Joshua Henkin's Book Club Adventures: The Latest Chapter, February 2009 Part II

Yesterday Joshua Henkin, author of the novel Matrimony, answered one of the questions he's frequently asked by reading group members: "Did you always want to be a writer?" Today he offers more on the subject and shares some of his own story...





Did You Always Want to be a Writer: Part 2

Yesterday, I talked about how, though I always wanted to be a writer, it was really a coincidence that led me to become one. I had moved to Berkeley after college and was working at a magazine, and it was there, having read a lot of fiction submissions that I thought weren't good, that I got up the courage to try fiction writing myself. If that hadn't happened (if I hadn't moved to Berkeley, or if I'd moved to Berkeley and had taken a different job), I wouldn't be a fiction writer today. I'd probably have ended up doing what I planned to do before I moved to Berkeley, which was get a Ph.D. in political theory, and I'd likely be teaching political theory god knows where (if I was lucky enough to get a job!).

And since my most recent novel is Matrimony, I should add that I also wouldn't be married to the woman I'm married to. I actually knew Beth, sort of, years ago, when we went to the same summer camp, but the last time we were in summer camp together, I was 20 and Beth was 13. But I knew vaguely who she was (I was a counselor in her older sister's division). Years later, Beth was a graduate student in religion at Columbia, and I was back visiting New York, on book tour for my first novel, Swimming Across the Hudson, and I ran into her and invited her to a reading. She came to the reading, and a week or two later we got together for coffee, and now here we are, twelve years after that, living in Brooklyn with our two daughters. If I hadn't moved to Berkeley and worked at that magazine, I wouldn't be a writer, and if I hadn't been a writer I wouldn't have met Beth.

But it goes further back than that. My father was born in Russia in 1917, and his mother died when he was two. Shortly thereafter, his father remarried, and in 1923, just before immigration to the U.S. became much more restrictive, my father's family came here. But the only reason they were able to do so was that my father's stepmothed had relatives in the States who were willing to be the family's sponsor. So if my grandmother hadn't died when my father was two, my grandfather wouldn't have remarried, the family wouldn't have made it to the U.S., my father wouldn't have met my mother, and I wouldn't have been born. And the world would have gotten along just fine without me! But from my own narrow perspective, that was an important sequence of events.

We all have stories like this one. I've been visiting a lot of book groups to discuss Matrimony (I'm now at well over 100), and I was talking to one book group in suburban Washington, D.C., where two of the members, probably in their mid-fifties, came from East Lansing, Michigan. I asked these two women how they had ended up in D.C., and they said, "Well, we both moved here for a year after college." They'd been planning to move back to Michigan, yet there they were, more than thirty years later, having found work, met husbands, started families. We all make decisions in our twenties and thirties --- where we're going to live, what kind of work we're going to do, whom we're going to love --- that have consequences (some good, some bad, some neither good nor bad) that we couldn't possibly have anticipated.

People ask me whether Matrimony is autobiographical, and the answer is complicated. On the most basic level it is not (and here I encourage those of you who haven't yet read the book to stop reading, or to promptly forget what you read, since there are spoilers coming).

I'm not Julian. I didn't meet my wife in college, her mother didn't die of breast cancer, she didn't sleep with my best friend (or if she did, she hasn't told me yet!), and I am, alas, not nearly as wealthy as Julian is. But Matrimony (though I didn't realize this as I was writing the book; a writer, as I've suggested in one of my earlier posts, needs to proceed intuitively) does illustrate, I think, this interest I have in how coincidence shapes our lives.

For me, the central event in Matrimony is Mia's mother's death. It's what prompts Julian and Mia to get married as early as they do and what leads to some of the problems they face. In fact, my sense is that if Mia's mother hadn't gotten sick and died, Julian and Mia might not have married at all. Not because they don't love each other, but because these are characters who go to college in the late '80s/early '90s at a school based loosely on Hampshire College. People who go to a place like Hampshire in the late '80s/early '90s don't get married at twenty-two. Maybe their parents or grandparents did, but they don't.

And so I suspect what would have happened to Julian and Mia is that they would have stayed together for another year or two and then drifted apart like most college couples do. They would have likely married other people a number of years later. So much in life is about coincidence --- you take a particular path and it leads you in a direction you hadn't divined. That's clearly something I'm interested in. So in that sense, though the facts of Matrimony are made up, the feeling of the book is borrowed from my own life.

---Joshua Henkin

Previous RGG.com Posts by Joshua Henkin:
Book Club Adventures, February 2009
Book Club Adventures, January 2009
Book Club Adventures, January 2009 Part II
Book Club Adventures, December 2008
Book Club Adventures, December 2008 Part II
Book Club Adventures, November 2008
Book Club Adventures, November 2008 Part II
Shouting Matches and More

Joshua Henkin's Book Club Adventures: The Latest Chapter, February 2009 Part I

"Did you always want to be a writer?" Author and creative writing professor Joshua Henkin answers this question, a popular one with the reading groups he visits to talk about his novel Matrimony. Check back tomorrow for more of Josh's book club musings and behind-the-scenes stories of the groups he met with in February.




February's Condensed Statistics
Number of Book Groups Visited: 7
Number in Person: 3
Number by Phone: 4
Number of States Represented: 6 (New York, California, New Jersey, Utah, Pennsylvania, Minnesota)
Total Number of Participants, not including author: 74
Total Number of Male Participants, not including author: 2 (Come on, guys, do a better job. What are you doing instead of being in book groups? Playing poker?)

A Popular Question in February: Did You Always Want to be a Writer?
The answer is both yes and no. And I'm lucky that the career span of a writer is so long: I could afford a relatively late start. People like to say that as long as you're under fifty, you're a young writer. (I'm sure that when I hit fifty, I'll be saying that it's as long as you're under sixty....). If I were a basketball player, say (or a ballerina!), I'd be long past retirement. I didn't really start to write fiction until after college. At the same time, I always wanted to be a writer. But I also always wanted to be a basketball player, and at some point you realize that you're neither good enough nor tall enough. That was kind of how I felt about writing. In college, I took a more traditional academic path; I was studying political theory, and since I was the son of a professor, I had this skewed idea about what would be a sensible career. I thought getting a Ph.D. in the humanities was the safe, sober choice! So I was planning to get a Ph.D. in political theory, but before I did that, I decided to move to Berkeley for what I thought would be a year before I went to graduate school.

I had a romantic idea of Berkeley, in part because I grew up in New York City and California felt both far away and mythical, but also because my father taught at Columbia --- we lived in Morningside Heights --- and one of my earliest memories was of the campus protests. I was four years old in 1968, and one day, when my mother took me to nursery school, we were stopped at the entry to College Walk because of the student riots. We had to turn around and go home. It was my version of a snow day! I grew up with an idealized conception of the student protest movement, and the way I looked at things, if Columbia was great, Berekeley was even better.

So there I was, in September of 1987, having moved to Berkeley without having found an apartment --- for the first few weeks I slept on a friend's floor while I looked for rentals. In good Berkeley tradition, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I had to support myself. I ended up working for a magazine, where one of my tasks was to be the first reader of fiction manuscripts: I was to pass on to the fiction editor the submissions that looked most promising. I was struck by how terrible most of the submissions were, and I found this strangely inspiring. It wasn't that I thought I could do better. But I felt that if other people were willing to try and risk failure, then I should be willing to try and risk failure, too. And that's what got me started writing.

I took a couple of workshops in Berkeley, got some encouragement, ended up going to graduate school in fiction writing at the University of Michigan, and the rest, as they say, is history. But to this day, I carry with me that lesson that I learned at the magazine. You have to be willing to risk failure. A writer is always doing that. The page is always blank, and you wonder whether you'll be able to do it again; the fraud police watches over you.

We all know that experience of reading a novel we love and then reading another novel by the same author and we don't love it as much. And then we read a third novel by that author and we love that one. What happened? Did the author get worse and then get better again? Unlikely. It's just that some novels come together and other novels don't, and why that is is a mystery. I'm now at the stage where nothing I write will be so bad that it won't pass freshman English. But will it be magical? Will it jump off the page? There's a lot of luck involved in that, and a lot that's mysterious. Come back tomorrow for more on this.

---Joshua Henkin

Previous RGG.com Posts by Joshua Henkin:
Book Club Adventures, January 2009
Book Club Adventures, January 2009 Part II
Book Club Adventures, December 2008
Book Club Adventures, December 2008 Part II
Book Club Adventures, November 2008
Book Club Adventures, November 2008 Part II
Shouting Matches and More

I'll Bring the Popcorn!

Read, watch and discuss. RGG.com contributor and North Carolina bookseller Jamie Layton shares some of her reading groups's most successful book and movie pairings.


Most of the year my bookstore closes at 6 p.m., so our reading group meets here as we can have the whole place to ourselves to talk and discuss our books with abandon.

That said, every now and then it is fun for us to "get out of the house" --- particularly in the summer when the store is open (and busier) later. A regular excuse for holding a meeting somewhere else is our "Book and a Movie" night. We rarely do these more than once every eighteen months, thus ensuring memorable evenings.

There are literal hordes of books out there with film adaptations. In fact, check out the dedicated Books into Movies section over at Bookreporter.com! I've found that a good rule of thumb is to make sure the movie is less than two hours. This is more of a social meeting for us, and people need time to have a bite to eat, a drink and some chit chat. Then it's on to a (highly recommended) abbreviated discussion which, depending on the number of members you may have, is still going to take at least half an hour. So even if you get started at 6 p.m., you're not going to find yourselves sitting down to watch the movie until probably 8:00. With a run time of 120 minutes that puts your movie end time around 10 p.m., and you still need some time for post-movie discussion.

A few, very successful pairings our group has done:

Lolita, book by Vladimir Nabakov, film by Stanley Kubrick (1962). A lot of the black humor in Nabakov's novel can be hard to understand and appreciate until you see the portrayals of Shelly Winters andPeter Sellers and, of course, James Mason as Humbert Humbert. I've never even seen the newer remake with Jeremy Irons because, in my opinion, this version is a masterpiece that cannot be improved upon.

A discussion of any of Iris Murdoch's novels --- The Sea, The Sea; The Bell; Under the Net --- can be followed with a viewing of Iris, the movie adaptation of her husband John Bayley's memoir, Elegy for Iris, which chronicles Murdoch's tragic descent into the Alzheimer's disease which claimed her in 1999.

Coming up for our group soon is Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, which we are all looking forward to. (DVD releases on April 14, 2009). A few other upcoming or recent releases are Richard Yate's Revolutionary Road (June 2), Stephanie Meyer's Twilight (out), Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks (out) and a book club favorite, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees (out).

A book/movie pairing I was assigned by a college professor that required both reading and watching, was John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. The legendary Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay, and the equally talented Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons star in a movie I could watch again and again. Pinter's adaptation is stunning.

Once again, take some time to ensure that the book in its original state is one that is going to provide fodder for discussion. After all, between movie channels, NetFlix and your local video store you can watch a $1.99 movie any old time. But getting together with your book club in order to screen the film adaptation of a good book --- that's priceless. Please pass the popcorn!

---Jamie Layton

Six Titles I Wish I Had Read with My Book Club, Part II

We love it when a blog post inspires feedback and discussion, which is exactly what happened when Stephanie Coleman read a ReadingGroupGuides.com piece about solo reading selections that would have made for great group discussions. She shares her list with us today.

Tell us about the books you wish you had read with your group instead of on your own --- and why. Drop a note to shannon@bookreporter.com. We'll share your suggestions in a future blog post.

Click here to read Stephanie's previous guest post, "Surprise Discussions," and more of her book commentary at Stephanie's Written Word.


How many times have you turned the last page of a novel, only to wish you had someone to discuss it with? When I read a post here at ReadingGroupGuides.com written by contributor Shannon McKenna Schmidt about the books she wished she had read with her book club, it got me thinking about what books would make my list. Below are the books, in no particular order, which I would have liked to discuss with my book club. How about you?

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
This is a beautifully written story about a girl forced into the strange and competitive world of becoming a geisha. I am sure that Memoirs of a Geisha would make a perfect jumping point to start discussions about the rights of women in 1930s Japan, Japanese culture and the image of Geisha girls in modern society. Plus, Memoirs of a Geisha was turned into a movie and, unlike most book to movie adaptations, this one was quite good.


Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Not only was this a fascinating book about a Depression-era traveling circus, but the cast of quirky characters would keep a book club chatting for a while.




The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
John Connolly, author of the crime fiction series staring the character Charlie Parker, delves into the world of fairy tales and fantasy with The Book of Lost Things. An interesting coming-of-age story that blends reality and fantasy, this novel isn't the type of book my club usually reads, although that's kind of the point. It might be fun to read something totally different.

Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Unlike the book mentioned above, historical fiction is a popular book club choice. Nefertiti is historical fiction at its finest. In a genre saturated with books about the British royal family, Nefertiti is a breath of fresh air. The story follows Nefertiti and Mutnodjmet, two sisters who play a part in a high stakes political game over 3,500 years ago in ancient Egypt.


Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Touching on subjects like arranged marriages, foot binding and the secret written language passed down from mother to daughter called nu shu, this novel set in 19th century China would give any women's group lots to talk about. In particular, the chapter on foot binding, although very hard to read, is just too fascinating to pass up. (Click here and here to read Lisa See's guest blog posts.)

Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story by Carolyn Turgeon
A fun re-telling of the classic fairy tale, Godmother is cleverly written and has an ending that would probably take most of the evening to dissect. (Click here to read Carolyn Turgeon's guest blog post.)



---Stephanie Coleman

Gerald Kolpan: Writing ETTA

Gerald Kolpan's debut novel, Etta, imagines the life of Etta Place, who dodged the law with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In today's guest blog post, he shares how he brought to life this intriguing and elusive historical figure --- and why he enjoys writing about female characters.


People like to ask me what inspired me to write Etta.

What I usually tell them is that the idea came to me after I watched a television special about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid back in 1997. That show was what made me hit the library to see if what it claimed was really true: that very little was actually known about Etta Place and that she was indeed a "mystery woman." As it turned out, all the incontrovertible facts about Etta could probably fit on a page or two.

"Great," I said to myself. "I'll find out about that really happened with the other characters, research the period, make up the rest and I'll have a novel."

Of course, it took me five more years to screw up the courage to actually start writing the book. That's another story. But the real inspiration for Etta isn't only that single broadcast; nor is it Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, the 1969 movie that featured Katharine Ross as Etta.

No, the book has two less obvious sources. To wit:

(1), The 1950s television series Zorro and (2), the fact that I don't trust or enjoy any situation in which there are no women.

When it first aired in 1957, Zorro, produced by Walt Disney and starring the charismatic Guy Williams, hit me like a Clydesdale's hoof. It featured a debonair hand-kissing leading man who could flash a sword like Errol Flynn and crack a bullwhip with more authority than a dominatrix. A protector of the people, El Zorro fought against oppression and corruption in Spanish California. With his black mask and cloak, he rode "out of the night" (as the theme song sang), on his trusted steed: a fleet and enormous black stallion named Tornado.

God, I loved it.

For at least the whole first season, I ran around the neighborhood in my own mask, cape and plastic sword, looking to carve a "Z" in any kid who dared to dress as the evil Capitan Monestario or the fat, craven Sergeant Garcia.

But one outgrows polystyrene sabres. I outgrew Zorro (and Wyatt Earp and Sugarfoot and Maverick) and eventually discovered girls. Once I made that discovery I also began to think that the whole male bonding ethos was something to be outgrown as well. It's okay to keep girls out of the clubhouse when you're eight; when you're fifteen, not so much. And unlike the jocks with their locker room hijinks or the male hippies with their attitudes about "chicks," I soon found that in most situations, the presence of women added not just visual stimulation but challenge and mystery. Sure, they could be tough to understand and they were right far too often; but how was I going to practice all that Don Diego suavity I learned watching Zorro if all I hung out with were football players and lead guitarists? And unlike my buddies, if you were lucky (or they took pity on you), women could introduce you to the kind of bonding that the male type just couldn't match.

So Etta is as much a reflection of these influences as anything else. She's smart, charming and dedicated to justice like Zorro. She even rides a huge and vicious black horse. She also kicks ass. And just like the many women in my real life, her dynamic female presence has kept me keenly interested over all the years I've known her.

I'm preparing my second novel now and this time, the main characters are men. Writing them is fine, but the second the female actors walk onto my stage everything gets more exciting for me. They look better, they think smarter and they have the grand potential to get my boys in a world of trouble or delight or both. I love telling their tales.

It's probably the only time I write what I know.

---Gerald Kolpan

Therese Fowler: "A Glamorous Life?"

The main character in Reunion, Therese Fowler reveals, is modeled a bit on herself and a bit on a famous talk show personality --- and like her debut novel, Souvenir, it's in part a tale of choices and consequences. Click here to read Therese's previous guest blog post.


There is something about celebrity life that has always fascinated me. It isn't only the money celebrities earn and the lifestyles they afford --- though I did once yearn for such a life. It's also a fascination with who these seemingly perfect, glamorous, fortunate people were before we all knew their names, and their faces, and in some cases their bodies, so well. How did they come to be famous? How much of that fame is accidental or unwanted? How are they different now? And what must it be like to be so scrutinized that your cellulite or bad haircut or weight gain becomes international news?

As a teen, though, all I saw was the exotic thrill of that life. I grew up reading novels that were populated by celebrity characters and written, in many cases, by celebrity authors. When I wasn't reading, I was going to movies, watching television, or flipping through the pages of popular magazines. Surrounded by stories and images of beauty and wealth, I dreamed of becoming a model or an actress --- or possibly, I once told a friend, the next Danielle Steel. I didn't know how I would get there, I just knew I wanted out of my life and into one where I wouldn't have to shoplift to get a new pair of jeans.

But I was too short and too curvy to be a model. I was too sensible to run away to Hollywood and try to become an actress. My writing skills were developing, but I was too insecure to believe that they could take me anywhere. I was considered a "gifted" student, but there was no money for college, and when I told my high school guidance counselor that I'd decided to get married after graduation, she did nothing except wish me the best of luck. So I got married and I went to work. A few years later, I had children. I outgrew or outlasted my longing for a glamorous life. However, my interest in that life --- and one small piece of the dream --- remained, and twenty-two years after high school ended, I launched my career as a novelist.

Reunion was begun while my first novel, Souvenir, was "in production," as they call it (getting a jacket design, a marketing and publicity plan, and being printed and bound). There was a lot of pre-publication excitement about Souvenir both in the States and abroad, and I was getting far more attention, and income, than I'd ever gotten in the past. Now, I could still see the big picture; one book did not make me a celebrity author, and Ms. Steel was not going to turn her typewriter over to me and retire. Even so, the experience was like getting a small taste of what it must be like. It was exciting, and it was intriguing.

Reunion's main character in my early draft was an entertainment reporter, like you might see doing a segment on E! or Entertainment Tonight. She wasn't based on anyone in particular, and although she was on television, she wasn't a star. I worked with the story for maybe eighty pages before it petered out; something wasn't right. So I started over, and when I was far enough into it again, I sent what I'd written to my editor. To my relief, she loved the changes. To my surprise, she asked if my new character was modeled on Oprah Winfrey. "No," I said. "That is, not deliberately." In fact, in a lot of ways she was modeled more on me.

I could see it, though: the Chicago setting (chosen because I'd grown up nearby), the character now a popular talk-show host whose life behind the scenes was not all sunshine and roses (as is true for so many celebs). Without realizing it, I was exploring not exactly Oprah herself, but rather Oprah's world. The story that resulted is the story of Blue Reynolds, the Oprah we might have if we didn't have the real one. As with Meg's in Souvenir, Blue's tale is one of choices and consequences. What Blue did as a young woman that haunts her today, what she wants to do now, what she should do now, and how those choices affect everyone involved --- all of this gets magnified for a person who lives in the media's hungry spotlight. It becomes even more complicated when that person is someone who shines a spotlight herself.

What must it be like?

---Therese Fowler

Book Clubs in the News

Occasionally we highlight news articles about reading groups and related topics. This round-up illustrates the wonderful diversity of book clubs and the different reasons people come together...and highlights two groups that have shown some serious longevity and are still going strong.


The Apex Herald: Book Club Driven By Passion for Reading
Former North Carolina health services worker Valerie Nicholson runs an award-winning book club for teens.

Asbury Park Press: Book Club Encourages Parent-Child Discourse
Seven mother-daughter duos talk about books and more at a New Jersey reading group.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Plot a Book Club Success
Do tough economic times enhance the appeal of reading groups?

Canada.com: The M's & Them's Celebrating 30 Years as a Book Club
Meet the M's & Them's, a Canadian book club --- what has held them together for three decades, what makes a good discussion book, and how they got their unusual name.

CantonRep.com: Great Minds Read Alike
A fist fight first brought together the founding members of a men's book club in Canton, Ohio, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a black-tie gathering.

Globe and Mail: B.C. Group Keeps Things Down to Earth
For this Vancouver, British Columbia, book club, members must have some acting skills --- or at least a sense of humor.

Globe and Mail: The Sound of Books
Meet the inspiring members of an Ottawa book club for the blind.

Muskogee Phoenix: Tasty Treats for a Growing Book Club
Members of an Arizona book club --- launched in November 2008 and with a whopping 20 members --- share why they've made it a priority to have fun along with thought-provoking conversation.

Valley News Dispatch: Bookends Expands Minds and Social Circles
The Pennsylvania reading group Bookends was launched for 20-somethings as an alternative to the bar scene.

Discussing THE BOOK THIEF

Shannon McKenna Schmidt's book club met recently to discuss Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, which is set in World War II Germany. It's classified as a young adult novel, but as she shows, it clearly doesn't matter what age you are, you're likely to come away with something from this unusual and inspiring story.


When I picked up a copy of The Book Thief, my first thought was: uh-oh. It was six days before my book group was meeting to discuss it, and the novel clocks in at a hefty 550 pages. I like to read our selections close to the date we're gathering so that the story is fresh in my mind, but there's a fine line between having enough time and waiting too long. As it turns out, though, I needed only three days.

I was hooked from the first page, which introduces Death, The Book Thief's darkly comic narrator. I'll let him describe the book.

It's just a small story really, about, among other things:
* A girl
* Some words
* An accordionist
* Some fanatical Germans
* A Jewish fist fighter
* And quite a lot of thievery

The girl is Liesel Meminger, orphaned at the age of nine and perpetrator of "quite a lot of thievery" --- mostly books. Death first crosses paths with Liesl in 1939, when he claims her younger brother as the two siblings are making their way to a village outside Munich, Germany. There Liesel lives with the Hubermanns, tart-tongued housewife Rosa and silver-eyed accordion player Hans, who also take in a young Jewish fist fighter named Max and hide him in their basement.

The Book Thief is a character-driven novel and so to a large extent was our discussion --- Death, Liesel, the Hubermanns and Max, for starters. There is also Rudy, the boy-next-door and Liesel's best friend and co-conspirator, and the mayor's wife, silenced by grief, who allows Liesel to steal books from her library.

Not everyone agreed on all aspects of The Book Thief. One person noted that she had trouble getting into the story for the first 100 pages. I couldn't help but wonder if we were reading the same book, but it goes to show how stories affect us in different ways.

Another member commented that she liked the foreshadowing throughout the book --- and how she didn't think she could have dealt with some of the horrific happenings if there had not been advance warning. So did I, for the very same reason. I just didn't realize it until I heard her say it.

By far the most interesting comment of the evening came from the person who had chosen The Book Thief on the recommendation of a colleague. Being Jewish, she told us, she had never really thought about World War II from the perspective of ordinary Germans --- those like Hans Hubermann, who opposed the Nazis in ways both small and large, risking his and his family's safety and his livelihood to do so.

The Book Thief is 550 pages of amazing and sometimes unusual storytelling --- a rather startling narrator (Death spares no sentimentality for the souls he's collecting or for the reader), the powerful storyline, the historic setting, intriguing color imagery, unexpected plot devices like a mini graphic novel --- and an interesting and engaging cast of characters, for me the most important part of any novel. I did have a minor quibble with the ending, which surprisingly was something we didn't discuss.

Did I mention Markus Zusak's lyrical prose and exquisite turns of phrase, some of which I read two, three times? One of my favorites comes in a scene where Hans Hubermann, Liesel's adored adoptive Papa, offers her some words of wisdom after she acquires new reading material and isn't exactly truthful about where she got it.

"He suggested that perhaps she should read to him. 'Come on, Liesl, you're such a good reader these days --- even if it's a mystery to all of us where that book came from.'

'I told you, Papa. One of the nuns at school gave it to me.'

Papa held his hands up in mock-protest. 'I know, I know.' He sighed, from a height. 'Just... He chose his words gradually. 'Don't get caught.' This from a man who'd stolen a Jew."

For a booklover, this story was especially poignant. Books are a luxury for Liesel, who acquires her small and beloved collection in various ways, including one she rescues from a celebratory Nazi bonfire in the town square and another written for her by Max on white-washed pages of Hitler's Mein Kampf. It's a reminder of how lucky we are to have such easy access to books, as many as we want, be it buying them at bookstores or taking advantage of more affordable options like libraries, used books or even classics for free on the Internet.

I was struck by something Elizabeth Chang wrote in her review of The Book Thief in The Washington Post: "Death, like Liesel, has a way with words. And he recognizes them not only for the good they can do, but for the evil as well. What would Hitler have been, after all, without words? As this book reminds us, what would any of us be?"

There are some books I feel privileged to have read. The Book Thief is one of them.

---Shannon McKenna Schmidt
shannon@bookreporter.com

Mary Pat Kelly's St. Patrick's Day Message

"Today we all are Irish," says Mary Pat Kelly, today's guest blogger and author of the novel Galway Bay. Read on for her St. Patrick's Day greeting and to find out which of her family members inspired a central character in the story.


"It's a great day for the Irish," the song goes, and I can hear Judy Garland singing those words as I wait in my New York apartment for dawn to come on this St. Patrick's Day. These very early hours are when I write, and as I sit here I think of all those mornings I spent with Honora Kelly and the other characters in Galway Bay. Some of the nicest comments I've gotten from readers begin "I didn't want the book to end. I miss the characters!" But for me they aren't gone, only busy living their lives in some other part of my brain and waiting to tell me all about it when I begin the sequel.

One thing I'm sure of, they'll march in the Parades. Chicago's, of course. I've just come from there after a wonderful two weeks of events that included a ceremony where more than one hundred of my cousins, many of whom I'd never met, gathered to put a stone on our great-great grandmother Honora's grave. Her life inspired Galway Bay, and honoring her was a deeply satisfying and very emotional experience. And because Chicago celebrates St. Patrick on the closest Saturday I have already joined in the festivities. I watched as a sheet of green dye slowly flowed down the Chicago River, stirred by a dozen kayakers until all the water turned a lovely emerald color --- Kelly green I'll call it in honor of the ancestors.

We'd begun the day with a beautiful Mass at the church everyone calls "Old St. Pat's." Pipers and Irish dancers led in a procession that included Mayor Richard Daley and Senator Dick Durbin. Lovely and solemn yet both men had been greeting people as they arrived at church. A very homey feeling in Chicago, my hometown, though many of the people I met during events such as the Irish American Partnership Breakfast and the Irish Fellowship Dinner were on their way to Washington for a St. Patrick's Day reception at the White House.

Mayor Daley and Senator Durbin were early supporters of President Obama, and Chicago's pride in him is evident everywhere in the city from the banners with his picture that wave from lamposts up and down the streets of the Loop to the displays in store windows of memorabilia of every kind. And the fact that some of Barack Obama's ancestors came from Ireland adds to the sense of celebration. Quite a close link, too. He knew his great-grandfather, Ralph Dunham Sr., whose mother's father, Fulmoth Kearney, was born in Ireland. Irish America magazine has the whole story, and past issues are now available on the new site IrishCentral.com.

So many Americans have some Irish in their background, and today we all are Irish. On Broadway, the Mexican restaurant Rancho Santa Fe is decked out in green, and H & H is offering green bagels. The line down Fifth Avenue has been painted green, and in a few hours I'll wave at my friends in the Leatherneck Pipes and Drums, former and serving United States Marines, as they step smartly up the avenue.

I imagine Honora, her sister Maire and their children cheering along side. All of us in America are descended from people who suffered, who were forced from their homes. Yet they turned the tragedy of exile into triumph simply by surviving. We are their victory. A lot to be thankful for as I head out to the Parade --- and here's the sun coming up, good weather, too!

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Slainte!

---Mary Pat Kelly

Louise Shaffer: Mental Meanderings about Book Clubs and SERENDIPITY

A former actress, Louise Shaffer draws comparisons between show business and book clubs in today's post. She also talks about how her new novel, Serendipity, is different from her previous works and the topic that she's especially interested in discussing with reading groups. Look for Serendipity in stores starting next Tuesday, March 24th. Louise is also the author of Family Acts, The Ladies of Garrison Gardens and The Three Miss Margarets.


When someone proposes a topic for a blog, I find I learn so much more than I expected to --- usually about myself. And that's the case this time. The question was, how do I feel about talking to book clubs, and the answer is, I love it! And why not? If your life's gig is spending your days with imaginary friends --- and let's face it, that's what my characters are --- you relish an opportunity to talk with real humans. More importantly, I learn so much from book clubs --- after all, people who love reading enough to join a book club are going to be smart, insightful and knowledgeable about the printed word, and I'm going to get more from them than I could ever give back.

But I've always known book clubs gave me something else, and I've finally figured out what it is. I get one-on-one feedback from the people I was hoping to touch. I used to be an actress, so I spent a lot of my life gauging my success or failure by the amount of laughs I got from an audience and the amount of applause at the curtain call, or --- God forbid --- if everyone started coughing during my big speech in the second act. When I worked in television we lived or died by the ratings --- the overnights, the weeklies, and the monthlies --- and the focus groups. And I think that's how it should be.

There are things I want my books to say, thoughts I want to share, but above all else I want to give people a good read. I want them to laugh and cry --- a little --- and think, and enjoy themselves. The best way to find out if I've managed to deliver on all of that is to talk to the people who've read my book. And it's an honor and a huge compliment when a group cares enough about your work to invite you to join them.

Which brings me to...my new book. Serendipity is headed out into the world --- pub date is March 24 --- and I can't tell you how much I'm hoping I'll get to talk to a lot of clubs. This book is set in the northeast where I grew up --- specifically, New York City and Connecticut. I've loved writing about the south in my earlier novels, but this felt like I was coming home and I'm waiting to see if that emotion translated to the page --- only readers can tell me that. And the book is about mothers and daughters --- which, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the most complicated, passionate, joyful and sometimes painful subjects out there. I'm dying to hear some discussions about that. I hope I'll trigger them.

And for anyone who is as stage struck as I still am, there's a show biz component in Serendipity, the way there always is in my stuff --- including a fictionalized take on something I did on my first professional audition as a kid. I'd love to hear what people have to say about that! So, as we always do in my industry, I'm waiting for March 24 with my fingers firmly crossed.

---Louise Shaffer

Give Us Your Input: ReadingGroupGuides.com 2009 Survey

What is your book club reading? How often and where do you meet? Do you enjoy speaking with authors?

ReadingGroupGuides.com is conducting a survey of book groups, and we'd love to hear from you. Our goal is to identify trends and topics that are of interest to book groups that we can share with publishers and authors so they can provide the information and resources to enhance your meetings and discussions. We have not done a survey since 2001, and we know that a lot has changed in the last eight years.

Click here for more information and to take the survey, which is open until April 30th. Each of the first 2,500 respondents will receive one of these 28 books graciously provided by our publisher colleagues. These titles are all worthy of book club discussions!

A YEAR OF PLEASURES by Elizabeth Berg
ANGELS OF DESTRUCTION by Keith Donohue
B AS IN BEAUTY by Alberto Ferreras
BELONG TO ME by Marisa de los Santos
BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin
THE DIARY by Eileen Goudge
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton
THE GIFT OF RAIN by Tan Twan Eng
GIRLS IN TRUCKS by Katie Crouch
LITTLE BEE by Chris Cleave
LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH by Emily Giffin
THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS by Alexander McCall Smith
THE MOONFLOWER VINE by Jetta Carleton
MUDBOUND by Hillary Jordan
THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY by Alexander McCall Smith
ONE TRUE THEORY OF LOVE by Laura Fitzgerald
PALACE CIRCLE by Rebecca Dean
PERFECTION: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz
SARAH'S KEY by Tatiana de Rosnay
THE SIGNAL by Ron Carlson
SILENT ON THE MOOR by Deanna Raybourn
SIMA'S UNDERGARMENTS FOR WOMEN by Ilana Stanger-Ross
SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME by Leif Enger
SONGS FOR THE BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER by Peter Manseau
STILL ALICE by Lisa Genova
THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE by Andrew Sean Greer
THE TEN-YEAR NAP by Meg Wolitzer
TWO RIVERS by T. Greenwood

Librarians' View: Robert Goolrick's A RELIABLE WIFE

Today's blog is written by the terrific trio of Sonja Somerville, Robin Beerbower and Elizabeth Hughes of the Salem Public Library in Salem, Oregon. They've teamed up to offer their thoughts on Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife --- and share some of the questions that kept them talking about this gripping debut novel. We wanted to give readers some advance notice about A Reliable Wife --- which is on sale April 7th --- so there's plenty of time to add it to your book club line-up.

We're excited to announce that Sonja, Robin and Elizabeth will be blogging here at ReadingGroupGuides.com on a regular basis. Look for their next post in May.


Robert Goolrick did something tremendous when he created the snow-stricken Wisconsin landscape that is home to The Reliable Wife. This first novel from the author of the memoir The End of the World as We Know It is completely gripping. It engages from the first lines, which describe wealthy small-town magnate Ralph Truitt as he stands waiting, surrounded by the whispers of his neighbors, for a woman to arrive by train. The woman, Catherine, is someone he has ordered up by placing an ad, seeking a "reliable wife." He implies that he simply wants a steady companion after years of loneliness. She accepts, implying that she's a plain woman ready to accept the job. Since they're both lying elaborately, it's quickly clear their relationship will be a good deal more complicated than initially advertised.

Catherine has a checkered past. Ralph has a cartload of emotional baggage, including a catastrophically terrible first marriage. Ralph's real intention is to force Catherine to look for his estranged (and strange) son. Catherine's real intention is to kill her new husband and become a rich widow.

With a set-up like that, you've got to keep reading.

The writing style has echoes of Kent Haruf's stark approach. Goolrick's prose offers a simple account of what characters are doing, what they see, what they say, what they remember. He lets the reader work out what it all means. The reader is left to work through and experience the events along with the characters, which only adds to the growing sense of distress.

At the same time, the story is incredibly complicated, and around every corner are new revelations, each more twisted than the last. And just as you begin to suspect that you've grasped all the ways in which this coupling is wrong, another layer of the onion peels away and you realize you had no idea how wrong it could be. These are not healthy people. The fact is skillfully underscored by a constant thread in the novel of Ralph's fascination with the effects of the deep Wisconsin winters on the psyches of his neighbors, many of whom go barking mad from the isolation and cold and endless white.

It's great stuff, made greater by the plentiful fodder it offers for people like us who love to talk about our books. Some of the questions that kept us talking were:

- Were there any truly likeable characters? How does the reader's perception of the characters and their motivations change as the book moves forward? What role do the supporting characters play in shaping your opinion and understanding of Ralph and Catherine?

- Ralph Truitt is a powerful man in his community. Why does he seem to hand over so much power in his relationship with his two wives? Why would he let them do the things they do to him? Does he have a power role in either relationship?

- Personal history helps explain the appalling behavior of characters in the book, but do the preceding events actually justify anyone's actions?

- Sex is such an ever-present theme, it's almost another character in the book. How does sex or the idea of sex affect the story?

- What role do the recurring stories of winter-time madness and violence play in the theme and the plot of the book?

- Why is the backdrop of a Wisconsin winter so important?

- Does Goolrick's somewhat restrained writing style make the events more or less horrifying?

---Sonja Somerville, Robin Beerbower, and Elizabeth Hughes
Salem Public Library
Salem, OR

Change of Heart

In a review of Change of Heart, Bookreporter.com's Kate Ayers wrote that it's Jodi Picoult's "most thought-provoking novel to date. You may not believe in the death penalty, or you may scoff at religion, but you cannot deny the astonishing power this story holds. It will force you to look at the issues from all sides."

What did RGG.com contributor Heather Johnson and her fellow book club members think of Change of Heart, their latest selection? Read on to find out...


On Sunday my book club met to discuss Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart, which deals with both the death penalty and organ donation. The member who nominated the book is a defense attorney, and she hoped the book would spur discussion on the topic of capital punishment. Our club is always up for a good debate, but unfortunately, this book did not deliver as we hoped.

Picoult is famous for raising controversial issues in her books. Several years ago my club discussed another of her books, My Sister's Keeper. The big topic in that book is whether it is right to use one of your children to keep your other child alive (through blood transfusions, organ transplants, etc.). It was amazing how clearly defined the opinions of the gals in my club were: those of us with kids came down on one side of the divide and those of us without kids came down on the other, with no divergent opinions to be found.

Although Change of Heart raised some equally controversial issues, my club wasn't able to connect with this story as we did with her previous book. I don't want to give away any spoilers and so I can't tell you what we discussed, but if you really want to know you can click over to our blog for the details.

There are times when your club will read a book that you are not a fan of. There may even be times when the entire club dislikes a book. But that same book you disliked can possibly lead to the very best discussion your club has ever had. Explore the issues raised by the book even if they make you uncomfortable. List the things you didn't like and see if anyone disagrees with you. Can you convince the other members to come around to your opinion or can they convince you to change your mind? Compare the book to others your group has read and determine why this one wasn't a success.

Most of the gals didn't care much for this book, but our meeting wasn't a failure by any means. We spent time dissecting what worked for us, as well as what didn't, in the book. Sadly many of us had more dislikes than likes, but it gave us the chance to converse about these in an objective manner. One of the subplots we enjoyed was that of the female attorney's stressed and often humorous relationship with her mother. There are three mother/daughter duos in our club and every single one of the mothers had something to say about this topic...go figure!

Perhaps the best part of the meeting was seeing what food item each gal brought. Our theme was "What would you want for your last meal if you were on death row?" My contribution was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups...in bulk.

Has your club ever read a book that just didn't go over well? How did you handle this at your meeting?

---Heather Johnson

Buzz for LITTLE BEE

The descriptive copy for Chris Cleave's novel Little Bee is intentionally vague. It says in part: "We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.... Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either." Little Bee struck a chord with book club facilitator Esther Bushell and one of her groups, and she shares some of her thoughts about the story --- without giving too much away. On his website, Cleave talks about why he wrote the novel.


Last Friday night, Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee (if you haven't read it, you should) and his publicist, Alexis Welby from Simon & Schuster, came out to Greenwich, Connecticut, to meet with one of my couples book groups. The women in the group are quite accustomed to having phone chats and going to author events, but for the men, this was a new and exciting experience.

Chris's naturalness, sincerity and passion were so engaging. He personalized his novel for us, but he also addressed head on some of the controversial and provocative issues that his brilliant new novel presents. He didn't pontificate, nor was he pedantic. Chris forthrightly answered questions and, of course, everyone agreed that his visit with us completely enriched the reading experience.

Chris is now on his cross-country book tour (you can see videos of various events on his website) and we're looking forward to Little Bee's success throughout the USA. We like to think that he had a proper launching here in Connecticut. This book should be on the top of your stack!

---Esther Bushell

Judith Ryan Hendricks: So...What's Your Novel About?

Today, Judith Ryan Hendricks offers her take on how reading groups are beneficial to writers --- and why she's looking to book clubs to help her answer the question, "What is your novel about?" Judith's most recent novel is The Laws of Harmony, and she is also the author of The Baker's Apprentice, Bread Alone and Isabel's Daughter.


The nice guy I've been chatting with for the last ten minutes smiles disarmingly and turns on the recording equipment. He says he's just read a review of The Laws of Harmony titled "Murder on the Mesa."

"Is that what it's about?" he asks.

Sure. Just like MacBeth is about a woman in search of a good spot remover. Which is to say, not exactly untrue, but totally missing the point.

My mouth goes suddenly dry. What is my book about? In thirty seconds or less.

All the hours I've sat in my desk chair till my butt was numb, the nights I tossed in my bed trying to unravel some thorny plot problem, all the pages I wrote and loved but which ended up in the round file basket, the dialog I polished, the transitions I labored over, the scenes I midwifed --- all that flashes before my eyes like a drowning swimmer's vision. In the silence, I hear only the soft, sucking sound of my intelligence circling the drain.

I know, I know. You're supposed to have prepared your elevator pitch, a soundbyte for these occasions. But it doesn't seem to matter how I prepare, that question is so terrifyingly open-ended...I feel as if I've just stumbled, unsuspecting, onto the rim of the Grand Canyon. Too often I hear myself stammer, "Well...there's this woman..."

Which is one of the big reasons why I love book clubs: they know what the book is about.

When you visit a book group, you get to be with readers who have already bought and (in most cases) read the book. The focus then is on the kind of really interesting discussions that you can only have with people who are --- so to speak --- on the same page.

Also, there's the cozy factor. Most reading groups meet at someone's home, usually with a dozen people or fewer. The atmosphere is comfortable, relaxed, intimate. There's often food involved. (One major perk of attending in person.) But even if it's a phone-in, you're among friends, who are eating good food and talking about your book. What could be better?

And if there's any doubt as to theme, characters' motivations, the nuances of relationships, intricacies of plot, what should happen in the sequel or who should play the protagonist in the movie version --- in short, what a book is really about --- then participating in a reading group can clarify all that in short order.

So instead of stumbling around trying to explain my story to the nice interviewer, maybe I should have just said,

"I don't know what it's about. I haven't taken it to book club yet."

---Judith Ryan Hendricks

The Magic of Book Clubs

Carolyn Turgeon's new novel, Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story, is about the fairy godmother from the classic tale, who is living in present-day New York City and longing to return to her otherworldly homeland. In today's guest blog post, Carolyn talks about a different kind of magic --- the magic of book clubs and reading.


I love book clubs. The first time I saw one, I was with my mother visiting Sarasota's Ringling Museum of the Circus to research my first novel, Rain Village, which was about a girl who becomes a trapeze star in a travelling Mexican circus. After visiting the museum, we had dinner at a charming, breezy little restaurant. I remember balmy weather, leafy plants hanging down, fans whirring overhead, wooden shutters. And then a group of women came in, laughing, obviously all friends, all wearing sundresses and holding copies of one of my favorite books, Chocolat. They sat around a long table, ordered goblets of red wine, and started talking.

This, I thought, is exactly the way to celebrate books. I'd spent years studying literature, in college and in graduate school, and was used to settings that could suck every bit of pleasure and feeling from a novel. I'd remember the envy I'd felt once when I was working as a waitress and my friend Penny came in, ordered a piece of chocolate cake and coffee, and sat clutching a thick novel in her ring-covered fingers, taking slow bites of that cake without taking her eyes from the page. It seemed like the definition of pleasure for me. Those Sarasota ladies reminded me of Penny, and all of them reminded me of why I'd ultimately left graduate school: to read again for pure pleasure, and to write novels instead of study them, to create worlds you could step right into, full of beauty and magic and feeling.

When Rain Village was published in 2006, I had my next big run-in with a book club, and this time I hit the mother lode: the Pulpwood Queens Book Club, "where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the RULE," had made Rain Village their April 2007 pick. That January I flew down to East Texas for the nationwide club's annual Girlfriend Weekend, where many Pulpwood Queens chapters gather to mingle with authors and attend the infamous and glamorous Hair Ball. I loved Pulpwood Queens founder Kathy Patrick and everyone else I met: all of them in their tiaras, decked out in pink and rhinestones, snapping up books, attending author panels, having a grand time with their girlfriends, and generally just celebrating the pleasure of words. That April, many of the women I'd met in Texas asked me to call in to their clubs, and I got to talk to women gathered around tables at a local restaurant or around the living room of one of the members, and I talked with them and answered their questions and asked a bunch of my own while they ate and drank and laughed together.

My second novel, Godmother (which comes out in stores today, March 3) is the Pulpwood Queens Pick of the Month this May, and I look forward to talking with many of those same ladies, who will whip up casseroles and mix pitchers of margaritas and have their girlfriends over to discuss my book. I love this. It feels exactly right to me. In fact, I wish I could send each book out in the world with a warm bath and bubbles and a goblet of red wine and maybe even some bon bons, not to mention the fervent request that you throw a party in its honor --- i.e., at your own book club. And, of course, that you invite me.

---Carolyn Turgeon
carolynturgeon@gmail.com

Book Clubs in the News

Occasionally we highlight news articles about reading groups and related topics. This month's round-up features a mother-daughter book club in Dublin, a graphic novel group, the Dining Divas and more.


The Arlington Advocate: Getting Graphic
In Lexington, Massachusetts, a graphic novel book club --- made up of both die-hard fans and those new to the genre --- discusses selections ranging from "the latest trends to the more obscure."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Rolling Readers
In Woodstock, Georgia, four women are making good use of their commute: they turned it into a book club.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Book Club of the Month
The women in this Texas book club share a love of reading and road trips.

Globe and Mail: High-Calibre Readers
Meet a reading group in Toronto, and find out what they and other Canadian book clubs are discussing.

Irish Times: A New Chapter in Mother and Daughter Relationships
At a Dublin book club, mothers and daughters bond over book discussions. Offered up are "five of the best" mother-daughter reads.

Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier: Women Sink Their Teeth into Good Books --- and Cheese Puffs
Books and food are a tantalizing combination for the Dining Divas of Waterloo, Iowa.