Jenna Bush Hager, news personality, author, journalist, daughter of George W. and Laura Bush and co host of Today (the fourth hour of NBC’s news program), and actress, producer and entrepreneur, Reese Witherspoon have had a wonderful impact on the success of so many books by choosing them for their reading lists.
The sought after publicity is golden for authors, and monthly recommendations come fast a furious for us readers…not always so easy to keep up!
Colts quarterback, Andrew Luck may be walking off the field, but he is sure to keep busy with his book club that has been going on for several years.
The Andrew Luck Book Club encourages younger and older folks, he calls them rookies and veterans, to read each month, and with over 15,000 followers on instagram, #ALbookclub is accomplishing its mission!
Here are some of these book gurus’ recommendations:
Oliver Sacks, the bestselling author and professor of neurology wrote many books about his patients, his own disorders and nature, including the notable, Awakenings. In his final compilation of essays, Everything In Its Place, he talked about a myriad of topics, from his love of libraries, to how cold temperatures stop the growth of cancer, from dreams and near death experiences to medical case studies and a town where everyone has Tourette’s Syndrome. He was a true, deep thinker and scientist who studied the past.
Oliver swam every day, was severely shy and suffered from prosopagnosia (was unable to recognize faces). He was celibate for 40 years and was private regarding his sexuality. He passed away in 2015 at 82 years old from cancer. Everything In Its Place consists of his essays that were configured into this book and released post mortem.
Sacks lived alone, focusing on his work most of his life, but in his seventies he fell in love and enjoyed a wonderful 8 years with author and photographer, Bill Hayes. Bill wrote the must-read memoir, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me, along with 3 other non-fiction books, and a book of photography called How New York Breaks Your Heart. My book club and I had the incredible opportunity to meet with Bill and we discussed his unsurpassable relationship with the brilliant neurologist and learned about their interests and the wonderful friendship and love they shared.
Conversation with Bill Hayes:
Oliver grew up in a Jewish home and left England at 27 years old. He lived at the hospital where Awakenings patients were being housed and he put all his efforts into his job as a physician and neurologist. Oliver had no romantic relationships for most of his life while he concentrated on his work.
Bill Hayes lived in San Francisco for 25 years. He wrote a trilogy about medical history and the human body, and he studied anatomy at UCSF. At 48 years old, in the spring of 2009, Bill moved to NYC to reinvent himself after the devastating loss of Steve, his long time partner of 17 years, passed away suddenly. Previously, Bill had written to Oliver Sacks about one of his books, and coincidently, once in NYC, they ran into each other in the west village and they developed an intellectual and romantic kinship.
Oliver enjoyed the new found companionship with Bill, savoring the time they spent together making dinner and everyday chores like loading the dishwasher. According to Bill, the two men had a deep connection despite their 30 year age difference. They were kindred spirits, and both had been through a lot. Bill says Oliver was “chronically quotable, hilarious, eccentric and philosophical”.
Oliver had prosopagnosia, and discussed it in his books, bringing this condition to the surface. He was not able to easily recognize faces, something he deemed a “neurological hiccup”. He studied how people adapt to different conditions including bipolar, Alzheimers, dementia, Tourette’s and autism, and wrote about them.
Bill told us Oliver mastered the art of writing. It came easily and fluidly. He wrote longhand with a fountain pen on yellow lined paper. He used no technology, no wifi, and no computer. He had two assistants in his office and they transcribed what he wrote. He composed in his head and generally there were not a lot of revisions.
Oliver insisted Bill keep a journal and six months after he passed away, Bill felt free to write. Using conversations he recorded in his journal, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me, was released in 2015. Today it is being made into a film.
Oliver published 16 books and Bill suggested we read Gratitude (4 essays about death that appeared in the NYTimes), and The Island of the Colorblind, which he described as most lyrical.
Oliver’s writing includes medical case histories, essays on human behavior, nature, swimming, and other interests. When compiling this collection, Bill fought hard to include the Why we Need Gardens essay in the book and it was added 6 weeks before Everything In Its Placewent to press.
Bill’s memories with Oliver are joyful. They shared so much laughter, even during his failing health in the last year of his life. Bill says a lot had to do with Oliver; he was so clear when he learned he was terminal. He wanted to live out his life with Bill, writing, reading, traveling and spending time with friends. His old friend, Laura Snyder is currently in the process of writing a biography of Oliver Sacks. She had written The Philosophical Breakfast Club, his favorite book.
Our book group was luck enough to see Oliver’s apartment via FaceTime and we asked Bill a few personal questions about himself. He told us he is currently single and dating, although the bar was set high once he met Oliver Sacks. He also willingly shared the important significance of his five tattoos: the end of one life and the beginning of another, I am my own anchor, a Joni Mitchell song, his five sisters and Oliver’s middle name, Wolf.
I highly recommend reading some of Oliver Sacks’ work, and Bill Hayes’ memoir, Insomniac City. Both men are fascinating and a wealth of knowledge, compassion and creativity.
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, was a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
A perfect combination of literary fiction and suspense, in Searching for Sylvie Lee, Jean Kwok lets us inside the minds of Chinese immigrant sisters Sylvie, Amy and their Ma. Smart, pretty and accomplished, Sylvie is the golden child in the family. Having grown up with her grandmother in the Netherlands, she felt compelled to return there when Grandma became ill. Younger sister, Amy, is shy and insecure. When Amy hears that Sylvie has mysteriously disappeared, she has to pull it together to be strong, and travel overseas to find out what happened to her beloved big sister.
Ma’s relationships with her daughters are complicated; she immigrated to NYC when she and Pa were young and she was pregnant. They were very poor and worked many jobs to stay afloat. Once Sylvie was born they sent her to the Netherlands to be cared for by Ma’s mother, as they thought it would be a better life for her. The feeling of rejection had a huge impact on Sylvie and her other relationships. She stayed in Amsterdam for more than 8 years, and when Ma and Pa had another daughter, Sylvie returned to NY, yet she felt she was called home to be a babysitter for her younger sister, Amy.
Communication barriers and lack of understanding add to the tension of this story and is often the case with immigrant families. The relationship with children can be strained and sacrificed when coming to a new country as the parents have a hard time learning the ways of the new home yet the kids haven’t lived any other way.
Ma’s communication skills are limited because she only speaks broken English, but her thoughts in Chinese are clear and strong. Sylvie spent her formative years in Dutch culture, feeling loved by her Grandma and cousin and on unsettled ground with her aunt and uncle, and Amy was from NY, had hard working, supportive parents but struggled with a stutter and had a hard time expressing herself.
Searching For Sylvie Lee is a story of love…the beauty and the pitfalls, the joy and the heartbreak. An unexpected disappearance becomes a full on mystery, and pain, confusion and misunderstandings are the results of buried family secrets – unintentional hurt is inflicted all around, but does the truth come out too late?
A Chinese immigrant experience in NY and Amsterdam, Searching For Sylvie Leeis full of suspense and wonderful writing. This is one of my favorite books of the year!
Q: What inspires you to write and how do you decide the format and genre?
A: I always write about issues that mean a great deal to me personally. Searching for Sylvie Lee was inspired by the real-life disappearance of my beloved and brilliant brother. I changed the main character to a woman, Sylvie, to escape the gravitational force of the true story, and Sylvie, her younger sister Amy and Ma indeed took on their own lives. However, since I did want to write about a disappearance and the ways in which we are hidden from each other by language and culture, it was natural to shape this book as a mystery surrounding a suspenseful immigrant family drama.
Q: The backdrop for Searching For Sylvie Lee is an immigration story about a family. How similar is your personal story?
A: Like Sylvie, I’m a first generation Chinese American immigrant and my family was also very poor when we first came to this country. Although I wasn’t sent away to be raised by my grandmother the way Sylvie was, I saw firsthand what it was like for every able-bodied person in my family to work day and night just to make ends meet. Even though I did end up going to Harvard and Columbia, I was never considered the golden child in my family – that role was reserved for my brother, the one who disappeared. I was too bad at being a Chinese girl: terrible housekeeper and cook, too opinionated and independent. So when he vanished, I had the same feeling that Amy did, of needing to pull myself together to try to figure out what had happened to my beloved sibling.
Q: The Grandmother took responsibility for Sylvie as a baby and in the end Sylvie felt it was important to be with her when she was ill. Typical family structure with traditional upbringing of the children by the parents was not the route this family took. How did you come up with this scenario? Can you tell us about your grandparents?
A: I actually never met any of my own grandparents because they were left behind in China when we emigrated. However, as the youngest of seven children, I often felt like my parents were in some ways my grandparents too, since they were the age of my friends’ grandparents. I also know many people who either needed to send their children back to their grandparents to be raised because they couldn’t afford to keep them or were sent back themselves as children. So the loving relationship between Sylvie and Grandma is something I understand deeply, even though I didn’t know my own grandparents. I watched my own parents grow older and more frail.
Q: I enjoyed all of the details that added to the richness of your story: the bike riding, the music lessons, the trip to Venice, the apple tart…where do you get your ideas?
A: Actually, all of the instances of flirtatious Dutch men on bicycles actually happened to me, which is not as fun as it sounds because my biking skills are even worse than Amy’s. When a huge Dutch guy swung himself onto the baggage rack of my little bicycle as I rode by, I lost control and we almost dove into a canal, which was terrifying because like Sylvie, I can’t swim! I like to use incidents from real life in my books and I also enjoy interviewing people and adding slices of their lives.
Q: I love that each of your main characters, Sylvie, Amy and Ma express their points of view in alternating chapters and yet the reader is the only one that sees the full picture. How did you decide to write it this way and what was your process? Did you have to make an outline or organize in any way before you started?
A: One of the questions that Searching for Sylvie Lee asks is, “How well do we truly know the people we love most?” In many immigrant families, the children adopt the dominant language of the country, English, while the parents still struggle with it, resulting in parents and children who no longer speak the same language fluently. I combined those two ideas by having the novel be told by three different narrators – Sylvie, Amy and Ma – all thinking in their own languages: Dutch, English and Chinese. Of course, the book’s written in English but since the inner dialogue is in each woman’s own mother tongue, we are able to get to know each of them in a way that the others can’t. So Ma thinking in Chinese is a much deeper, more complicated person than Amy, her own daughter, will ever know because Amy can only hear the Ma who speaks broken English.
I did outline the entire novel before I started writing. The release of information and clues is essential to the pacing of the book, so I had to figure out where to place the Facebook messages, newspaper articles, etc. to keep the reader turning the pages. Many details changed over the course of the novel but I was constantly backing up to check that the overall structure of the book was working well.
Q: Many of your characters have secrets and throughout the story you provide us with clues right up until we learn the truth. Did the clues appear naturally or did you add them in after you wrote the book?
A: I planned everything from the very beginning and I did know exactly how the book would end. I personally need to know the ending in advance because the progression of the entire novel is shaped by the ending. I always hope that my work will be both entertaining and enlightening, so I want the reader to enjoy the ride. I’m anticipating the reader experience throughout so that the ending is hopefully both surprising and yet earned.
Q: Sylvie is smart and pretty and looked upon as a being successful…Amy is insecure and lacks direction, but deep down, it seems these sisters are more alike than different. Can you give us some insight and tell us which one you relate to most?
A: I definitely relate to both of the sisters. I have the same perfectionist drive as Sylvie but am sadly not as talented, so I can identify with Amy who always felt like she was in Sylvie’s shadow as well. In my family, I was never considered smart or successful – that was my brother, and yet, my brother and I loved each other so much. He always took care of me and when we were very poor, he was the person who gave me a blank diary and said, “Whatever you write in this will belong to you.” That was the beginning of my life as a writer. So the love that binds the two sisters is very real to me as well.
Q: How long did it take to write this book and did you have to make any majors changes during the revision process?
A: It took about three years to write this novel and it really seemed to flow seamlessly. I sketched out the story and started writing. There were minor revisions along the way but it almost seemed to write itself. I have a wonderful editor who helped me enhance the relationships, and she also let me know when the foreign languages needed to be pruned back a bit, that sort of thing, but basically, the book has remained unchanged from its initial conception.
Q: This book is a beautiful combination of compelling fiction with well developed characters, varied and descriptive background settings and an addictive mystery. Do you recommend any other books that have a similar storytelling or other authors that have accomplished the same?
A: Thank you for your kind words. I think that Miracle Creek by Angie Kim is a wonderful novel that is similar in that it’s a page-turner wrapped around an immigrant family. This novel about a murder trial involving a Korean immigrant family after their medical facility explodes is a suspenseful, deep read.
Q: Can we expect another page turner that takes us on a journey from you?
A: I’m working on a new novel right now and it’s about a young Chinese American immigrant woman who comes to the US to start a new life, but that fresh start is threatened when she gets involved with her white English teacher and he dies in a suspicious accident involving her. So indeed, I hope this will be another page turner that deals with deeper issues of immigration, culture, race and language.
Jean Kwok is the New York Times and international bestselling, award-winning author of Searching for Sylvie Lee, Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Her work has been published in eighteen countries and taught in universities, colleges, and high schools across the world. She has been selected for numerous honors, including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award, and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award international shortlist. She is trilingual, fluent in Dutch, Chinese, and English, and studied Latin for seven years. Jean immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University. She currently lives in the Netherlands with her husband, two boys and three cats.
I loved this moving story of young love, family trauma and the aftermath…mental illness, addiction, forgiveness and the power of love kept me engrossed until the very last page.
Two young policeman work together in Brooklyn in the 1970s. To distance themselves from the job after the workday and to start families they both move to the suburbs with their wives and end up living next door. Francis and Lena have three daughters, one named Kate, and Brian and Anne have a son, Peter. Kate and Peter have a strong connection and become very close, yet the families don’t socialize, mostly because Anne’s behavior is a little odd.
A tragic event occurs…no spoilers here…and relationships become strained and crumble under the stress. Can we find the way back to the people who are important to us? A gripping new novel with deep characters and an accurate portrayal of the working class, Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is a must read!
Mary Beth Keane, Me, and fellow book blogger friend Lauren Blank Margolin (Good Book Fairy)
Q & A with author Mary Beth Keane
Can you tell me a little about your process of writing and organizing this novel. Did you know the path each character would take individually or did it come together as you wrote?
I started the novel seeing only two of the characters. Francis, and Peter. I knew Peter was a child and Francis was new to the NYPD, but I didn’t know what they had to do with one another for a long time. I began by writing them separately, and then placing them alongside each other, if that makes sense. Eventually it became clear how these families would have an impact on one another. I never write my books in order, from beginning to end. For example, there’s a scene where Peter slides down a telephone pole. In the final draft, it’s a memory being recollected. But that was one of the first scenes I wrote when I began this book.
Two neighbors have a childhood friendship that ultimately turns to love, and even though they are kept apart for some time, they find each other again. What inspired you to create this relationship the reader is hoping for?
I knew that they would be childhood friends, and I knew they would find each other again as adults. I also knew they had quite different approaches to life thanks to the environments in which they were raised. I don’t outline, but I did know that much. I did NOT know what form their reconnection would take: whether they’d just meet up once and move on or what. The point of the book, if there is a point, is about the randomness of life, and how our lives touch and change other lives even when we don’t mean them to.
Anne Stanhope’s erratic behavior was due to mental illness, and her husband Brian, his brother George and her son Peter battled alcohol addiction. Their struggles were painful and actions seemed realistic…how did you prepare to write such complicated characters?
I pull partly from life and partly from my imagination. By middle age most people know someone who has struggled with addiction, whether they know it or not. All I need is a spark from real life and then I can run with it and imagine all the possible outcomes. The thrill of fiction writing is following one possible outcome to its conclusion.
Peter is estranged from his mother – how did you research this idea of being out of touch with a parent?
My husband, who I met when we were in high school, was estranged from his parents for many years. His mother died during that estrangement. Explaining that break to our children, who never met their grandmother, was part of the reason I was driven to write this particular book. Is a parent always a parent? Does being someone’s mother or father or child always have particular meaning, or does that meaning get lost when the relationship is severed?
Guns and unnecessary shootings are in the news all the time; do you think Brian, a police officer, was careless or did he consciously make the decision to be lax?
No, he was just being careless. These were the years before Columbine, so even when that gun showed up where it shouldn’t have, people didn’t yet think immediately of a mass shooter like they would today. I talked to a lot of police officers while writing this book and that was something that came up more than once, stories of off-duty police officers losing track of their off-duty weapons, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
Did you know how the book was going to end when you started writing it?
Ha! No. Not even remotely.
Did you change anything significant during the revision process?
Oh yes! So much that I couldn’t possibly answer fully here. I started the book from Kate’s point of view, written in the first person. I scrapped that after about one hundred pages. I changed the structure many, many times. I spent a very long time starting with Peter and Kate as adults, and then looping back to their childhoods, but that felt impossible to pull off without bogging down the narrative with flashback. It took a long time to figure out how to best tell this particular story.
Can you share any information about Ask Again, Yes for TV and Film?
Just that I’m thrilled, and that it’s happening. Right now it seems most likely to be a limited mini-series, and I’m delighted by that. I love that a limited mini-series will provide enough room and time to really tell this story in detail.
What have you read lately that you recommend?
I just finished All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan and I’m completely gutted. It was devastating and brilliant.
Mary Beth Keane’s first novel, The Walking People (2009) was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her second novel, Fever (2013) was named a best book of 2013 by NPR Books, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2011 she was named to the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35.” She was a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction and her new novel, Ask Again, Yes, was published in June of 2019.
Reading helps us to examine our world in new ways. It provides us with opportunities to become more educated on an infinite number of topics and allows us to look at issues ways we may never have before. Reading gives us insight into relationships and helps us understand people, teaches us empathy, and presents opportunities to ask questions.
Here are 4 benefits of reading, and 30 book suggestions for you to enjoy!
1. LEARN ABOUT INTERESTING TOPICS
Exploring places around the world and going back in time through reading gives us access to infinite knowledge.
Different Aspects of World War II
Women were chosen to be food tasters for Hitler in At The Wolf’s Table by Rosella Postorino.
Challenges of Assimilation
A Place For Usby Fatima Farheen Mirza explores a Muslim Indian American family and their religion and traditions.
Performance Art at MOMA
The Museum of Modern Loveby Heather Rose is a fiction story centered around Marina Abramović and her performance art exhibit in 2010.
The Girl Who Smiled Beadsby Clemantine Wamariya is a memoir about a girl who survived the genocide in Rwanda and the aftermath.
Death Row and Prison Life
The Last Suppersby Mandy Mikulencak and The Sun Does Shineby Anthony Ray Hinton give a dismal picture of what goes on behind bars and the strength needed to overcome.
The Korean War
Pachinkoby Min Jin Lee and If You Leave Meby Crystal Hana Kim teach us about the lives of Korean refugees.
Littleby Edward Carey is a story based on the imagined life of Madame Tussaud, Eleanor Roosevelt and her unconventional relationship is depicted in White Housesby Amy Bloom, and the life of the strong female poet, Forugh Farrokhzad is revealed in Song of a Captive Birdby Jasmin Darznik.
Strong Women That Were Wronged
These are devastating stories of women in the past who were not protected by the government, like the rabbits in The Lilac Girlsby Martha Hall Kelly, and the factory workers in The Radium Girlsby Kate Moore.
Grand Central Terminal History
Fictitious stories about the actual art school located above Grand Central Terminal are depicted in The Masterpieceby Fiona Davis.
2. EXAMINE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS
Reading can provide different prospectives, helping us see a story from all sides.
Loosely based on the author and Philip Roth, we read about a young girl in a relationship with an older male in Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday.
A look back on the memories of the narrator’s first love, there is a young male in a relationship with an older female in The Only Storyby Julian Barnes.
People are always saying reading encourages empathy and it is really true…When you are reading you are made more aware of other people’s feelings and given the opportunity to understand people that are different.
So your book group is a little lax and needs some shaping up, but you are not quite sure what to do. The meeting dates keep changing and the endless emails to reschedule are cluttering your inbox.When you finally do meet, all anyone cares about is the food and wine and half the people haven’t even read the book.Finally, when one person recalls the purpose of the get-together and announces how it is getting late, and maybe you should talk about the book, the momentum shift to intelligent discussion feels like a chore and the book conversation is forced, aimless and short.From someone who has been in many book clubs over the years, I would like to offer you some advice.
Assign a leader…someone needs to be in charge.
The leader of the book group is responsible for communications; she should ask the group for book suggestions, evaluate the responses and choose the winning book.Ask the group for volunteers to host, assign the host, agree on the date with the host and communicate to the members, the host, the date and the book.The host can then reach out to the group asking what they would like to bring and letting them know the address and where to park.The leader of the group does the administrative job to keep the group moving forward.
Pick a date…and stick with it.
The sweet spot for book group meetings is every 6 to 8 weeks.This gives slower readers a chance to finish in time and everyone has the chance to plan their schedule.Not everyone will be able to make every date so consistency is helpful.If you can plan the year’s meetings ahead of time this could work too.I am in one group that provides all meeting dates and book titles at the beginning of the school year.Everyone is invited to bring their lunch, cookies are served, a moderator is brought in to help the leader lead discussion, and there is no nonsense.This group’s focus is more serious, similar to a class due to the learning and enrichment, and the set schedule, in depth content discussion and book choices reflect those values. This orderly routine works well for this group.
These books generate good conversation.
Choose the right book…it must satisfy the needs of the group.
All members should suggest several books they want to read and most likely there will be some overlap. The book chosen should meet the needs of the group.Does your group like to read mainstream, popular fiction that focuses on relationships? Mysteries? Historical fiction?One of my book groups chooses well known titles (Reese Witherspoon and Oprah picks) and we have had smart discussions.We have read An American Marriage, Little Fires Everywhere, and most recently we discussed Educated and The Great Alone together, as there is so much to compare and contrast.Another group I am in read Song of a Captive Bird, a fictional account of a real Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and most recently, Asymmetry, a debut written in three parts about love, luck, life and art, and both of those discussions were informative and educational. With Asymmetry, so much learning occurred and hidden meaning was revealed at our round table discussion in a Japanese restaurant’s Tatami room one evening…we continued talking about that book for days!My advice is to choose a book you can sink your teeth into and do some extra research on the topic, author, time period or characters.
Size doesn’t matter…agreement on the format does.
Contrary to much publicized book club advice, it is possible to have a successful book group with as many as two dozen people, or even just a few people.As long as your group has some structure and everyone is respectful and willing to follow the format, great fun can be had.Smaller groups have an easier time agreeing on a date, finding a place to meet and everyone has more of a chance to speak out.On the other hand, one of my groups has over 20 members and most of these women have been reading together for 20 years.For them, the meal on book club night is important as many of them enjoy hosting a dinner party, so we always enjoy a beautiful meal and wine for an hour or so before we get down to business. We tend to have more emails back and forth about the date, but if everyone can’t make it, that is ok. We still enjoy thoughtful discussion.
Regardless of size, it is important to have a moderator. The moderator should come to the meeting with discussion questions that usually can be found online; some local libraries will provide them if you put in a request. The moderator can kick off the meeting with a short summary of the book to get everyone on the same page and then can use the questions to stimulate conversation. She is in charge of keeping it civilized! If nobody takes the lead, too many people try to talk at once and the group tends to break up into smaller side conversations.
My book group meeting Martha Hall Kelly, author of The Lilac Girls, after a speaking engagement.
Go the extra mile…there is added value to be had.
This is where you can make your meetings interesting, and everyone can bring something to the party.This is what I do. Once the book is picked, I like to follow the author on social media.This gives me the opportunity to connect and ask questions.Most authors are excited to hear what you think about their book and I always leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon.This helps them with their rankings and can impact sales so why not help an author out!They also could be willing to visit your book club or Skype with your group and that can be really exciting and different.
FaceTiming with Fiona Davis, author of The Masterpiece.
One of my book groups FaceTimed with author Fiona Davis when we discussed her third novel, The Masterpiece.In addition to the book and the writing process we talked about artists that were named in her book, actors who we would want to play her characters if the book were made into a movie, along with the architecture and special floors and rooms of 1920s Grand Central Terminal.We also had photos one of our members took of places in the current Grand Central Terminal which enriched our discussion and made it oh so much fun!
My book group meeting with Heather Frimmer, author of Bedside Manners.
A different group I am in welcomed author of Bedside Manners, Dr. Heather Frimmer to join us and talk about her mother-daughter medical fiction debut. As a radiologist, she talked to us about the realities of breast cancer and how her medical knowledge helped her write an authentic book.
And of course, Google is a wonderful thing…I always research the author and the book, and if I am the moderator, I download discussion questions.When I moderate a group I like to read a short summary of the book to get everyone in the right frame of mind. Everyone can find something interesting to contribute; it is nice to show a video or pictures (someone showed photos of locations in Spain when we discussed Dan Brown’s Origin), read an interview (I read a transcript of a conversation between author Tara Westover and Bill Gates when discussing Educated), and in another group one of our members referred to her copy of Alice in Wonderland when we examined the writing of Lisa Halliday (at our Asymmetry discussion). There are so many author interviews on youtube and author websites to share. Another fun thing to do is to choose a book where you and your group are able to go hear the author speak at a local library or bookstore. If you can, connect with the author on social media and ask to meet for a drink with your book group after the event.
Controversial themes and unusual settings make for interesting discussion.
If you want to get together with friends, drink wine and have fun after reading the same book, that can be easy to do.If you want your book club to be a little more intellectually stimulating, everyone needs to be in agreement and effort must be put in.Follow my 5 tips for keeping your book group on track, and you should have some success.I am enjoying each of my many book groups for different reasons, but most of all, I am happy to connect with friends over books and learn something new.
Assign a leader…someone needs to be in charge.
Pick a date…and stick with it.
Choose the right book…it must satisfy the needs of the group.
Size doesn’t matter…agreement on the format does. (Assign a moderator!)
Go the extra mile…there is added value to be had.
Let me know what your book club is reading and if you need a suggestion, please ask!
