club, for instance, what elements of "Ye Olde Austen England" could you bring to the evening? Would Earl Grey in the bone china tea service with delicate cucumber sandwiches suit the novel, or would a sofa in Starbucks, in acknowledgment of the American element, be more appropriate? It's up to you how you give the book the setting it deserves. But be original and bring the book to life. Make the hosting as much of a challenge as the discussion; that way people will definitely be more inclined to turn up and try and outshine you when it's their turn.

---Camilla Morton, A Year in High Heels

Camilla Morton: How to Start a Book Club

British fashion journalist and author Camilla Morton's latest book is A Year in High Heels: The Girl's Guide to Everything from Jane Austen to the A-list, which is on sale tomorrow. Below is an excerpt from A Year in High Heels in which Camilla shares her advice and ideas on how to start a book club, including when to be strict and the most important membership card you can have in your wallet.

Tomorrow we'll share Camilla's tips for preparing for the first get-together and what to expect at the first meet-up. In A Year in High Heels, you'll also find out how to perfect your holiday thank you notes, how to rock red shoes in the summer, and how to blog your way to fame --- all things book club girls might need to know.

HOW TO START A BOOK CLUB

You should never need an excuse to sit down and read a good book. Make this one of your resolutions and make the time. Unfortunately weekly gossip magazines don't count. They are additional or trailers to the main feature. The best way to ensure you read regularly is to join a book club. If you don't fancy a book club full of strangers, even though there might be a brooding bookish type who will gaze at you over the cookies, why not form your own? Email some like-minded friends and get a gang together.

People's tastes in books are as varied, and as quirky, as their tastes in partners. Try and find between six and eight friends who have reasonably similar (literary) tastes. Remember this is not an enforced school project, but something that will lead to lively conversations and possibly lively arguments. Far better than wasting mindless hours in front of the television or on the telephone, and a fraction of the cost...

Once you have established your group, decide what dates to meet on and rotate at each other's houses or meet in a restaurant or a (not too rowdy) pub. You have to be strict that the book is the main topic of discussion. It should be a relief to have a night off from discussing why your roommate is single/trying a new diet/hates her job. Far more juicy to work out just what Marianne and Elinor Dashwood will do to make ends meet, or why Caroline Bingley is being so spiteful and determined to ruin Jane's happiness...and then there is the problem of Lizzie Bennet --- just what on earth should she do about Mr. Wickham, or should she go for the uptight Mr. Darcy? Yes, it can be rewarding to sink into a really good read.

Take it in turns to choose a book, but make sure you go with something that gets the majority vote --- you don't want to lose your members at the starting line. Try and alternate classics with contemporary, heavy with light. Deciding on the book can be as important as the actual reading and dissection...sorry, I mean discussion.

In America there is really only one book club to be in and that is Oprah's --- www.oprah.com. Alternatively most newspapers have book clubs, such as the Washington Post or the San Francisco Chronicle. See if any of the National Book Award contenders catch your eye or if there is a book being made into a film, read the original first.

Be logical --- choose a book list or title ideas from a magazine you read regularly. If you are an avid antique collector, you might enjoy novels from the era you are passionate about, while armchair travelers can see the world through the pages and tales of others. If you love biographies you might also like diaries. Above all don't get stuck in a groove or genre. It is often worth reading at least the back covers of the books featured in bestseller lists or in-store highlights. Go to your local library as often as you go to Starbucks, and if you are not a member, join immediately --- the library, that is. This is the most essential membership card you can have in your wallet. (It could also save you a fortune with this latest venture.) That said, if you are going to be making notes on a book you'll need to have a well-thumbed, well-loved copy of your own.

If you want to know more about the author before committing to his or her work go to www.meettheauthor.com, where many contemporary authors explain their books in their own words (sadly it wasn't around at the time of Austen or Dickens). Or indeed log onto www.amazon.com or one of the other online bookstores. All the books available are summarized, reviewed, and open to reader reviews, and there are suggestions for what you might like to read next, based on the books you've already enjoyed

---Camilla Morton, A Year in High Heels

Musings on Book Group Expo

I recently attended the third annual Book Group Expo in San Jose, California, a gathering for reading group members and other book lovers. I had the opportunity to meet some of our readers, as well as authors and bloggers. Our contributor Esther Bushell also made it to the West coast for the event, and she shares some of the weekend's highlights.


Carol Fitzgerald beat me to it, so listen to her fabulous interview with Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, which was recorded at Book Group Expo. Carol and I were a few of the East Coasters at this Expo, and it was the first trip for both of us. Accolades to Ann Kent, the director of Book Group Expo, for a heroic job organizing the event; everything fell into lockstep and seemed to operate without a hitch or a glitch. I'm sure that Ann and her able committee had their share of angst behind the scenes since there are numerous details in an event like this, but to us attendees all appeared to be well under control.

Friday night was a lively cocktail party for visiting authors, publishers reps, and some hangers-on, like me. It was a terrific opportunity to quietly network and get the lay of the land. I was delighted to be able to have some productive chats with Lauren Zina John, a librarian and author of Running Book Discussion Groups, and Julia Glass, winner of the National Book Award for Three Junes; her new novel, I See You Everywhere, was recently published. I was most interested in chatting with Julie Robinson, the creator and facilitator of Literary Affairs and diva of California book groups. Joshua Henkin, author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Matrimony, was a participant in a Literary Salon about novels that test their characters' commitments to marriage. Josh would be a terrific guest at book groups, and I'm even recommending him to book groups for phone chats.

Carol recognized many of the authors' names and joked that she was trying to shuffle the rolodex in her brain to try to match authors with their books! At one point she was talking witchcraft with both Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader, and Kathleen Kent, author of The Heretic's Daughter.

On Saturday, I attended several Literary Salons. The first salon that I went to was entitled "Write or Wrong: The Unreliable Narrator Defines Virtue," and was composed of Andre Dubus III (The Garden of Last Days), Diana Spechler (Who By Fire), and Susanne Pari (The Fortune Catcher). The authors presented their ideas that one person's morality is another person's evil. How do we know that our principles are virtuous? And how can we be so sure that people who seem evil are that different from us?

All of my book groups love historical fiction, so I then gravitated to "Historical Friction: Characters in Conflict." Now I'm busy reading books by the authors on that panel: Maggie Anton (Rashi's Daughter, Secret Scholar), C.W.Gortner (The Last Queen), Gail Tsukiyama (The Street of a Thousand Blossoms).

We grabbed lunch --- outdoors in late October, which was a treat --- with Mahbod Seraji, whose book Rooftops of Tehran will be in stores in May. Carol was raving about this one, which she had read in manuscript, prompting me to want to get my hands on it.

Being a book group facilitator in Greenwich, Connecticut, mandated my attending "Secrets of the Suburbs: This is Not the Life I Ordered." Participants were Janelle Brown (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything), Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man), and Marisa de los Santos (Belong to Me).

The last Literary Salon of the day was originally titled "Now that You're Gone: Grief Seeks Solace," but Lauren John, the moderator, renamed it "Bibliotherapy," a more apt name for such a popular genre. The panelists were Julia Glass (I See You Everywhere), Ann Packer (Songs Without Words), and Irvin Yalom (Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death).

An interesting group of authors , readers and publishers joined Carol and me for dinner, and Sunday morning, we convened at the Literary Salon "Go Tell it on the Mountain: An Inspirational Celebration Sponsored by HarperOne." The panelists were Kristin Billerbeck (Back to Life), Van Jones (The Green Collar Economy), and Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain). Stein's book is on my list for all of my book lovers at this holiday season.

At the next salon, "Wedlocked: The Intimacies and Intricacies of Marriage," Sylvia Brownrigg (Morality Tale), Joshua Henkin (Matrimony), and Jennie Shortridge (Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe) discussed their novels that test their characters' commitments to marriage.

I taught high school English for forty years, so I loved the panel discussion "Where There's a Will...Shakespeare in the 21st Century." Jennifer Lee Carrell (Interred with Their Bones), Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor (co-authors of Reduced Shakespeare), and Julia Flynn Siler (The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty) were the panelists.

My last Literary Salon of the Expo was "Woman, Be Wise: Strong Writing, Strong Women." Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge), originally scheduled, was unable to attend, but she will be at a Community Reads! event at the Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, November 12th, so if you're in the neighborhood, join us. The panelists were all strong women and strong authors: Terry McMillan (The Interruption of Everything), Toni Mirosevich (Pink Harvest), and Susanne Pari (The Fortune Catcher).

I left San Jose loaded down with books and nearly giddy from so much good book talk. BookGroup Expo lived up to its mantra --- WHERE SERIOUS READERS HAVE FUN!!!

---Esther Bushell

American Widow: Book Club Members Share Their Thoughts

Yesterday Alissa Torres shared the story about what inspired her to write her memoir, American Widow, as a graphic novel. Today some of the members of a reading group she recently met with share their perspective on American Widow and on having Alissa join their discussion of the book. Click here to watch a video of Alissa talking about her memoir.


Alissa Torres was inspiring and uplifting. She is an amazing woman and an excellent speaker. Her story is horrific and compelling and a reminder that it could have been any of us. It was fascinating hearing how she got to write the book and why she chose that format. It is unforgettable and having her at our book club was a special treat. ---Cathy Abrams

Alissa's presentation at our book club meeting was straightforward, honest and informative. She was easy to listen to and understand, and more than willing to answer the questions that were addressed to her. Her presentation brought the experiences depicted in her book to life. Her discussion of the publishing industry and the challenges she faced getting her book published was most interesting. ---Nancy Mendelow

Alissa would be a great addition to a book group meeting because she is so natural. She doesn't produce "canned" sound bytes...she listens and responds thoughtfully to questions. She has enought perspective on her tragedy to be able to talk about it, yet she is still close enough to that terrible time to bring the experience with her, in a fresh way. ---Ann Berman

As they say, "There's nothing like the real thing, baby." Alissa expanded the emotions and thoughts you had with this book. She is truly an honest and sincere American Widow, and meeting her in person expanded my thoughts on the book. She was enlightening in explaining "why her amongst all the victims of 9/11." And she (unlike other writers) had the imagination to do this book as a cartoon. ---Lynn Dawson

Alissa Torres: The Creation of a Memoir

Today, guest blogger Alissa Torres shares why she decided to her memoir, American Widow, as a graphic novel. She also talks about the process of creating the novel and how it has been received by readers, including some book club members.


"My life is like a comic book!" I said. "I should write a comic book!" And that's what I did.

It was the condolence letter and card from NASA that I received in June 2002, that got me to say these words and got me started writing my graphic novel memoir about my 9/11 widowhood. The letter explained in moving detail how NASA had sent out 6,000 small cloth American flags on a roundtrip space voyage for the 9/11 families. One of those flags was glued to the card I'd received, which also contained images of the International Space Station orbiting the Earth and another with the space shuttle Endeavor coming in for a landing.

The words made me cry, and the absurd gesture made me laugh. I imagined the time, effort, and resources it took to come up with this plan and to execute it. It reminded me of so many other efforts that had been made on my behalf over the year that had been well meaning but off-the-mark and funny. It made me realize how befuddled we are when it comes to expressing and dealing with grief.

Although this was how I began writing an "adult comic book," it wasn't what sustained this project as a graphic novel through the many long years it took to publish the book. It was the graphic nature of 9/11 that made me know that it was important to tell this story with images. For so long after 9/11, images of the burning towers were everywhere. And for me, as I spent so much time in my grief looking at my husband's pictures, I felt that this was a story most powerfully expressed with pictures of what once was but was now lost.

But by the summer of 2005, I regretted writing my memoir as a graphic novel. I couldn't find an artist. And I thought: "If I'd just stuck to prose, I could have already completed the book! And whether or not it got published, I would have had it as a finished piece." Instead my book, now a ready script, was still a shapeless endeavor. It needed an artist to bring it to life. I was devastated to think I'd never publish the book, especially since writing it had become such a therapeutic experience for me. I learned so much about myself in the process: about who I was, what I'd experienced, and who I'd become.

The following year, everything came together --- just like that. In the early fall of 2006, I met the artist, Sungyoon Choi. I loved her work for its quiet intelligence and sweetness. I asked her to create a few sample pages of the book to determine if we could work together. Just as she finished those pages, publishers were suddenly interested in the book. Then Villard/RandomHouse bought it.

As Choi spent the next year and a half drawing the book, I spent that time anxious. Now that its publication was going to be a reality, I dreaded what I thought was to come next with the book's sales and marketing efforts. I thought that all my therapeutic benefits from the book would get undone as the press poked at me with uncomfortable questions and people would say to me all kinds of embarrassing things.

Instead, when the book came out this fall, I was amazed by the magic it brought. I reconnected with old friends who came to hear me speak at some scheduled readings, and I made new friends wherever I went. The vulnerability of my book about love and loss, topics that are dear to us all, allowed others to be vulnerable too, and to share themselves with me and with others. This aspect was most apparent when I was a guest at my friend's book club on the night that the group talked about American Widow, its current book club selection. The women I met were excited about the book, and I loved listening to their thoughts and insights. I got to see the way my book created a strong intimacy for this group that had not been together long, giving them the running board from which to leap into conversation about things that are so hard yet so meaningful in our lives.

When I decided to write this book I never imagined the process and the result to be so rewarding. I cannot believe that what began as an impulsive statement became something that has become such a wonderful memorial to my husband and a gift to so many readers.

---Alissa Torres