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Six Titles I Wish I Had Read with My Book Club
Are there books you wish you had read with your book club instead of on your own? Today Shannon McKenna Schmidt talks about some of the ones she wished had been group discussions --- and why.After I read the last page of Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, my first thought was that I wished I had read it with my reading group because I wanted to discuss it. I love solo reading, of course, but every once in a while I come across a book that after I read it makes me wish I'd had the foresight to hold off and select it as my reading group pick. Here are six of those books:  The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert When 29-year-old Dahlia Finger --- an underachiever who spends her days smoking pot and watching movies in a beachfront cottage purchased by her rich father --- is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she confronts her illness with brash honesty and dark humor. Food for thought is the novel's central question: is a "wasted" life worth mourning?  The Condition by Jennifer Haigh Jennifer Haigh's portrayal of a picture-perfect New England family fractured one summer by devastating news has hallmarks of a discussion-worthy story --- secrets, misunderstanding, regrets. Haigh insightfully explores how one person's "condition" alters the lives of everyone in the family in different ways.  The Journal of Helene Berr
Like Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, Helene Berr's journal offers a personal perspective on the atrocities of World War II. A young Jewish French woman, Berr recounts her transformation from happy student at the Sorbonne in Paris to living under increasingly dangerous circumstances in Nazi-occupied France. Her journal is both tragic and uplifting.  Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock As a BookPage reviewer wrote, Me & Emma "is a tour de force in the telling. But it can be painful to read." Elizabeth Flock tells the story of eight-year-old Carrie Parker and her valiant attempts to protect herself and her sister, Emma, from their stepfather's violence. Just talking about the novel's surprising conclusion might take up an entire meeting.  What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn Dark in setting, as well as psychologically, What Was Lost is the haunting story of a young girl's disappearance at a shopping mall and how it reverberates twenty years later. Some discussion points: the shift in point of view, why O'Flynn chose to divide the story into separate parts, and how this set-up affects the reading of the story. (Click here to read Catherine's guest blog post.)  Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen Lesley Kagen's debut novel (which ranks as one of my all-time favorite books) follows the adventures of 10-year-old Sally O'Malley and her sister, Troo, during one summer in Milwaukee. The unfolding of the mystery apsect of the plotline, whether the 1959 setting is effective, and Kagen's depiction of Sally, who displays both innocence and maturity as she confronts unusual and frightening circumstances, will inspire plenty of discussion. (Click here to read Lesley's guest blog post.) ---Shannon McKenna Schmidt
Joshua Henkin's Book Club Adventures, Part II
 Yesterday we announced a new RGG.com contributor, novelist and creative writing professor Joshua Henkin. Each month he'll be sharing stories about his visits with book clubs to discuss his novel Matrimony. A chronicle of his adventures in November continues here... November's 2nd Most Commonly Asked Book Group Question: Whom do you envision playing your characters in a movie version of your novel?
The short answer is: No one. To a novelist, one's characters look and talk and gesture so deeply like themselves that any actor is going to seem wrong. Not infrequently, one of my undergraduate writing students will write a sentence such as, "She looked like Julia Roberts," to which I respond, "No, no, no. Only one person looks like Julia Roberts, and that's Julia Roberts." Which is why I urge my students to eschew all movie star analogies in their stories unless an actual movie star makes an appearance on the page. (Several years ago, one of my graduate students wrote a terrific story about a young woman who brings Bob Dylan home for Thanksgiving. In that case, it's fine for him to look like Bob Dylan; he is Bob Dylan, after all.) Not that some actors wouldn't make better choices than others. It's interested me that when I turn the question back to the book group, certain actors' names keep coming up. In any case, it's a sign of the power of film over our collective imagination that this question gets asked so often. My own fantasy is to see an interview with Martin Scorsese during which he's asked, "And what writer do you envision writing the novel of your movie?" November's Most Unusual Book Group Questions:
1) What did you get on your Myers-Briggs Test? (One of the characters in Matrimony took the test. I, on the other hand --- in another example of non-autobiographical writing --- never did.) 2) Why does it say at the back of novels what font the book was printed in? (I don't know. Copyright issues? Can anyone enlighten me?) Odd Thing I've Noticed:
I've now participated in more than 75 book group discussions of Matrimony, and I've noticed that members of library book groups are on average older than members of non-library book groups (library book groups are also among the few book groups where one finds men in attendance). Is this reflective of the age of library patrons in general? Does this bode poorly for the future of libraries? Do younger readers not patronize them? Mistake Found in Book:
The Atlanta book group let me know about a little blooper I committed. I promised I'd give them credit, so here goes. On page 127 of Matrimony, the reader learns about Mia's refusal to have a traditional wedding: "She didn't see why the bride was supposed to wear white, when no one was a virgin any longer. When someone said to her, 'Don't you want people to know who the bride is?' she said, 'I'll be the one up front next to the groom'.... She wrote the wedding invitations by hand because it was more personal that way. Besides, the printed invitations always came from the parents of the bride, the wedding itself thrown by them as if they were paying off the groom's family. And the announcement in The New York Times: she disapproved of that as well, your resume paraded for the world to see, as if in a breeder's catalogue, and she made her parents promise not to send an announcement to the Times. The garter belt --- there would be none of that...." Well, as the six fine young ladies from Atlanta pointed out to me, garter belts don't get tossed at weddings; garters do. What can I say? I'm a guy and I'm Jewish and I live in the northeast, all of which adds up to my never having been to a wedding where a garter (or a garter belt) got tossed. In any case, if Matrimony goes back to reprint, the Atlanta book group will make it into the acknowledgments. Till next month, happy book-grouping. ---Joshua Henkin
Joshua Henkin's Book Club Adventures
 We're pleased to introduce a new regular contributor here at ReadingGroupGuides.com: novelist and creative writing professor Joshua Henkin.
Have you ever wondered what it's really like for authors to meet with book clubs and talk about their works? Josh regularly visits with reading groups --- in person and over the phone --- to discuss his novel Matrimony, and each month he'll be sharing behind-the-stories about what took place.
Check back tomorrow for more on Josh's book club adventures. And to read a guest post he previously wrote for us about Matrimony , click here. November was a busy month: I talked to eight book groups about my novel Matrimony. Below are the relevant statistics, followed by a series of observations, some more whimsical than others, about my travels this month in the land of book group. November's Statistics
1) New York City Book Group: 13 Participants; 1 Facilitator; Estimated Average Age: Mid-Sixties; Number of Women: 14; Number of Men: 0; Distance traveled: 21.08 miles roundtrip (32 subway stops). 2) Brooklyn Book Group: 13 Participants; Estimated Average Age: 60; Number of Women: 12; Number of men: 1 (hostess's husband). Distance Traveled: 10 blocks walking roundtrip. 3) Princeton, NJ, Library Book Group: 12 Participants. Estimated Average Age: Late Sixties. Number of women: 11; Number of Men: 1 (John). Distance Traveled: 102.78 miles roundtrip. 4) New York City Book Group: 10 Participants; 1 Facilitator; 1 Gorgeous Upper East Side Townhouse; Estimated Average Age: 50. Number of Women: 11; Number of Men: 0; Distance Traveled: 19.94 miles roundtrip (28 subway stops). 5) Cosmopolitan Club Book Group (New York City): 17 Participants; Estimated Average Age: 55; Number of Women: 17; Number of Men: 0; Number of free dinners at the Cosmopolitan Club Restaurant: 1; Number of male authors seen on the premises of the all-women's club: 1. Distance Traveled: 17.82 miles roundtrip. 6) Florida Book Group: 8 Participants; Estimated Average Age: On the phone, so I couldn't tell; Number of Women: 8; Number of Men: 0; Distance traveled (12 feet roundtrip, from desk to phone and back again). 7) Atlanta Book Group: 6 Participants; Estimated Average Age: 40 (judging from when they said they graduated from college); Number of Women: 6; Number of Men: 0; Distance Traveled: 12 feet roundtrip. 8) Englewood, NJ, Book Group: 14 Participants; Estimated Average Age: Late Thirties; Number of Women: 14; Number of Men: 0; Number of Free dinners at excellent Indian Restaurant: 1; Distance Traveled: 38.66 miles roundtrip. Amount of traffic crossing the George Washington Bridge: Lots. November's Most Commonly Asked Book Group Question: Is your novel autobiographical?
A lot of my writer friends dislike this question, and we writers get asked it all the time. My friends think the question is prying, and they don't believe it's relevant to the quality of their work. It may not be, but it seems to me an understandable question --- particularly when you're visiting a book group and have therefore consented to enter the living rooms of your readers. Novelists, of all people, are voyeurs (to my mind, a good writer needs to be a gossip), so why shouldn't readers be voyeurs as well? Readers want to know if they're meeting the walking, breathing embodiment of the characters they've read about. What does interest me, however, is the response I get when I tell my readers the truth --- that Matrimony isn't autobiographical; that none of the events in the book happened to me; that despite sharing a first initial with him, I'm not Julian, the male protagonist of my novel; that, with the exception of the dog, none of the characters are based on actual mammals I know. The response I usually get is some polite version of Oh, come on. Almost every writer I know has this experience, whether or not they visit book groups. It frustrates some of them, but I actually think that when readers assume your work is autobiographical, when they continue to insist on it even when they've been told it's not, it's generally good news for the writer. It's a sign that the reader found the characters real enough, true enough, vivid enough that they're sure they must be based on real people. How else, after all, could we have created them? The fact is, we create them by imagining them, often over many years (in my case, ten years: that's how long it took me to write Matrimony, and I threw out more than three thousand pages along the way). The last thing I'd want to do is spend ten years writing about myself: what could be more boring? I want to meet new people, and writing fiction is one way to do that. I don't mean to be naive. Anything a novelist writes says something about him or her, and so in some loose and hard-to-pinpoint way all fiction is autobiographical. But the key words are "loose" and "hard to pinpoint." It's like being asked whether your dreams are autobiographical. Almost by definition they are: you had them. But what happens in your dreams is usually so different from what happens in your actual life that it's hard to draw a simple connection between the two. The same goes for the relationship between fiction and the author's life. I actually think fiction is very revealing of the novelist, but the way in which it's revealing is far more complicated than "autobiography" implies. In fact, I would suggest, paradoxically, that the more narrowly autobiographical a novel is the less it tells you about the writer. The facts as they actually happened are pale things; it's what the writer imagines --- what s/he makes up --- that tells you a lot more about him or her. Check back tomorrow for the 2nd most commonly asked question, some unusual questions, and more. ---Joshua Henkin
The Pulpwood Queens' Best Books for Holiday Giving
Today RGG.com contributor Kathy L. Patrick shares the Books of the Year chosen by the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs --- not only great gift suggestions but candidates for your own group's discussions. And if you're looking to take your book club on a post-holiday adventure, a great literary getaway would be the Pulpwood Queens' Girlfriend Weekend in January.The timing could not be any more perfect for announcing the best books to give as presents this holiday season. You see, yesterday I announced the Pulpwood Queens Books of the Year! The Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs have been sending me their votes for the best books this past month. All the votes have been tallied and since these votes came in from our chapters coast to coast, from Anchorage, Alaska to South Louisiana, I feel these books are indicative of great reads for all.  This past year I added a best childrens' book category as we now have Splinter and Pine Cone chapters of our book club, basically the Teen and Pre-Teen branches of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club. The winner of that category is The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. The Underneath is the story of an unlikely friendship between a chained and beaten hunting dog and a pregnant abandoned cat that live beneath a poacher's ramshackle cabin on the bayou here in East Texas. Reading this book brought back the memories of my childhood favorite books read to me by my teachers: Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling and Island of the Blue Dolphins. Adults will love this read, too; it's one to read aloud for the whole family. The Underneath was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Besides the Pulpwood Queens Book of the Year we now have another new category, Pulpwood Queens Bonus Book of the Year! The winner of that award is Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. The story is of an international art dealer,  his wife --- who found her passion in working with the homeless --- and a modern-day slave that will touch your heart and give you hope for a better tomorrow. Ron and Denver have been traversing the country with over 400 speaking engagements. They have personally sold more than 200,000 copies and raised over 200 million dollars for homeless shelters, including Newgate Mission, where I teach a life writing class, seriously because of them. Word has it that Denzel Washington has purchased the film rights and that Forrest Whittaker will be portraying the Denver Moore role of this true story that will change the way you think about homeless people forever and your life's mission forever.  Last, our Pulpwood Queen Book of the Year Award goes to Margaret Cezair-Thompson, author of The Pirate's Daughter. This fictitious story is based upon the real life Errol Flynn, who fled to the South Pacific to escape the consequences of stateside scandal. Told through the eyes of May, Errol Flynn's daughter, born to a Jamaican woman, Ida, who was just 13 years old when she first met the movie star who shipwrecked in 1946. It's a magnificent tale of "what if," set against the backdrop of old Hollywood and the lush tropical setting of Port Antonio, and a dual generational coming-of-age saga. Now all the Pulpwood Queens want you to know that these are the perfect gifts for the holidays. All the winners will be present at our annual Pulpwood Queens convention to receive their awards, January 17th, at our annual Pulpwood Queens Book Club Convention --- which we call our Girlfriend Weekend Author Extravaganza. For more information on all of our Pulpwood Queens Book Club Selections or more on our Girlfriend Weekend, please go to beautyandthebook.com and pulpwoodqueen.com. Happy Reading to You and Yours and remember that old adage, "A book is a gift that keeps on giving!" Tiara Wearing and Book Sharing, Kathy L. Patrick Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and author of The Pulpwood Queens Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life
Book Club Discord
Have you ever broken up with a book club? What do you do if you don't get along with a fellow member or you don't like the group's reading selections? Yesterday the New York Times delved into the topic of book club discord in an article titled "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately?" in the Style Section. "Who knew a book group could be such a soap opera?" said Barb Burg of the publisher Bantam Dell. "You'd think it would just be about the book. But wherever I go, people want to talk to me about the infighting and the politics." Also featured in the article is ReadingGroupGuides.com contributor and book club facilitator Esther Bushell. The bottom line is that book clubs come in many different make-ups. Some like to read only lighter fare, others the classics or political books or a mix of titles. Some like to focus on the book discussion only while others like to work in time for catching up on personal lives. And sure, sometimes it doesn't work out. There is no right or wrong way to conduct a book club, and here at ReadingGroupGuides.com we regularly hear from many, many people whose groups are thriving. You just have to find one that works for you.
Book Clubs at the Holidays
ReadingGroupGuides.com readers share their book club tips, advice, stories and traditions for the holiday season...INVITE AN AUTHORYesterday Carol Fitzgerald wrote about Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea. The book has inspired many book groups to donate to the author's Central Asia Institute (CAI), which builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Read & Dialogue Book Group in San Antonio, Texas, has collected funds each month this year for the CAI. "I think one of the things that truly amazed our group was not only the lack of appreciation and lack of desire for education here, where it is free, but the lengths people will go to gain an education in third world countries," said member Ann Zeigler. For their December gathering this year, the Read & Dialogue Book Group members are hosting author Leila Meacham, who will share her favorite books and authors, as well as the story of her road to publication. The group plans to read and discuss Meacham's debut novel, Roses --- about three generations in a small Texas town --- when it hits bookstores in early 2010. EAT, DRINK & BE MERRYThe Gamma Book Club meets at the Bookwork Shop in Katy, Texas. (Two other groups at the store are called Alpha and Beta.) "We're celebrating the holiday season by meeting at a restaurant, in walking distance to the book shop, before our meeting," said member Nancy. "We'll have an hour and a half to eat, drink and chat." HAVE A CHANGE OF SCENERYOpting for a night out at a restaurant is also a "Christmas tradition" for Lindsey Hendrick and the Second Edition book club in Caswell Beach, North Carolina. "We each bring a book or books that we have read and really enjoyed, and we have an exchange," said Lindsey. "We wrap the books so that each person is surprised by the book(s) she receives." Also touched by their reading of Three Cups of Tea, Second Edition members made a donation to author Greg Mortenson's Central Asia Institute in honor of a fellow member who passed away unexpectedly. "Most of are retired educators," said Lindsey, "so his cause really touched our hearts." TOAST AN AUTHOR'S BIRTHDAYMembers of the East Hill Book Group in Cortlandt Manor, New York, usually forgoe reading a book during the hectic holiday season and instead opt for a movie night. This year, they held movie night in November and have special plans for their December gathering. "We're big Jane Austen fans," said member Tracey Cuomo. "We're celebrating her birthday (December 16th) with period food, music and games." GET TOGETHER FOR A GOOD CAUSE...AND A GOOD TIME"We take the month of December off from reading a designated book," said Christie Gause-Bemis of her reading group, Changing Chapters Book Club in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. "We get together as usual for a potluck supper and some laughter. Everyone brings a canned good or non-perishable to donate to the food shelter." MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITYThe Bookworms of Jamestown, New York, found a need in their community and responded with a helping hand. For the past several years members have brought to their December meeting baby clothes and children's books, which are donated to a maternity ward at a local hospital. "We learned that there are mothers who deliver and have nothing to take their newborn baby home in," said member Nancy Anderson. "We do this in lieu of giving gifts to each other." The group's generosity doesn't stop there. "This year the staff of one of our local elementary schools has undertaken a project to give each student a new pair of pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve," Nancy said. "Since the help of community groups was needed to realize this goal we donated both pajamas and money." There's a lighter side to the Bookworms' December luncheon meeting, too. "The hostess provides dessert and the rest of us bring a soup and salad bar ingredients," said Nancy. "A little wine also adds to the festive occasion." GIVE CHILDREN THE GIFT OF READING"We have a catered lunch for our December meeting. We dress up and have the church fellowship hall decorated. We usually ask someone to play the piano, and we'll sing carols," said Carol Weigel of the Bookers, which is part of an activity group of the Lake Gaston Ladies Club. Members live at Lake Gaston located on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. This year the group will be joined by guest speaker Bonnie Vest, author of the picture book Stuart Zoo, in keeping with the group's dedication to children's literacy. Every December members collect children's books for three local women's shelters. "This is so the mothers can give a gift of a book to their children. We wrap the books and put a post-it note on it with gender and age level," said Carol. "Our December meeting is always joyful, probably because we're excited to contribute a book to a child's life. It has become an important tradition." ---Shannon McKenna Schmidt
THREE CUPS OF TEA
 Last month on ReadingGroupGuides.com we added the discussion guide for Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, which we have received literally hundreds of requests for in the past few months. Both a young adult and a kids' version of the book will be out in January, making it a great choice for a mother/daughter or mother/son book group discussion, as well as a wonderful choice to suggest to teachers and librarians. The weekend before Thanksgiving I had the chance to hear Mortenson speak while I was in San Antonio for the National Council of English Teachers conference. He is unassuming, but a very powerful speaker. His presentation opened with a video where his daughter told the story behind Three Cups of Tea and introduced her dad. Her voice, her tone and her intense pride in her dad and what he has done resonated with the audience and made this story a lot more personal for all of us. For those of you who do not know the background, here's a brief synopsis. When Mortenson failed to summit on a climb up K2, the world's second tallest mountain, and was seriously weakened by the climb, he stayed for seven weeks in the small Pakistani village of Korphe recuperating. There he came to love these people. Seeing the abject poverty and realizing there was no school for the children, he promised to return and build one, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. He spoke about the schools that they have built, the money that has been raised, and his Pennies for Peace program that you can read more about here. My mother's book group read Three Cups of Tea last month, and they decided they wanted to be part of this cause. They each are bringing a check for $12 to their December meeting and will be donating these funds to Mortenson's effort. Three Cups of Tea has struck a chord with other books clubs as well, and it inspired us to ask ReadingGroupGuides.com readers what they're doing this holiday season. Tomorrow we'll be sharing tips, stories, advice and traditions from book club members. Many incorporate a charitable component, underscoring what we've long known here at ReadingGroupGuides.com --- book clubs can make a difference.
Roland Merullo: The Writer-Reader Connection
 Today's guest blogger is Roland Merullo, who shares his experiences participating in community-wide reads and ruminates on the relationship between writer and reader.
Roland is the author of seven novels, most recently American Savior, and two books of nonfiction. His novels In Revere, In Those Days and Breakfast with Buddha have been read by North Reading and Winchester, Massachusetts, Broomfield, Colorado and (this spring) Wayland, Massachusetts. Breakfast with Buddha was recently nominated for the Dublin International Literary Prize. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.
Over the past five or six years, I have been exceptionally fortunate to have had two different novels selected for community reads in four different cities, and then to have been invited to speak to the readers in those cities. For me, this has been like taking the pleasure of speaking to a book club and expanding it by a factor of ten or more. It's also been a little strange. The strangeness comes from the odd mix of the writer's life, a life that is primarily solitary but speckled now and then with public events. In my case, this dichotomy might be especially noticeable because I don't have a teaching job, or any other work, and spend large amounts of time alone at my desk. Yes, I have a wife and two daughters and I love to be with them. But, in my working life, I am alone in a second-floor room I built with my own hands, that looks out on the unpeopled hills of western Massachusetts. It's wonderful, that solitude; I don't think I could write without it. But I like people, too, and have a gregarious side, and so going out into  the world for reading tours, or to talk to book clubs, or, especially, to stand in front of an auditorium full of people who have all read one of my books in the same time period --- that balances things like the third and fifth notes in a piano chord. In a world where we are increasingly isolated from each other --- commuting in our cars, working in cubicles, lacking some of the old bonds that united communities a generation or two ago --- a city-wide or town-wide read is one place where the individual blends into the collective. So much emphasis is put on individual identity and the ways we are different from each other (gender, race, age, income, sexuality, religious orientation or lack of it, ethnicity, political party) that it's easy to forget we are more alike than different, that all of us have in common the most important things. We all love, fear, worry, struggle with the winds of good and bad fortune, have family situations of one kind or another, in past or present or both, and all the blessings and trials that go along with that. In the most fundamental ways we are all in this together, and books remind us of that. I have always loved the intimacy of the writer-reader relationship. A passion for reading is surely what steered me towards this profession in the first place. But when that intimacy is expanded in a book club or a community read, it is enriched exponentially. It is a little daunting to stand up in front of a hundred or more people who have all read something you wrote, often something personal --- and all works of the imagination are personal. What if they hated it? What if there was a sentence or a character or a chapter that really turned everyone off? What if they loved the book but are disappointed in meeting the actual flawed human being who wrote it?  But these talks have always turned out to be inspiring --- for me, at least. I especially like the question and answer period, and have gotten to the point where I shrink the talk, almost eliminate the reading, and lengthen the Q&A. What makes it so satisfying is the care that readers gave to your book, a level of attention that matches (and sometimes exceeds) the level of attention and care you put into it. It reveals exactly what writing is supposed to be about, I think: going deep into yourself to come up with a story that makes others go deep into themselves. It is a kind of soul-to-soul link, even if all you were trying to do in the book was make people laugh. I have come away from these gatherings with a profound gratitude, a sense that those hours alone at the desk really do matter. More than that, though --- and I think this is part of the reason we form book clubs and do community reads in the first place --- I've come away with a heightened sense of our common humanity. You get that important gift from a marriage, a family, from friendships and teams, from work associations sometimes. And from reading a book together and talking about it. ---Roland Merullo
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