Reading Group Guides Updates

August 2011

2011-08-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

We are celebrating the paperback release of How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway --- a story of a mother and her daughter reconnecting with their Japanese heritage --- with a special contest. Fifteen readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, September 7th at noon ET.

More about How to Be an American Housewife:
How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters, and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and aspired to be a proper American housewife; and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn’t been what she’d expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan to be reunited with her brother, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways. Offering an entertaining glimpse into American and Japanese family lives and their potent aspirations, this is a warm and engaging novel full of unexpected insight.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers --- the acclaimed retelling of the biblical story of Gomer and Hosea as set during the California Gold Rush --- with a special contest. Three readers will have the opportunity to each win an autographed copy of the book for their group, while five readers will win a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, September 7th at noon ET.

More about Redeeming Love:
Bestselling author Francine Rivers skillfully retells the biblical love story of Gomer and Hosea in a tale set against the exciting backdrop of the California Gold Rush. The heroine, Angel, is a young woman who was sold into prostitution as a child. Michael Hosea is a godly man sent into Angel's life to draw her into the Savior's redeeming love. This remarkable novel has sold more than a million copies globally and has been a fixture on bestseller lists for nearly a decade. A six-part reading guide, suitable for individual use or group discussion, is included in this bestselling novel.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch, translated by Lee Chadeayne
Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son --- except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love --- all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers. Isabella, Mary and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons and wrapping paper, eat minuscule sandwiches and doll-sized cakes. They wear pastel dresses and drink champagne by the case, but amid the celebration these women have their own lives to contend with and the problems that come with them.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Full Moon Bride by Shobhan Bantwal
To Soorya Giri, arranged marriages have always seemed absurd. But while her career as an environmental lawyer has flourished, Soorya is still a virgin, living with her parents in suburban New Jersey. She wants to be married. And she is finally ready to do the unthinkable. In choosing between two very different men, Soorya must reconcile her burgeoning independence and her conservative background. And she must decide what matters most to her --- not just in a husband, but in a family, a culture, and a life…

Click here for the reading group guide.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life by Cathy Lamb
Madeline O’Shea tells people what to do with their lives. A renowned life coach, she inspires thousands of women through her thriving practice --- exuding enviable confidence along with her stylish suits and sleek hair. But her confidence, just like her fashionable demeanor, is all a front. For decades, Madeline has lived in fear of her traumatic past becoming public. Now a reporter is reinvestigating the notorious crime that put Madeline’s mother behind bars, threatening to destroy her elaborate façade.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For August we have a very special opportunity for Registered Book Groups. Our featured title this month is The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, August 16th have the chance to win an author chat. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

New Guides

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund: Set against the searing debate between evolutionists and creationists, Adam & Eve is a thriller, a romance, an adventure, an idyll --- a tour de force from Sena Jeter Naslund, one of the most imaginative and inspired writers of our time.

Blue Skies Tomorrow: Wings of Glory, Book 3 by Sarah Sundin: A pilot and a volunteer find love amidst the throes of World War II combat in the final volume of this popular series.

The Call by Yannick Murphy: A father desperately tries to keep his family together as they cope with the aftermath of a hunting accident that leaves their eldest son in a coma.

The Colonel’s Lady by Laura Frantz: A young woman seeks her soldier father along the Kentucky frontier only to find herself longing for his commanding officer.

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy: The lives of three strangers intersect in the searing summer heat of Athens as they explore the ancient city, and their own lives, together.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life by Cathy Lamb: A successful life coach finds her prominent public image threatened with the revelation of a horrible family tragedy from her past.

The Full Moon Bride by Shobhan Bantwal: A young Indian woman finds herself at the crossroads of independence and cultural tradition when her family begins arranging her marriage.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close: A group of friends navigate their lives amidst the commotion of weddings and bridal showers that serve to remind them they’re all unlucky in love.

The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard: Two girls born on the same day to very different families find their lives weaving together over several decades.

The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch: The Hangman’s Daughter is a rich, historical tale of a witch hunt and fanaticism in 17th-century Bavaria.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh: An amateur florist discovers that her understanding of plants and the moods they convey can truly help those around her.

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson: The Lantern is a modern gothic novel of love, secrets and murder --- set against the lush backdrop of Provence.

Layla by Céline Keating: An antiwar activist reflects on her past while trying to understand the current state of political unrest.

My Two Wives and Three Husbands: A True Love Story by S. Stanley Gordon: This is the true story of one man searching for love in both the straight and gay communities over several decades.

River’s Song: The Inn at Shining Waters, Book 1 by Melody Carlson: A widow returns to her childhood home to find perspective on her troubled life and reconnects with her Native American heritage.

The Submission by Amy Waldman: In an ambitious reimagining of 9/11, a committee selects a memorial design only to learn that its creator is Muslim.

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman: A devastating exploration of the blurring boundaries of privacy and the fragility of self, this clear-eyed portrait of modern life will have readers debating their assumptions about family, morality, and the sacrifices and choices we make in the name of love.

Wings of Promise: Alaskan Skies, Book Two by Bonnie Leon: A woman finds herself torn between her love for a fellow bush pilot and a handsome doctor in the untamed frontier of Alaska.

July 2011

2011-07-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Win a Copy of MISS TIMMINS’ SCHOOL FOR GIRLS by Nayana Currimbhoy for Your Group
We are celebrating the release of Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy --- a story about a murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India that launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, August 3rd at noon ET.

More about MISS TIMMINS’ SCHOOL FOR GIRLS:
In 1974, three weeks before her 21st birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich Indian girls in a boarding school still run like an outpost of the British Empire. In this small, foreign universe, Charu is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n' roll, and freedoms she never knew existed.

Then one monsoon night, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff, and the ordered worlds of school and town are thrown into chaos. When Charu is implicated in the murder --- a case three intrepid schoolgirls take it upon themselves to solve --- Charu's real education begins.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

Escape by Barbara Delinsky
Emily Aulenbach is 30, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. She doesn’t connect with much in her life, period, with the exception of three things --- her computer, her BlackBerry and her watch. Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Gap Year by Sarah Bird
In The Gap Year, told with perfect pitch from both points of view, we meet Cam Lightsey, lactation consultant extraordinaire, a divorcée still secretly carrying a torch for the ex who dumped her, a suburban misfit who’s given up her rebel dreams so her only child can get a good education. We also learn the secrets of Aubrey Lightsey, tired of being the dutiful, grade-grubbing band geek, ready to explode from wanting her “real” life to begin, trying to figure out love with boys weaned on Internet porn. When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idol-sex god with a dangerous past, the fuse is lit.

Click here for the reading group guide.

A Stranger Like You by Elizabeth Brundage
Now Available in Paperback
In A Stranger Like You, the border between screen fantasy and grim reality is quick to dissolve, as Hugh Waters, bent on proving his script is believable, drugs Hedda Chase, stuffs her into the trunk of her vintage BMW, and drives the car to a long-term parking lot at LAX. He leaves the keys in the ignition, the parking ticket on the dashboard, and Hedda to the whims of fate. But fate is waiting for Waters as well, and he little suspects that the forces of destiny he has set in motion will lead to strange sexual encounters, a desperate search in the California desert, and a terrible, vengeful reunion.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Summer Friends by Holly Chamberlin
Over the course of one eventful summer, nine-year-old native Mainer Delphine Crandall and Maggie Weldon, a privileged girl “from away,” become best friends. Despite the social gulf between them, their bond is strengthened during vacations spent rambling around Ogunquit’s beaches and quiet country lanes, and lasts throughout their college years in Boston. It seems nothing can separate them, yet after graduation, Delphine and Maggie slowly drift in different directions. Twenty years pass, until one summer, Maggie announces she’s returning to Ogunquit to pay an extended visit. And for the first time, the friends are drawn to reflect on their choices and compromises, the girls they were and the women they’ve become, the promises kept and broken --- and the deep, lasting ties that even time can never quite wash away…

Click here for the reading group guide.

Conquistadora by Esmeralda Santiago
As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León. And in handsome twin brothers Ramón and Inocente --- both in love with Ana --- she finds a way to get there. She marries Ramón, and in 1844, just 18, she travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited on the island. Ana faces unrelenting heat, disease and isolation, and the dangers of the untamed countryside even as she relishes the challenge of running Hacienda los Gemelos. But when the Civil War breaks out in the United States, Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

The Blessed by Ann H. Gabhart: A woman stuck in a dead-end marriage finds herself tempted by a young Shaker man who tests both their faith and beliefs.

Chasing Sunsets: A Cedar Key Novel by Eva Marie Everson: A divorcee gets a second chance at love after a summer vacation to the tiny island she’s always yearned to call home.

The Protector: Families of Honor, Book 2 by Shelley Shepard Gray: A young woman is forced to sell her family’s farm to support her siblings, but a suitor awaits and hopes to support them all.

Registered Book Club Promotions

There are no registered book club contests for July. Please check back next month. If your group is not registered, and you are interested in future monthly contests, click here to register.

New Guides

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume One: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson: This National Book Award winner tells a gothic tale of slavery, science and the Revolutionary War.

The Blessed by Ann H. Gabhart: A woman stuck in a dead-end marriage finds herself tempted by a young Shaker man who tests both their faith and beliefs.

Chasing Sunsets: A Cedar Key Novel by Eva Marie Everson: A divorcee gets a second chance at love after a summer vacation to the tiny island she’s always yearned to call home.

Conquistadora by Esmeralda Santiago: A sweeping historical novel of love and adventure as a young Spanish woman finds her way to exotic Puerto Rico as the Civil War unfolds just to the north in America.

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan: An Irish woman ventures across the Atlantic Ocean to land in New York City as a maid for a wealthy family, but can’t forget the country --- or man --- she left behind.

Escape by Barbara Delinsky: An overworked lawyer takes her life into her own hands when she forsakes the corporate world for a mountain town retreat in New Hampshire.

The Gap Year by Sarah Bird: A novel as hilarious as it is heartbreaking about a single mom and her 17-year-old daughter learning how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.

Hassie Calhoun: A Las Vegas Novel of Innocence by Pamela Cory: A teenager hopes to launch her singing career on the Las Vegas show circuit, but finds that Sin City is much more than just a nickname for the city.

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler: This international bestseller has a frustrated detective resorting to hypnotism to help crack the case of a brutal triple homicide.

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayan Currimbhoy: A murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime.

The Protector: Families of Honor, Book 2 by Shelley Shepard Gray: A young woman is forced to sell her family’s farm to support her siblings, but a suitor awaits and hopes to support them all.

A Stranger Like You by Elizabeth Brundage: A struggling screenwriter goes to great lengths to prove his script is ready for the big screen, and extract revenge on the executive who’s blocking its way.

Summer Friends by Holly Chamberlin: Two childhood friends who have followed very different paths to adulthood reconnect at the summer retreat of their youth.

June 2011

2011-06-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

Win an Advance Copy of THE LAST NUDE by Ellis Avery for Your Group

We are celebrating the forthcoming release of The Last Nude by Ellis Avery --- a stunning story of love, sexual obsession, treachery and tragedy, about an artist and her most famous muse in Paris between the world wars --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores on January 5, 2012, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, July 6th at noon ET.

More about The Last Nude:
Paris, 1927. In the heady years before the crash, financiers drape their mistresses in Chanel, while expatriates flock to the avant-garde bookshop Shakespeare and Company. One day in July, a young American named Rafaela Fano gets into the car of a coolly dazzling stranger, the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. Struggling to halt a downward slide toward prostitution, Rafaela agrees to model for the artist, a dispossessed Saint Petersburg aristocrat with a murky past. The two become lovers, and Rafaela inspires Tamara's most iconic Jazz Age images, among them her most accomplished --- and coveted --- works of art. Inspired by real events in de Lempicka's history, The Last Nude is a tour de force of historical imagination.

Clickhere for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of which has already cost the company a fortune. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to several troubling questions about her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Faith by Jennifer Haigh
Estranged for years from her difficult and demanding relatives, Sheila McGann has remained close to her older brother Art, the popular, dynamic pastor of a large suburban parish. When Art finds himself at the center of the maelstrom, Sheila returns to Boston, ready to fight for him and his reputation. What she discovers is more complicated than she imagined. Her strict, lace-curtain-Irish mother is living in a state of angry denial. Sheila's younger brother Mike, to her horror, has already convicted his brother in his heart. But most disturbing of all is Art himself, who persistently dodges Sheila's questions and refuses to defend himself.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is 32 and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago. By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke

It’s 1968. The prestigious but cash-strapped Goode School in the town of Cape Wilde is run by its aging, philandering headmaster, Goddard Byrd, known to both his friends and his enemies as God. With Cape Wilde engulfed by the social and political storms of integration, coeducation and the sexual revolution, God has confidently promised coeducation “over my dead body.” And then, through a clerical error, the Goode School admits its first female student: Carole Faust, a brilliant, intractable 15-year-old black girl. Carolyn Cooke has written a ferociously intelligent, richly sensual novel about the lives of girls and women, the complicated desperation of daughters without fathers, and the erosion of paternalistic power in an elite New England town on the cusp of radical social change.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon

On a soft summer night in Vermont, 12-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen. Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn’t fear the dark and doesn’t have bad dreams --- who, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam’s hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed --- a promise that could destroy them all.

Click here for the reading group guide.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

The lives of two very different couples are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. From the day in 1907 that 11-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, daughter of a well-known orchestral conductor, he takes in the difference between their two families: his, working-class; hers, "posh" and artistic. Just a few years later, romance and these differences erupt simultaneously with the war in Europe. In a fit of fury and boyish pride, Riley enlists in the army and finds himself involved in the transformative nightmare of the twentieth century. Moving among Ypres, London and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight --- and those who don't --- and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Threading the Needle: A Cobbled Court Novel by Marie Bostwick

The economic downturn has hit New Bern, Connecticut, and Tessa Woodruff's herbal apothecary shop, For the Love of Lavender, is suffering. So is her once-happy 34-year marriage to Lee. They'd given up everything to come back to New Bern from Boston and start their business, but now they're wondering if they made the right decision. To relieve the strain, Tessa signs up for a quilting class at the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop, and to her surprise, rediscovers the power of sisterhood --- along with the childhood friend she thought she'd lost forever. From New York Times bestselling author Marie Bostwick comes a beautiful novel of sisterhood lost and found --- and of the ways we create the rich tapestries that encompass the past and the future.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Jerusalem Maiden by Talia Carner

In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, a young Orthodox Jewish woman in the holy city of Jerusalem is expected to marry and produce many sons to help hasten the Messiah's arrival. While the feisty Esther Kaminsky understands her obligations, her artistic talent inspires her to secretly explore worlds outside her religion, to dream of studying in Paris --- and to believe that God has a special destiny for her. When tragedy strikes her family, Esther views it as a warning from an angry God and suppresses her desires in order to become an obedient "Jerusalem maiden."

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Nonfiction

Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir by Oscar Hijuelos

Oscar Hijuelos has enchanted readers with vibrant characters who hunger for success, love and self-acceptance. In his first work of nonfiction, Hijuelos writes from the heart about the people and places that inspired his international bestselling novels. Born in Manhattan's Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Hijuelos introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry-writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of an often prejudiced working-class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship to his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn in pre-Castro Cuba with his mother, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

Martha by Diana Wallis Taylor: The Biblical character of Martha of Bethany comes to life in this historical romance about one woman’s quest for true love while holding her family together.

Megan’sHero: The Callahans of Texas, Book Three by Sharon Gillenwater: An unwed mother-to-be is rescued from a tornado by a strapping cowboy, leaving both to wonder if this chance meeting was truly fate.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For June we have two very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed and Broken Wings by Carla Stewart. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, June 21st have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

Click here for details.

New Guides

The Bells by Richard Harvell: The life of fictional singer Moses Forben is chronicled, from his humble upbringing in a small Swiss town in the Alps to stardom in bustling Vienna during the 18th century.

Broken Wings by Carla Stewart: A singer finds herself pondering her future alone as her husband --- and duet partner --- succumbs to Alzheimer’s.

Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke: The headmaster of a prestigious New England prep school vows never to desegregate his campus, until the school accidentally admits a 15-year-old black girl.

Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon: Family secrets and fairy lore create a shifting reality in Jennifer McMahon's unsettling novel about the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl who longed to become Queen of the Fairies.

Downfrom Cascom Mountain by Ann Joslin Williams: Newlywed Mary Hall brings her husband to settle in the rural New Hampshire of her youth to fix up the house she grew up in and to reconnect to the land that defined her, with all its beauty and danger.

Eromenos by Melanie McDonald: Eros and Thanatos converge in the story of a glorious youth, an untimely death, and an imperial love affair that gives rise to the last pagan god of antiquity.

Faith by Jennifer Haigh: Set in 2002 amid the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Catholic Church, and particularly the Boston archdiocese, Jennifer Haigh's novel reaches far beneath the headlines to imagine the impact of allegations on one priest's family.

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott: The quiet, circumscribed world of divorcée Clara Purdy gets shaken up when she gets in a car accident with the Gage family, who are homeless and have been living in their car.

Healer by Carol Cassella: A housewife tries to hold her family together after her husband’s medical company loses a fortune.

Hello Goodbye by Emily Chenoweth: A family convenes at a posh New England hotel to celebrate the matriarch’s birthday, which may be her last due to an inoperable tumor.

Jerusalem Maiden by Talia Carner: A young woman is torn between her strict Orthodox Jewish heritage and her desire to explore the world, especially Paris, during the final days of the Ottoman Empire.

The Last Nude by Ellis Avery: The unlikely pairing between an American expatriate and a Russian painter with a murky past leads to a classic work of Jazz Age art.

TheLondon Train by Tessa Hadley: A train ride proves fateful for a father searching for his long-lost daughter and a young woman returning home to claim her inheritance.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan: Three generations of women share their hopes, dreams and fears at the family’s summer retreat along coastal Maine.

The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson: A table-tennis prodigy hones his game with the paddle --- and the ladies --- thanks to sage advice from his father and teammates.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young: A young couple wonders if their love and relationship can survive through the horrors of World War I.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett: A pharmaceutical researcher treks into the Amazon to locate a colleague whose untimely death has raised several questions about his discoveries in the region.

Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel: While visiting southern Florida, a young woman falls madly in love with one of the locals from Stiltsville, a community of raised houses in Biscayne Bay.

The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed: A group of friends try to enjoy their annual summer retreat but can’t help but notice the void left by a recently-deceased member.

Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir by Oscar Hijuelos: The award-winning novelist chronicles his childhood growing up the son of Cuban immigrants in New York City’s rough Washington Heights district.

Threading the Needle: A Cobbled Court Novel by Marie Bostwick: Two friends rekindle their relationship as each faces tough times during the recent economic depression.

May 2011

2011-05-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

Special Features and Contests

Win a Copy of THE NINTH WIFE by Amy Stolls for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls --- a smart, funny, eye-opening tale of love, marriage, and the power of stories to unlock the true meaning of home and family --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which will be in stores May 10th, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, June 8th at noon ET.

More about The Ninth Wife:

Bess Gray is a 35-year-old folklorist and amateur martial artist living in Washington, DC. Just as she's about to give up all hope of marriage, she meets Rory, a charming Irish musician, and they fall in love. But Rory is a man with a secret, which he confesses to Bess when he asks for her hand: He's been married eight times before. Shocked, Bess embarks on a quest she feels she must undertake before she can give him an answer. With her bickering grandparents (married 65 years), her gay neighbor (himself a mystery), a shar-pei named Stella, and a mannequin named Peace, Bess sets out on a cross-country journey --- unbeknownst to Rory --- to seek out and question the wives who came before. What she discovers about her own past is far more than she bargained for.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Copy of THE GRIEF OF OTHERS by Leah Hager Cohen for Your Group

We are celebrating the forthcoming release of The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen --- a gorgeous, absorbing, intricately told tale of one family on the brink of collapse --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores September 15th, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, June 8th at noon ET.

More about The Grief of Others:

In the tradition of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a gripping, generous and provocative novel chronicling the grief that follows the death of a newborn --- and leads to a family’s emotional reawakening. Moving, psychologically acute and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others is Leah Hager Cohen at the height of her talent in what is sure to be her breakout book, one that forces readers to ask themselves: What would I have done? The Grief of Others exposes the paradox that facing tragedy together can in fact awaken us to our better selves and take us from fear to a place of hope and optimism.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

The Stormchasers by Jenna Blum

Now Available in Paperback
As a teenager, Karena Jorge had always been the one to look out for her twin brother Charles, who suffers from bipolar disorder. But as Charles begins to refuse medication and his manic tendencies worsen, Karena finds herself caught between her loyalty to her brother and her fear for his life. Always obsessed with the weather --- enraptured by its magical unpredictability that seemed to mirror his own impulses --- Charles starts chasing storms, and his behavior grows increasingly erratic…until a terrifying storm chase with Karena ends with deadly consequences, tearing the twins apart and changing both of their lives forever.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

Now Available in Paperback
Sarah Price has never regretted trading her MFA for a steady job so that her husband, Nathan, could write fiction. But at age 35, her world is turned upside-down by a shocking revelation: Nathan's upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based on fact. Reeling from his betrayal, Sarah is plagued by dark questions. How well does she really know her husband? More important, how well does she know herself?

Click here for the reading group guide.

Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan

As Queen Catherine's maid and daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, the future seems bright for Elizabeth Stafford. But when her father gives her hand to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, the spirited young woman must sacrifice all for duty. Yet Elizabeth is surprised by her passion for her powerful new husband. And when he takes on a mistress, she is determined to fight for her love and her honor…

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Nonfiction

The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir by Brianna Karp

Brianna Karp entered the workforce at age 10, supporting her mother and sister throughout her teen years in Southern California. Although her young life was scarred by violence and abuse, Karp stayed focused on her dream of a steady job and a home of her own. By age 22 her dream became reality. Karp loved her job as an executive assistant and signed the lease on a tiny cottage near the beach. And then the Great Recession hit. Karp, like millions of others, lost her job. In the six months between the day she was laid off and the day she was forced out onto the street, Karp scrambled for temp work and filed hundreds of job applications, only to find all doors closed.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Click here to see our Paperback Spotlight feature for The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness on Bookreporter.com.

The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett and Amanda Pressner
With their 30th birthdays looming, Jen, Holly and Amanda are feeling the pressure to hit certain milestones --- score the big promotion, find a soul mate, have 2.2 kids. Instead, they make a pact to quit their jobs, leave behind everything familiar, and embark on a yearlong round-the-world search for inspiration and direction. Traveling 60,000 miles across four continents, Jen, Holly and Amanda push themselves far outside their comfort zones to embrace every adventure.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

The Gift: Chiveis Trilogy, Book 2 by Bryan M. Litfin: A retelling of popular Bible parables set in a fantastical land.

A Great Catch: Lake Manawa Summers, Book 2 by Lorna Seilstad: An ambitious young woman becomes interested in a local baseball heartthrob while on summer vacation.

A Heart Divided: Heart of the Rockies, Book 1 by Kathleen Morgan: A daughter becomes embroiled in a family feud for ranch land, and the target of the sheriff’s investigation.

A Killer Among Us: Women of Justice, Book 3 by Lynette Eason: A hostage negotiator and detective are ensnared in a deadly plot that targets them.

Lilies in Moonlight by Allison Pittman: A young woman stumbles upon a war-ravaged mansion and curmudgeonly veteran, and makes it her mission to fix both.

My Foolish Heart: Deep Haven, Book 4 by Susan May Warren: A radio host begins falling in love with one of her regular callers, who happens to be an Iraq war veteran.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For May we have one very special opportunity for Registered Book Groups. Our featured title this month is The Bride’s House by Sandra Dallas. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, May 17th have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

Click here for details.

New Guides

The Bride’s House by Sandra Dallas: From the New York Times bestselling author of Whiter Than Snow and Prayers for Sale comes a novel about the secrets and passions of three generations of Colorado women who have all lived in the same Victorian home called the Bride’s House.

The Council of Dads: A Story of Family, Friendship & Learning How to Live by Bruce Feiler: Bestselling author Bruce Feiler chronicles his diagnosis and fight with cancer, and his decision to form a council of fathers to help raise his young daughters.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin: Two boyhood friends from opposite sides of town are linked by an unspeakable tragedy that remains unresolved decades later.

The Daughter’s Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick: A mother and daughter cross the country in hopes of breaking into the fashion industry in New York City circa 1890.

The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir by Brianna Karp: A young professional finds herself living in a camper after the economic collapse of 2008.

The Great Night by Chris Adrian: An innovative and daring retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream told in the present day.

The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen: The death of a newborn shatters family members, and then teaches them to share one another's burdens.

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart: A groom confesses his infidelity on the eve of his wedding, and his bride reconsiders their past, present and future.

The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett and Amanda Pressner: Three friends celebrate their 30th birthdays by embarking on an around the world adventure.

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee: An ambitious small-town girl flees an arranged marriage and finds herself having all sorts of adventures --- professional, social and sexual --- in Bangalore.

The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls: The Ninth Wife is a smart, funny, eye-opening tale of love, marriage, and the power of stories to unlock the true meaning of home and family.

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene: A journalist writes about her family’s plans to adopt several children from impoverished nations.

Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan: Intrigue and romance among British royalty during Henry VIII’s tumultuous rule.

Skinny by Diana Spechler: A grieving twenty-something takes a job at a camp for obese kids, only to find herself entangled in a web of family lies.

The Summer of Us by Holly Chamberlin: Three strangers share a summer rental on Martha’s Vineyard, and find they have much in common despite their different backgrounds.

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman: A family saga unfolds across generations and continents as a brother and sister learn secrets about their family.

When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg: A prominent choreographer seeks to leave his rakish ways behind him, until he meets a seductive waitress.

A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism by Peter Mountford: A hedge fund employee finds himself caught between career and personal aspirations when he’s charged with a delicate, international task.

April 2011

2011-04-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Wednesday, April 6th.

Win a Paperback Copy of THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES by Brunonia Barry for Your Group

We are celebrating the paperback release of The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry --- an emotionally compelling novel about finding your true place in the world from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, May 4th at noon ET.

More about The Map of True Places:
A respected Boston psychotherapist, Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats. But the actions of a patient throw Zee into emotional chaos and take her back to places she thought she'd left behind. What starts as a brief visit home to Salem begins a larger journey. Suddenly having to care for her ailing father after his longtime companion moves out, Zee must come to terms with a strained and awkward relationship that has always been marked by half-truths and haunted by the untimely death of her mother. Overwhelmed by her new role, Zee must destroy the existing map of her life and chart a new course --- one that will guide her not only into her future but into her past as well.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Paperback Copy of AS HUSBANDS GO by Susan Isaacs for Your Group
We are celebrating the paperback release of As Husbands Go --- in which Susan Isaacs draws on tony Long Island, gritty New York City, and a tabloid-friendly murder for this smart-alecky whodunit yet surprisingly sweet love story --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, May 4th at noon ET.

More about As Husbands Go:
Call her superficial, but Susie B Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten assumed her marriage was great --- and why not? Jonah Gersten, MD, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon, clearly adored her. He was handsome, successful, and a doting dad to their four-year-old triplets. But when Jonah is found dead in the Upper East Side apartment of second-rate "escort" Dorinda Dillon, Susie is overwhelmed with questions left unanswered. It's bad enough to know your husband's been murdered, but even worse when you're universally pitied (and quietly mocked) because of the sleaze factor. None of it makes sense to Susie --- not a sexual liaison with someone like Dorinda, not the "better not to discuss it" response from Jonah's partners. With help from her tough-talking, high-style grandma Ethel, who flies in from Miami, she takes on her snooty in-laws, her husband's partners, the NYPD, and the DA as she tries to prove that her wonderful life with Jonah was no lie.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Copy of THE HUNCHBACK OF NEIMAN MARCUS by Sonya Sones for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood, and Mayhem by Sonya Sones --- a funny, fresh and heartbreakingly poignant novel about the tricky balancing act of motherhood and career --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, May 4th at noon ET.

More about The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood, and Mayhem:
Celebrated YA novelist Sonya Sones makes a HUGE splash with her first adult novel, The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus, spinning a funny, fierce and piercingly honest coming-of-middle-age story about falling apart and putting yourself back together. Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck meets Elizabeth Berg --- boldly original and endlessly enthralling --- The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus is a luminous, brilliantly told story of life, marriage and parenthood that you will not soon forget.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party: The New No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Novel by Alexander McCall Smith
At a remote cattle post south of Gaborone, two cows have been killed, and Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s No. 1 Lady Detective, is asked to investigate by a rather frightened and furtive gentleman. To complicate matters, Mma Ramotswe is haunted by a vision of her dear old white van, and Grace Makutsi witnesses it as well. Is it the ghost of her old friend, or has it risen from the junkyard? In the meantime, one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s apprentices may have gotten a girl pregnant and, under pressure to marry her, has run away. Naturally, it is up to Precious to help sort things out. Add to the mix Violet Sephotho’s newly launched run for the Botswana Parliament and a pair of perfect wedding shoes --- will wedding bells finally ring for Phuti Radiphuti and Grace Makutsi?

Click here for the reading group guide.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline
From the New York Times bestselling author of Think Twice and Look Again comes an emotionally powerful novel about a split-second choice, agonizing consequences, and the need for justice. Rose McKenna volunteers as a lunch mom in her daughter Melly’s school in order to keep an eye on Amanda, a mean girl who’s been bullying her daughter. Her fears come true when the bullying begins, sending Melly to the bathroom in tears. Just as Rose is about to follow after her daughter, a massive explosion goes off in the kitchen, sending the room into chaos. Rose finds herself faced with the horrifying decision of whether or not to run to the bathroom to rescue her daughter or usher Amanda to safety.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer
From Ann Packer, author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Songs Without Words, comes a collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two unforgettable linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime. A wife struggles to make sense of her husband’s sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother’s wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy --- and vulnerability --- of fatherhood. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Mothers and Daughters by Rae Meadows
Samantha is lost in the joys of new motherhood --- the softness of her eight-month-old daughter's skin, the lovely weight of her child in her arms --- but in trading her artistic dreams to care for her child, Sam worries she's lost something of herself. And she is still mourning another loss: her mother, Iris, died just one year ago. When a box of Iris's belongings arrives on Sam's doorstep, she discovers links to pieces of her family history but is puzzled by much of the information the box contains. In confronting secrets from her family's past, Sam comes to terms with deep secrets from her own.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Click here to see our One to Watch feature for Rae Meadows and Mothers and Daughters on Bookreporter.com.

One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery by Julia Spencer-Fleming
On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one another and their small Adirondack town. The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Click here to see our Romantic Suspense feature for Julia Spencer-Fleming and One Was a Soldier on Bookreporter.com.

The Love of My Youth by Mary Gordon

From the acclaimed author of Pearl and Final Payments comes a beautifully choreographed novel about first lovers meeting again after more than 35 years and rekindling their shared past. Miranda and Adam, high-school sweethearts now in their late 50s, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, a city where they once spent a summer deeply in love, living together blissfully. At an awkward reunion, the two --- who parted in an atmosphere of passionate betrayal in the 1960s and haven’t seen each other since --- are surprised to discover that they may have something to talk about.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Already Home by Susan Mallery
New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery has captivated millions of readers with her heartwarming stories of the ties that bind. Now she introduces Jenna Stevens, who’s about to discover that sometimes the only way to move forward is to go back home again. After nearly a decade as a sous chef in a trendy eatery, Jenna is desperate for a change. She’s supported her ex-husband’s dreams for so long that she can’t even remember her own. Until she sees a for-lease sign near her parents’ home and envisions her very own cooking store. Her crash course in business is aided by a street-wise store manager and Jenna’s adoptive mother. But just as she’s gaining a foothold in her new life, in walk her birth parents --- aging hippies on a quest to reconnect with their firstborn.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

A million-plus-copy bestseller in Korea --- a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation --- this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love. You will never think of your mother the same way again after you read this book.

Click here for the reading group guide.

A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei
Now Available in Paperback
When her husband of 30 years is killed, Irene Shen and her three daughters are set adrift. In a desperate attempt to heal her fractured family, Irene plans a tour of mainland China, reuniting three generations of women --- her fiercely independent daughters, her distant poet sister, and her formidable 80-year-old mother. But each woman bears secrets big and small, and just as they begin to reconnect, the most carefully guarded secret of all threatens to tear them apart forever. Depicting a China at once timeless and ever changing, A Thread of Sky is a beautifully written story of love and sacrifice, history and memory, sisterhood and motherhood, and the connections that endure.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Nonfiction

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of the city of Kabul. After receiving a teaching degree during the civil war --- a rare achievement for any Afghan woman --- Kamila was subsequently banned from school and confined to her home. When her father and brother were forced to flee the city, Kamila became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the incredible true story of this unlikely entrepreneur who mobilized her community under the Taliban.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

Abigail’s New Hope: The Wayne County Series, Book 1 by Mary Ellis: The faith of a midwife in an Amish community is shaken after a difficult delivery.

The Caregiver: Families of Honor, Book One by Shelley Shepard Gray: The lives of two strangers intersect during a fateful train ride, leaving them to wonder if they will ever meet again.

The Dawn of a Dream: At Home in Beldon Grove, Book 3 by Ann Shorey: A woman pursues her life’s dream of becoming a teacher after her wedding suddenly ends under strange circumstances.

The Deepest Waters by Dan Walsh: Newlyweds face tough decisions of faith, family and fortune when their steamship cruises into a violent hurricane.

A Heart Most Worthy by Siri Mitchell: Three young Italian-American seamstresses gossip about the upper crust society they strive to be a part of.

Tea for Two: Tea with Millicent, Book 2 by Trish Perry: Two single parents bond over their parenting duties at the local café they frequent.

Tomorrow’s Garden: Texas Dreams, Book 3 by Amanda Cabot: A schoolteacher helps her siblings adjust to their new life while welcoming the charms of a Texas Ranger.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For April we have four very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, The Final Note by Kevin Alan Milne, On Hummingbird Wings by Lauraine Snelling and False Witness by Randy Singer. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, April 19th have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

Click here for details.

New Guides

31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan: Scandal, social climbing and corruption in Manhattan during the 1850s come alive in Ellen Horan’s historical mystery about a murdered dentist.

Already Home by Susan Mallery: A former chef takes on a new business venture only to have her progress interrupted by the sudden arrival of the parents who gave her up for adoption.

As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs: Susan Isaacs has written an unconventional detective story about a woman who must solve her husband's murder, and prove that his loyalty to her was alive and well.

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro: One mother’s quest for religious and spiritual understanding is prompted by her son’s difficult questions on the subjects.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: A former reporter stumbles across the inspiring story of a woman business owner in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

False Witness by Randy Singer: Two harrowing cases separated by four years are linked by the same prominent engineer and his code that can change the way the Internet operates.

A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer: Penicillin operates as the source of romance, murder and melodrama in Lauren Belfer's evocative WWII–era novel, her second after City of Light.

The Final Note by Kevin Alan Milne: A musician struggles to support his family, including the devoted wife whose faith in his musical gifts has never wavered.

Heart of Deception by M.L. Malcolm: A spy navigates World War II-era tensions while searching for his lost daughter in this sequel to Heart of Lies.

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood, and Mayhem by Sonya Sones: A writer desperately struggles with the demands of being a wife, mother and professional while under a strict deadline from her publisher.

I’m Not Dead, I’m Different: Kids in Spirit Teach Us About Living a Better Life on Earth by Hollister Rand: A renowned medium discusses the unique experience of communicating with the spirits of children.

The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin: An engrossing and moving story of 12 men, all of them immigrants to the U.S., who were transformed by their brief but intense experiences as soldiers in WWI, and the fates that awaited them in America.

The Love of My Youth by Mary Gordon: A teenage romance ends in a harsh betrayal only to be rekindled many years later as the adults find their relationship is still not entirely finished.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry: Psychotherapist Zee Finch is dealt a blow when one of her patients, a troubled bipolar housewife named Lilly, leaps off a bridge to her death.

Mothers and Daughters by Rae Meadows: A young woman uncovers her family’s secret history, learning much about her grandmother’s immigration to America.

On Hummingbird Wings by Lauraine Snelling: Estranged sisters reunite to help care for their ailing mother, reconciling their troubled pasts while tending the family’s wilted garden.

One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery: by Julia Spencer-Fleming: Adjusting to civilian life after a tour in Iraq proves difficult for Rev. Clare Fergusson in Julia Spencer-Fleming's resonant and timely seventh mystery featuring Clare and her not-so-secret lover, police chief Russ Van Alstyne.

Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright: An heir assumes control of the family bank during the world financial crisis that began in 2008.

Pao by Kerry Young: A Chinese immigrant rises to prominence in the seedy crime world of Jamaica, employing his heritage’s maxims and teachings in his new tropical home.

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen: The bestselling author of Garden Spells welcomes readers to Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the secrets are thicker than the fog from the town’s famous waterfalls, and the stuff of superstition is just as real as you want it to be.

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin: Park So-nyo, mother of four now-adult children, has gone missing in a Seoul train station with her story being told through alternating narrators.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party: The New No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Novel by Alexander McCall Smith: At a remote cattle post south of Gaborone, two cows have been killed, and Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s No. 1 Lady Detective, is asked to investigate by a rather frightened and furtive gentleman.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline: A mother faces the tough decision of whether or not to rescue the girl bullying her daughter during a freak accident at a local school.

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer: This collection of short stories and novellas follows the complicated relationships between people of all ages, backgrounds and social status.

A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei: A widow tries to reconnect with her three grown daughters by booking them a tour of China.

March 2011

2011-03-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

March 2011

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Wednesday, March 9th.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:

-The Help by Kathryn Stockett
-The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
-The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
-The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine
-Caribou Island by David Vann
-Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
-Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
-The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

Win a Copy of HOME TO WOEFIELD by Susan Juby for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of Home to Woefield by Susan Juby --- a wry, witty look at a neglected farm and its creatures, and the hopeful young woman determined to turn it all around --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, April 6th at noon ET.

More about Home to Woefield:
Prudence Burns, a well-intentioned New Yorker full of back-to-the-land ideals, just inherited Woefield Farm --- 30 acres of scrubland, dilapidated buildings, and one half-sheared sheep. But the bank is about to foreclose, so Prudence must turn things around fast! Fortunately she'll have help from Earl, her banjo-playing foreman with a family secret; Seth, the neighbor who hasn't left the house since a high school scandal; and Sara Spratt, an 11-year-old who's looking for a home for her prize-winning chickens. Home to Woefield is about learning how to take on a challenge, face your fears, and find friendship in the most unlikely of places.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Paperback Copy of WOMEN FOOD AND GOD by Geneen Roth for Your Group

We are celebrating the paperback release of Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth --- a timeless and seminal work that shows how going beyond the food and the feelings takes you deeper into realms of spirit and soul --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, April 6th at noon ET.

More about Women Food and God:
No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all. After three decades of studying, teaching and writing about our compulsions with food, bestselling author Geneen Roth adds a powerful new dimension to her work in Women Food and God. She begins with her most basic concept: The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy
Maeve Binchy is back with a tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a motherless girl collectively raised by a close-knit Dublin community. When Noel learns that his terminally ill former flame is pregnant with his child, he agrees to take guardianship of the baby girl once she’s born. But as a single father battling demons of his own, Noel can’t do it alone. Fortunately, he has a competent, caring network of friends, family and neighbors. But not everyone is pleased with the unconventional arrangement, especially a nosy social worker, Moira, who is convinced that Frankie would be better off in a foster home. Now it’s up to Noel to persuade her that everyone in town has something special to offer when it comes to minding Frankie.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Now Available in Paperback:
Tessa Russo is a stay-at-home mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie --- a boy who has never known his father. Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, they are strangers to one another and have little in common, aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined. This is the moving, luminous story of good people caught in untenable circumstances. Each being tested in ways they never thought possible. Each questioning everything they once believed. And each ultimately discovering what truly matters most.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe
Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. His absent father was always more interested in poetry; he maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his best friend since childhood is refusing to return his calls. He has 74 friends on Facebook, but nobody to talk to. A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a gently comic and rollickingly entertaining novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon
Princess Margrethe has been hidden away while her kingdom is at war. One gloomy, windswept morning as she stands in a convent garden overlooking the icy sea, she witnesses a miracle: a glittering mermaid emerging from the waves, a nearly drowned man in her arms. By the time Margrethe reaches the shore, the mermaid has disappeared into the sea. As Margrethe nurses the handsome stranger back to health, she learns that not only is he a prince, he is also the son of her father's greatest rival. Sure that the mermaid brought this man to her for a reason, Margrethe devises a plan to bring peace to her kingdom.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Becoming George Sand by Rosalind Brackenbury
Now Available in Paperback:

Maria Jameson is having an affair --- a passionate, life-changing affair. She asks: Is it possible to love two men at once? Must this new romance mean an end to love with her husband? Here, Rosalind Brackenbury creates a beautiful portrait of the ways in which women are connected across history. Two narratives delicately intertwine --- following George through her affair with Frederic Chopin, following Maria through her affair with an Irish professor --- and bring us a novel that explores the personal and the historical, the demands of self and the mysteries of the heart.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Blood Covenant: Mission Hope Series, Book 2 by Lisa Harris
From the explosive first pages, Lisa Harris weaves a tale of heart-stopping suspense and adventure with her second book in the Mission Hope series. When fighting erupts between government forces and renegade Ghost Soldiers deep within the Republic of Dhambizao, thousands are forced to leave their homes. When it's discovered that one of the refugees is carrying an infectious disease, the harrowing conditions worsen. In desperate need of vaccines and the Ghost Soldiers blocking the only road out until their demands for amnesty are met, it won't be long before the disease is out of control...and there is nowhere to run.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Nonfiction

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
Now Available in Paperback:
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project. In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the 12 months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir by Wendy Burden

Now Available in Paperback:

For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius "The Commodore" Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burdens were on the verge of financial and moral decline. We watch Wendy's family unravel as she travels between Fifth Avenue, Virginia horse country, Mount Desert Island in Maine, the Jupiter Island Club, London, and boarding school, coming through all of it surprisingly intact. Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the eccentric excess of old money and gives truth to the old maxim: The rich are different.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

Registered Book Club Promotions

For March we have two very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are The Linen Queen by Patricia Falvey and Blood Covenant: Mission Hope Series, Book 2 by Lisa Harris. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, March 22nd have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here (http://www.readinggroupguides.com/groupreg/) to register.

Click here for details.

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/contests/registered_group.asp

New Guides

13, rue Thérèse by Elena Mauli Shapiro: An American professor in Paris falls in love with two women, one of whom he can only imagine, in this magical debut novel.

And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road by Margaret Roach: A beautifully written memoir, And I Shall Have Some Peace There follows the journey of a woman who leaves her big city corporate life to find solitude and authenticity in nature.

Bake Until Golden: The Potluck Catering Club, Book 4 by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson: When a shocking event rocks their small town, the ladies of the Potluck Catering Club are stunned --- especially when the fingers start pointing at one of them. Will old friends stick together through their trials? Or will they be torn apart by tragedy?

Bathsheba: The Wives of King David, Book 3 by Jill Eileen Smith: With her husband away fighting the king’s wars, loneliness claws at Bathsheba’s soul --- and makes it frighteningly easy to succumb to the advances of King David.

Becoming George Sand by Rosalind Brackenbury: Maria Jameson is having an affair --- a passionate, life-changing affair. She asks: Is it possible to love two men at once? Must this new romance mean an end to love with her husband?

Blood Covenant: Mission Hope Series, Book 2 by Lisa Harris: From the explosive first pages, Lisa Harris weaves a tale of heart-stopping suspense and adventure with her second book in the Mission Hope Series.

Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist's Own Story by Loren A. Olson, M.D.: A powerful exploration of human sexuality particularly that of mature men who, like Dr. Olson, lived a large part of their lives as straight men.

Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts: A fascinating look at America's most storied black community, past and present, from a vastly talented young writer.

Home to Woefield by Susan Juby: A hilarious, wildly original, and wonderfully insightful tale of a not-so-ordinary life down on the farm.

House Divided by Raul Ramos y Sanchez: The struggle that divided a nation now threatens to divide a family in this second novel from award-winning author Raul Ramos y Sanchez.

Invisible River by Helena McEwen: The American debut of a remarkable talent --- a mesmerizing novel of a young painter’s coming-of-age, of family ties and first love.

The Linen Queen by Patricia Falvey: A beauty queen hopes to use her prize money to escape her dreary hometown in Northern Ireland until the outbreak of World War II interrupts her plans.

Love Amid the Ashes by Mesu Andrews: Mesu Andrews weaves an emotional and stirring account of Job and Dinah, breathing life, romance and passion into the classic biblical story of suffering and steadfast faith.

Love, Honor, and Betray by Kimberla Lawson Roby: In this eighth installment of the Reverend Curtis Black series, Curtis and Charlotte find themselves at total odds with one another --- yet again.

A Matter of Conscience: Redemption of a Hometown Hero, Bobby Hoppe by Sherry Lee Hoppe and Dennie B. Burke: A wife reflects on her husband’s fateful choice that forever changed a small Southern town.

Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon: A surprising take on the classic tale, Mermaid is the story of two women with everything to lose.

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy: Maeve Binchy is back with a tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a motherless girl collectively raised by a close-knit Dublin community.

The Sea Captain’s Wife by Beth Powning: A young girl imagines a wondrous life at sea when she enlists upon a ship, and soon catches the captain’s eye.

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller: An intense psychological drama that echoes sophisticated entertainments like Gorky Park and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Something Red by Jennifer Gilmore: A poignant story of husbands and wives, parents and children, activists and spies, Something Red is a masterly novel that unfurls with suspense, humor and insight.

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe: A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a gently comic and rollickingly entertaining novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking.

Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso: Margaux Fragoso reflects on her traumatic childhood as a sexual predator stalked and manipulated both her and her mother.

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth: A timeless and seminal work, Women Food and God shows how going beyond the food and the feelings takes you deeper into realms of spirit and soul --- to the bright center of your own life.

February 2011

2011-02-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

February 2011

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Wednesday, February 9th.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:

-Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
-The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould
-Clara and Mr. Tiffany, Luncheon at the Boating Party and Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
-Exposure by Therese Fowler
-French Lessons by Ellen Sussman
-The Paris Wife by Paula McLain-Minding Ben by Victoria Brown
-The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

-South of Superior by Ellen Airgood
-These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
-Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline
-The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine-Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton
-The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

Win a Copy of UNDER THE MERCY TREES by Heather Newton for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton --- a beautifully rendered, heartbreaking first novel that heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Southern fiction --- with a special contest. 15 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, March 2nd at noon ET.

More about Under the Mercy Trees:
Thirty years ago, Martin Owenby came to New York City with dreams of becoming a writer. Now his existence revolves around cheap Scotch and weekend flings with equally damaged men. When he learns that his older brother, Leon, has gone missing, he must return to the Owenby farm in Solace Fork, North Carolina, to assist in the search. But that means facing a past filled with regrets, the family that never understood him, the girl whose heart he broke, and the best friend who has faithfully kept the home fires burning. As the mystery surrounding Leon's disappearance deepens, so too does the weight of decades-long unresolved differences and unspoken feelings --- forcing Martin to deal with the hardest lessons about home, duty and love.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Win an Advance Copy of SOUTH OF SUPERIOR by Ellen Airgood for Your Group

We are celebrating the forthcoming release of South of Superior by Ellen Airgood --- a debut novel full of heart, in which love, friendship and charity teach a young woman to live a bigger life --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores June 9th, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, March 2nd at noon ET.

More about South of Superior:
When Madeline Stone walks away from her Chicago life and moves 500 miles north to the coast of Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she isn’t prepared for how much her life will change. Charged with caring for an aging family friend, Madeline finds herself in the middle of beautiful nowhere with Gladys and Artubus, two octogenarian sisters --- one sharp and stubborn, the other sweeter than sunshine. As she is drawn into the dramas of the small, tight-knit town, Madeline learns that it’s a place where times are tough and debts run deep, but where friendship, community and compassion run deeper.

Click here to read all the contest details.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Fiction

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Now Available in Paperback:
In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts. Iris knows more about the townspeople than she will ever say, and believes her job is to deliver secrets. Yet one day she does the unthinkable: slips a letter into her pocket, reads it, and doesn't deliver it. Meanwhile, Frankie Bard broadcasts from overseas with Edward R. Murrow. Her dispatches beg listeners to pay heed as the Nazis bomb London nightly. Most of the townspeople of Franklin think the war can't touch them. But both Iris and Frankie know better. The Postmistress is a tale of two worlds --- one shattered by violence, the other willfully naïve --- and of two women whose job is to deliver the news, yet who find themselves unable to do so.

Click here for the reading group guide.

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
When Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult in her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces the whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn --- shy, quiet Brynn --- who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her. But then Allison is released, and is more determined than ever to speak with her sister. Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline

Now Available in Paperback:
Bennie Rosato looks exactly like her identical twin, Alice Connelly, but the darkness in Alice’s soul makes them two very different women. Or at least that’s what Bennie believes --- until she finds herself buried alive at the hands of her twin. Meanwhile, Alice takes over Bennie’s life, impersonating her at work and even seducing her boyfriend in order to escape the deadly mess she has made of her own life. But Alice underestimates Bennie and the evil she has unleashed in her twin’s psyche. Soon Bennie, in her determination to stay alive long enough to exact revenge, must face the twisted truth that she is more like Alice than she could have ever imagined. And by the novel’s shocking conclusion, Bennie finds herself engaged in a war she cannot win --- with herself.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Now Available in Paperback:
Betty Weissmann has just been dumped by her husband of 48 years. Exiled from her elegant New York apartment by her husband’s mistress, she and her two middle-aged daughters, Miranda and Annie, regroup in a run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. In Schine’s playful and devoted homage to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, the impulsive sister is Miranda, a literary agent entangled in a series of scandals, and the more pragmatic sister is Annie, a library director, who feels compelled to move in and watch over her capricious mother and sister

Click here for the reading group guide.

I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson
The new novel from the bestselling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It takes us on an unforgettable journey into first love, and --- with the emotional intensity and penetrating wit that has made her beloved among readers all over the world --- reminds us of how the ardor of our youth can ignite our adult lives. Funny, moving, full of beautiful observations about the awakenings of youth and middle age, Allison Pearson’s long-awaited new novel will speak across generations to mothers and daughters and women of all ages.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
This lively, intricately plotted, laugh-out-loud funny, and surprisingly touching family drama combines the wit of Carl Hiaasen with the southern charm of Jill McCorkle. Seventy-seven-year-old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences. Told from the varied perspectives of an incredible cast of endearing oddball characters and written with the flair of a native Floridian, this dark comedy does not disappoint.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
From the celebrated 29-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves comes a blazingly original debut novel that takes us back to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly No. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Caribou Island by David Vann
On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, a marriage is unraveling. Gary, driven by 30 years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. Following the outline of Gary's old dream, they're hauling logs to Caribou Island in good weather and in terrible storms, in sickness and in health, to build the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place. Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Now Available in Paperback:
Situated in Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War, Tawawa House is an idyllic retreat for Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their enslaved black mistresses. Lizzie, Reenie and Sweet are regulars at the resort, building strong friendships over the years. But when Mawu, as fearless as she is assured, comes along and starts talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave everything behind, and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. An engaging, page-turning and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas
Raised by her doting father, Yakob, a carpet merchant, and her stern, resentful stepmother, Ruxandra, Eleonora spends her early years daydreaming and doing housework --- until the moment she teaches herself to read, and her father recognizes that she is an extraordinarily gifted child, a prodigy. When Yakob sets off by boat for Stamboul on business, eight-year-old Eleonora, unable to bear the separation, stows away in one of his trunks. On the shores of the Bosporus, in the house of her father's business partner, Moncef Bey, a new life awaits. Books, backgammon, beautiful dresses and shoes, markets swarming with color and life --- the imperial capital overflows with elegance, and mystery. The Oracle of Stamboul is a marvelously evocative, magical historical novel that will transport readers to another time and place --- romantic, exotic, yet remarkably similar to our own.

Click here for the reading group guide.

When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt
"If you leave Opi, you'll die with strangers," Irma Vitale's mother always warned. Even after her beloved mother's passing, 20-year-old Irma longs to stay in her Abruzzo mountain village, plying her needle. But too poor and plain to marry and subject to growing danger in her own home, she risks rough passage to America and workhouse servitude to achieve her dream of making dresses for gentlewomen. In the raw immigrant quarters and with the help of an entrepreneurial Irish serving girl, ribbon-decked Polish ragman and austere Alsatian dressmaker, Irma begins to stitch together a new life…until her peace and self are shattered in the charred remains of the Great Chicago Fire.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald
Knowing she could never be happy in Iran, Tamila Soroush took her mother's advice to “Go and wake up your luck” and joined her sister in the United States. Now, after a spur-of-the-moment exchange of “I do”s with her true love, Ike Hanson, Tami is eager to start her new life. But not everyone is pleased with their marriage, and Tami's happily-ever-after is no sure thing. With an interview with Immigration looming, Tami wonders if she's got the right stuff when it comes to love, American-style. Maybe her luck is running out. Or maybe she'll stand up for herself and claim her American dream.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended - Nonfiction

It’s All Relative: Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine: A Memoir by Wade Rouse

“How come the only thing my family tree ever grows is nuts?” Wade Rouse attempts to answer that question in his blisteringly funny new memoir by looking at the yearly celebrations that unite us all and bring out the very best and worst in our nearest and dearest. Whether Wade dates a mime on his birthday to overcome his phobia of clowns or outruns a chubchasing boss on Secretary’s Day, he captures our holidays with his trademark self-deprecating humor and acerbic wit. He paints a funny, sad, poignant and outlandish portrait of an all-too-typical family that will have you appreciating --- or bemoaning --- your own and shrieking in laughter.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Saddled: How a Spirited Horse Reined Me in and Set Me Free by Susan Richards

One day, at the age of 31, Susan Richards realized that she was an alcoholic. She wrote it down in her journal, struck by the fact that it had taken nine years of waking up hung-over to name her illness. What had changed? This is a memoir about the power of animals to carry us through the toughest times of our lives --- about the importance of constancy, the beauty of quiet, steadfast love, the way loving a good (and sometimes bad!) animal can keep you going. It’s a wonderful story for Susan’s (and Georgia’s) fans, and for anyone who has ever loved an animal enough to keep on living.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

The Amish Midwife: The Women of Lancaster County, Book 1 by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould: A dusty carved box containing two locks of hair and a century-old letter regarding property in Switzerland, and a burning desire to learn about her biological family, lead nurse-midwife Lexie Jaeger from her home in Oregon to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country.

Deadly Ties by Vicki Hinze: A young mother struggles for custody of her child against her abusive ex-husband, whose connections to organized crime are worrisome to all involved in the case.

A Season of Miracles by Rusty Whitener: Little League teammates form an unlikely bond despite their different backgrounds during their quest for the league championship in 1970s suburbia.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For February we have three very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are The Paris Wife (Link to guide) by Paula McLain, Amaryllis in Blueberry (Link to guide) by Christina Meldrum, and The Amish Midwife (Link to guide) by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, February 15th have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here (http://www.readinggroupguides.com/groupreg/) to register.

Click here for details.

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/contests/registered_group.asp

Feature

2010 "Best of" Lists

Here are our annual lists of our 25 New Favorite, 20 Ongoing Favorite and 20 Enduring Favorite book titles for book club discussions for 2010, gathered by the editors of ReadingGroupGuides.com. See if your group agrees with our choices, and make your own list of favorites!

-Click here for our New Favorites.
-Click here for our Ongoing Favorites.
-Click here for our Enduring Favorites.

What to Read Next? Suggest a Book for This Group

Book Group Spotlight

New Guides

Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum: In the stirring tradition of The Secret Life of Bees, Amaryllis in Blueberry explores the complexity of human relationships set against an unforgettable African backdrop.

Caribou Island by David Vann: Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction.

Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure by Julian Smith: This is the unforgettable account of twin adventures, as Julian Smith beautifully interweaves his own contemporary journey with famed explorer Ewart Grogan’s larger-than-life tale of charging elephants, cannibal attacks, deadly jungles, and romantic triumph.

Deadly Ties by Vicki Hinze: A young mother struggles for custody of her child against her abusive ex-husband, whose connections to organized crime are worrisome to all involved in the case.

Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald: Knowing she could never be happy in Iran, Tamila Soroush took her mother's advice to "Go and wake up your luck" and joins her sister in the United States in this sequel to Veil of Roses.

Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau: From the critically-acclaimed author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties comes a new novel of California, growing up, and learning to love your insane family.

Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor: Ghost Light is a tour de force of emotion about a playwright and his muse from the widely acclaimed and bestselling author of Star of the Sea.

I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson: This new novel from the bestselling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It takes us on an unforgettable journey into first love, and --- with the emotional intensity and penetrating wit that have made her beloved among readers all over the world --- reminds us of how the ardor of our youth can ignite our adult lives.

It’s All Relative: Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine: A Memoir by Wade Rouse: In It’s All Relative, Wade Rouse paints a funny, sad, poignant and outlandish portrait of an all-too-typical family that will have you appreciating --- or bemoaning --- your own and shrieking in laughter.

Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude by Emily White: Interweaving her personal story with cutting-edge scientific research --- as well as incredibly moving accounts offered by numerous lonely men and women --- Emily White provides a deep and thorough portrait of this increasingly common but too often ignored affliction.

Moonface: A True Romance by Angela Balcita: Expanded from Angela Balcita's unforgettable "Modern Love" column in the New York Times, Moonface will make readers laugh, cry and, above all, appreciate the importance of unconditional love.

The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas: An elegantly crafted, utterly enchanting debut novel set in a mystical, exotic world, in which a gifted young girl charms a sultan and changes the course of an empire's history.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain: Set during the period of Ernest Hemingway's most prolific time, The Paris Wife brilliantly captures the voice and heart of Hadley Hemingway as she struggles with her roles as a woman --- wife, lover, muse, friend, and mother --- and tries to find her place in the intoxicating and tumultuous world of Paris in the 1920s.

The Revenge of Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French: Told from the varied perspectives of an incredible cast of endearing oddball characters and written with the flair of a native Floridian, this dark comedy does not disappoint.

Saddled: How a Spirited Horse Reined Me in and Set Me Free by Susan Richards: This is a memoir about the power of animals to carry us through the toughest times of our lives --- about the importance of constancy, the beauty of quiet, steadfast love, the way loving a good (and sometimes bad!) animal can keep you going.

A Season of Miracles by Rusty Whitener: Little League teammates form an unlikely bond despite their different backgrounds during their quest for the league championship in 1970s suburbia.

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdich: In brilliantly controlled prose, Shadow Tag fearlessly explores the complex nature of love, the fluid boundaries of identity, and one family’s struggle for survival and redemption.

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood: A debut novel full of heart that shows there is a deep reward in caring for others, that one who is poor in the pocket can be rich in other ways, and that happiness often comes from the smallest gestures.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell: Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf: A young woman tries to rebuild her life upon her release from prison, but discovers a little boy may exonerate her fully from the crimes she was convicted for.

Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline: In this heart-pounding thriller, after being buried alive by her twin sister, Bennie Rosato is determined to exact revenge.

Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton: The poignant and unforgettable story of a man forced to face his troubled past when he returns to his small hometown in the mountains of North Carolina following the disappearance of his brother.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery.

When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt: A rich historic tale that chronicles the tumultuous life journey of a young immigrant seamstress, as she travels from her isolated Italian mountain village through the dark corners of late 19th-century America.

Wrecker by Summer Wood: Set amid the giant trees of northern California’s magical Lost Coast, Wrecker is the story of a nearly broken boy who unexpectedly finds a family.

Oprah's Book Club Selection

A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Click here to read the February 2011 edition of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter.
Click here to visit the ReadingGroupGuides.com homepage.

January 2011

2011-01-11T07:04:00.001-08:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Thursday, January 6th.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:

-Night Road by Kristin Hannah
-Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
-The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
-The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
-The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice
-Still Alice by Lisa Genova

-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
-The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
-The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

New and Recommended Fiction

Win a Paperback Copy of WINTER GARDEN by Kristin Hannah for Your Group
We are celebrating the paperback release of Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah --- a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, February 2nd at noon ET.

More about Winter Garden:
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

Win an Advance Copy of JOY FOR BEGINNERS by Erica Bauermeister for Your Group
We are previewing the forthcoming release of Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister --- a lyrical novel about friends who celebrate life by facing their biggest fears --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores June 9, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, February 2nd at noon ET.

More about Joy for Beginners:
On a rare gloriously sunny day in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate’s recovery from cancer. Wine glass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them: to celebrate her new lease on life, she’ll do the one thing that’s always terrified her --- white water rafting. But if she goes, each of them will also do one thing they always swore they’d never do --- and Kate is going to choose their adventure, from getting a tattoo to learning to bake bread to reconciling with a former friend.

Win an Advance Copy of PLANTING DANDELIONS by Kyran Pittman for Your Group
We are previewing the spring release of Planting Dandelions: Field Notes from a Semi-Domesticated Life by Kyran Pittman --- an entertaining tribute to choosing the white picket fence over all the other options available --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores April 28, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, February 2nd at noon ET.

More about Planting Dandelions:
A regular contributor to Good Housekeeping, Kyran Pittman is well loved because she is funny and honest and self-deprecating, because her own household is in chaos (“semi-domesticated”) and because she inspires readers in their own domestic lives. In these 18 linked, chronological essays, Pittman covers the first 12 years of becoming a family, writing candidly and hilariously about things like learning to maintain a marriage over time; dealing with the challenges of sex after childbirth; saying goodbye to her younger self and embracing the still attractive, 40-year-old version; and trying to “recession-proof” her family.

Win a Copy of THE THINGS THAT NEED DOING by Sean Manning for Your Group
We are celebrating the release of The Things That Need Doing by Sean Manning --- the tender, emotional memoir of a son’s indestructible love for his hospitalized mother --- with a special contest. 25 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, February 2nd at noon ET.

More about The Things That Need Doing:
5:38 p.m. It was the precise moment Sean Manning was born and the time each year that his mother wished him happy birthday. But just before he turned 27, their tradition collapsed. A heart attack landed his mom in the hospital and uprooted Manning from his life in New York. What followed was a testament to a family’s indestructible bond --- a life-changing odyssey that broke a boy and made a man --- captured here in Manning’s indelible memoir.

Win a Copy of THE GOLDEN PRINCE by Rebecca Dean for Your Group

We are celebrating the release of The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean --- a rich historical novel about a prince torn between his first love and his obligations to the throne --- with a special contest. 25 readers will have the opportunity to each win one copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, February 2nd at noon ET.

More about The Golden Prince:
It’s 1912, and 17-year-old Prince Edward, England’s Golden Prince of Wales, is feeling the burden of his position. As heir to the greatest throne in the world, he hates the constrictions and superficial demands of his royal life. His father, King George, is a harsh disciplinarian, and his mother, Queen Mary, is reserved and cold. Other than his siblings, he has no friends and despairs at his isolation and loneliness. However, when unexpected circumstances bring him to Snowberry Manor, home of the four Houghton sisters, his life suddenly seems more interesting.

New and Recommended - Fiction

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Now Available in Paperback:
In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson’s wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations. But then his brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

Prayers and Lies by Sherri Wood Emmons
When seven-year-old Bethany meets her six-year-old cousin Reana Mae, it's the beginning of a kinship of misfits that saves both from a bone-deep loneliness. Every summer, Bethany and her family leave Indianapolis for West Virginia's Coal River Valley. For Bethany's mother, the trips are a reminder of the coalmines and grinding poverty of her childhood, of a place she'd hoped to escape. But her loving relatives, and Bethany's friendship with Reana Mae, keep them coming back.

Goodnight Tweetheart by Teresa Medeiros
New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros absolutely dazzles in this quick-witted, laugh-out-loud funny, and highly moving love story that will set readers' hearts atwitter. Abigail Donovan has a lot of stuff she should be doing. Namely writing her next novel. A bestselling author who is still recovering from a near Pulitzer Prize win and the heady success that follows Oprah's stamp of approval, she is stuck at Chapter Five and losing confidence daily. But when her publicist signs her up for a Twitter account, she's intrigued. What's all the fuss?

Tales from the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell
The yoga studio is where daily cares are set aside, mats are unfurled, and physical exertion leads to well-being, renewal and friendship. An aggressively expanding chain of Los Angeles yoga "experience centers" has Lee and her extraordinary teaching abilities in its sights. They woo her with a lucrative contract, a trademarked name for her classes, and a place for her handsome musician husband. But accepting the contract means abandoning the students at the homey studio Lee runs in L.A.'s Silver Lake district --- and leaving behind four women whose friendships are suddenly more important to her than retirement benefits and a salary increase.

For Christian Readers

Angel Sister by Ann H. Gabhart: A middle child struggles to keep her family together in the face of the Great Depression, alcoholism, and her oblivious sisters.
Fatal Judgment: Guardians of Justice, Book 1 by Irene Hannon: A U.S. Marshal must put his personal feelings for a prominent judge aside when he’s charged with protecting her.
Lady in the Mist: The Midwives, Book 1 by Laurie Alice Eakes: A midwife and a nobleman become entangled in a murderous plot and must begin to trust each other, despite their long-held secrets.
The Search: Lancaster Country Secrets, Book 3 by Suzanne Woods Fisher: Two women fall for the same man on an Amish farm where work --- not love --- is the top priority.
Stars Collide: Backstage Pass, Book 1 by Janice Thompson: Two Hollywood co-stars desperately try to keep their real-life romance off camera, evading nosy parents and paparazzi along the way.

Registered Book Club Promotions

For January we have a very special opportunity for Registered Book Groups. Our featured title this month is The Collectibles by James J. Kaufman. Groups who have registered with us by Tuesday, January 18th have the chance to win an author chat and/or free books.

Click here for details.

New Guides
Caveat Emptor: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie: The newest novel in the bestselling Medicus series, featuring death, taxes and angry barbarians.
The Collectibles by James J. Kaufman: An attorney makes an unusual compensation request of a wealthy client in hopes of changing his narcissist ways.
Dina’s Lost Tribe by Brigitte Goldstein: An American historian's search for her mythical birthplace leads her to a mountaintop utopia and the passionate world of a medieval Jewess.
Falling Sideways by Thomas E. Kennedy: By the author of the acclaimed In the Company of Angels, a rollicking, cross-generational satire of work, love and family, grounded in the rubble of a downsizing company.
The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean: The Golden Prince, set in 1912, is a wildly entertaining novel rich in historical detail that will mesmerize readers and leave them begging for more.
Goodnight Tweetheart by Teresa Medeiros: A quick-witted, laugh-out-loud funny, and highly moving love story that will set readers’ hearts atwitter.
Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister: Shimmering with warmth, wit and insight, Joy for Beginners is a celebration of life; unexpected, lyrical and deeply satisfying.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson: A retired military officer finds an unlikely friend --- and maybe more --- in a young Pakistani store clerk.
The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig: A governess trades the quiet life for adventure and danger --- and romance --- in this latest installment to Lauren Willig’s beloved and bestselling Pink Carnation series.
Planting Dandelions: Field Notes from a Semi-Domesticated Life by Kyran Pittman: From a fresh new talent, celebrating the joys and trials of a new generation of parents, Planting Dandelions is an entertaining tribute to choosing the white picket fence over all the other options available.
Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer: For anyone who has ever tried to stand on their head while keeping both feet on the ground, Poser is an irreverent and essential memoir about yoga, motherhood, daughterhood, and the joys of an imperfect life.
Prayers and Lies by Sherri Wood Emmons: Spanning four decades, this debut is a haunting, captivating novel about a young woman crossing into adulthood and confronting her small town’s troubled past.
Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag: The second thriller in the Deeper than the Dead microseries explores the early days of forensic investigation, the characteristics of innocence --- and the nature of evil.
Tales from the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell: A sparkling new series introducing five unforgettable women who flock to yoga at turning points in their lives and find the gift of lasting friendship.
Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie: In this highly anticipated sequel to Ruth Downie's New York Times bestselling debut, beloved army doctor Gaius Petrius Ruso strikes out for the uncivilized borders of Roman Britain, where he runs into murder and the ghosts of his vexingly beautiful slave Tilla's past.
Then Came the Evening by Brian Hart: An unflinchingly, gorgeously written literary debut from a writer earning comparisons to Cormac McCarthy.
The Things That Need Doing: A Memoir by Sean Manning: Sean Manning’s indelible memoir, The Things That Need Doing, is a testament to one family’s indestructible bond --- at once a tragic and uplifting life-changing odyssey.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah: Two sisters reunite to care for their ailing father and learn about their cantankerous mother’s past.

Oprah's Book Club Selection

A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Click here to read the January 2011 edition of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter.
Click here to visit the ReadingGroupGuides.com homepage.

December 2010

2010-12-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Wednesday, December 1st.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:

-Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay
-Deep Down True by Juliette Fay
-Shelter Me by Juliette Fay
-Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel
-Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
-The Wave: In Search of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey
-One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
-A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic

New and Recommended Fiction
Stay With Me by Sandra Barron Rodriguez
In 1979, five toddlers were found alone in a luxury boat tied to a dock in Puerto Rico after a devastating hurricane. No one knew who they were or where they came from. Raised by different families, they remained connected by a special bond --- always considering themselves siblings, despite their unknown blood relations. Intensely gripping and lyrically written, Stay with Me is a magnificent blend of romance, suspense, atmosphere and intrigue that brilliantly explores the true meaning of family and the remarkable ways a personal history can paint a future.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

Salting Roses by Lorelle Marinello
Gracie Lynne Calloway --- once left in a coal bucket on a front porch in a small Alabama town --- discovers on her 25th birthday that she is the kidnapped daughter of a late New England financier and heiress to a fortune. When the tabloid press and her unwanted greedy relatives descend on her, she has to admit the quiet secure life she's known and loved is gone for good. As Gracie struggles to stabilize her world and come to terms with her new identity, she learns that belonging is not about where you came from but who you are.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

New Guides

Cleaving: A Story of Meat, Marriage, and Obsession by Julie Powell: Food once saved the life of the bestselling author of Julie and Julia, but now will it save her marriage?
Fleshmarket Alley by Ian Rankin: Inspector John Rebus explores Edinburgh’s seedy underbelly of sex, crime and power --- and crosses too many familiar faces.
The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin: Inspector John Rebus races the clock to uncover the bizarre death of a diplomat during an international political summit.
A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin: A former solider murders two teenagers and the Army tries to cover up the crime --- until Inspector John Rebus comes on the scene.
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin: Inspector John Rebus straddles a dangerously thin line between good guys and bad cops, when two murder inquiries cross paths.
Salting Roses by Lorelle Marinello: A young woman abandoned as an infant on an Alabama porch is horrified to discover that she is the missing heiress to a vast Connecticut fortune --- a birthright she is desperate to reject in favor of her Peachtree Lane roots.
So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor: A museum curator searches for answers to his true identity after learning he was adopted.
Stay with Me by Sandra Rodriguez Barron: Five shipwrecked toddlers approach adulthood, all linked by the devastating events that will forever bind them together.
The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss: A true story about ordinary women who became extraordinary as they triumphed over tragedy, relying on their strength and resiliency alongside friendships with one another.
You Were Wrong by Matthew Sharpe: Darkly funny and original, You Were Wrong is a surreal detective story told with heart, wit and a singular voice.

Please note that these titles, for which we already had the guides when they appeared in hardcover, are now available in paperback:

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith: From the bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series comes a delightful story about the restorative powers of friendship and music.
Rainwater by Sandra Brown: From acclaimed bestselling author Sandra Brown comes a powerfully moving novel celebrating the gifts, generosity and foresight of a great bygone generation.
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova: The bestselling author of The Historian returns with a tale of obsession, the losses of history, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

The following guide is now available for Christian book groups:

Christmas at Harrington’s by Melody Carlson: A woman recently released from prison unexpectedly finds herself cast as Mrs. Santa at a department store.

Oprah's Book Club Selection

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Click here to read the December 2010 edition of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter.
Click here to visit the ReadingGroupGuides.com homepage.

November 2010

2010-11-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Wednesday, November 3rd.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:

-Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
-Still Alice by Lisa Genova
-Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
-The Brave by Nicholas Evans
-Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
-The Wave: In Search of Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey
-The Night Bookmobile by Audrey NIffenegger
-The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
-Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenenegger
-The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
-K nit the Season by Kate Jacobs
-Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons From My Grandmothers by Adrianna Trigiani
-Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Special Features and Contests

Win a Paperback Copy of SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT by Beth Hoffman for Your Group

We are celebrating the paperback release of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman --- a young girl’s emotional coming-of-age story in the South during the civil rights movement --- with a special contest. 25 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, December 1st at noon ET.

More about Saving CeeCee Honeycutt:
Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille --- the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town --- a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

-Click here to read all the contest details.
-Click here for the reading group guide.

Win an Advance Copy of THE UNCOUPLING by Meg Wolitzer for Your Group

We are previewing next year’s release of The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer --- a novel from the bestselling author of The Ten-Year Nap about love lives gone awry at a high school --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores April 5, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, December 1st at noon ET.

More about The Uncoupling:
When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play “Lysistrata” --- the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war --- a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don't really understand. As the women worry over their loss of passion, and the men become by turns unhappy, offended, and above all, confused, both sides are forced to look at their shared history, and at their sexual selves in a new light.

-Click here for the contest details.
-Click here for the reading group guide.

Win an Advance Copy of THE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown for Your Group

We are previewing next year’s release of The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown --- a debut novel about the complicated terrain of sisters, the power of books, and the places we decide to call home --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores January 20, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, December 1st at noon ET.

More about The Weird Sisters:
The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from --- one another, their small hometown, and themselves --- might offer more than they ever expected.

-Click here for the contest details.
-Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended – Nonfiction
Now Available in Paperback: JUSTICE: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel
Harvard government professor Michael J. Sandel dazzles in this sweeping survey of hot topics --- the recent government bailouts, the draft, surrogate pregnancies, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and reparations for slavery --- that situates various sides in the debates in the context of timeless philosophical questions and movements.

-Click here to register for a special web even with Michael J. Sandel.
-Click here to learn more about the class.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
Beloved, bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life. Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is also a voracious reader. He has for years kept a notebook in which he notes words or phrases, just from a love of language. But reading for him is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended Fiction
In Paperback November 9th: Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
When Valentine's grandmother begins a new life in Italy, she places Valentine and her nemesis, her brother Alfred, "the Prince," as partners at the Angelini Shoe Company, makers of handcrafted wedding shoes since 1903. A once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity takes Valentine from the winding streets of Greenwich Village to the sun-kissed cobblestones of Buenos Aires, where she unearths a long-buried family secret and finds herself torn between a past love that nurtured her and a new one that promises to sustain her, in this follow-up to Very Valentine.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

The Perfect Love Song by Patti Callahan Henry
In The Perfect Love Song, Patti Callahan Henry tells the story of Jimmy Sullivan, who has been living on the road with his brother, Jack, and their band The Unknown Souls. The road is Jimmy’s only home and music his only savior until he falls in love with a beautiful girl, Charlotte Carrington. Spending time with Charlotte inspires Jimmy to write a love song for her, which becomes an overnight sensation and is dubbed “The Perfect Love Song.”

-Click here for the reading group guide.

Compass Rose by John Casey
It’s been more than two decades since Spartina won the National Book Award and was acclaimed by critics as being “possibly the best American novel…since The Old Man and the Sea” (The New York Times Book Review). But in this extraordinary follow-up novel, barely any time has passed in the magical landscape of salt ponds and marshes in John Casey’s fictional Rhode Island estuary. With an uncanny ability to plunge confidently and unwaveringly into the thoughts and desires of women --- mothers, daughters, wives, lovers --- Casey astonishes us again with the power of a family saga.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other --- or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results. The Finkler Question is a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.

-Click here for the reading group guide.

New Guides

Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani: Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani returns with her second installment in her popular Valentine series, which finds Valentine on her way to South America.
The Brave by Nicholas Evans: The beloved author of The Horse Whisperer returns to the American West with a filmmaker trying to make amends with his tangled past.
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff: Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff explores the exotic, mysterious life of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile.
Compass Rose by John Casey: John Casey returns to the Rhode Island estuary that was the setting for his acclaimed novel, Spartina.
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson: This year’s Man Booker Prize winner follows three friends as they retrace missteps through their personal lives.
Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage by Hazel Rowley: An intimate look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency and the influence of his wife, Eleanor.
In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother’s Suicide by Nancy Rappaport: A professor of psychiatry at Harvard explores her mother’s devastating suicide and the factors that motivated it.
Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel: Inspired by Michael J. Sandel’s popular Harvard class, Justice raises a number of philosophical and moral dilemmas.
Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner: The lives of two women are linked across centuries when one finds a ring with a strange inscription in modern-day Manhattan.
Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir by Kaylie Jones: A memoir of growing up as part of the New York City literati.
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy: The beloved bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini discusses the books and writers that influenced his life and shaped his career.|
Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin: The heartwarming story of Oogy, a badly beaten puppy on the brink of death rescued by Larry Levin’s family.
The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story by Patti Callahan Henry: A struggling singer writes “the perfect love song” and finds fame and fortune, but not the lady who inspired the hit.
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman: A young girl is taken in by her raucos aunt and receives an education from the citizens of a Southern town during the civil rights movement.
Spooner by Pete Dexter: A man and his stepfather try to form a relationship despite their many differences, opinions and lifestyles.
Stronger Than Sin by Caridad Piñeiro: A doctor’s cutting-edge procedure gives an NFL star superhuman powers.
The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp: A former top ballerina in the Russian ballet recounts her life, career, romances and the cutthroat dancing world.
The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer: The love lives of high school students, teachers and faculty are turned upside down when they begin rehearsing a classic play.
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown: Three sisters return home to their ailing mother and Shakespeare-obsessed father to confront each other and their pasts.
The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent: Newlyweds in colonial Massachusetts confront the rugged landscape, woodlands predators and assassins seeking revenge.

Please note that these titles, for which we already had the guides when they appeared in hardcover, are now available in paperback:

Deeper Than Dead by Tami Hoag
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky
Notes Left Behind by Brooke and Keith Desserich
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

The following new guide is now available for Christian book groups:

Almost Heaven by Chris Fabry
Code Triage: Mercy Hospital Series, Book 3 by Candace Calvert
Emily’s Chance: The Callahans of Texas, Book 2 by Sharon Gillenwater
Pursuit of Justice: Call of Duty Series, Book 3 by DiAnn Mills

Oprah's Book Club Selection
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Click here to read the November 2010 edition of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter.

Click here to visit the ReadingGroupGuides.com homepage.

October 2010

2010-10-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Friday, October 8th.

The results of ReadingGroupGuides.com's 10th Anniversary Contest were announced this month. You can view the Top 10 Discussion Books here. We also used the results to create Top 10 lists in the following categories:

-Top 10 Classics
-Top 10 Memoirs/Biographies
-Top 10 Young Adult/Kids Books
-Top 10 Books Featuring Animals
-Selections You Might Not Expect

We selected 50 winners from more than 12,000 entries to receive a $200 gift card to the retailer of their choice. Some winners also elected to donate their prize to local libraries, schools and other organizations.

News about the contest results were featured in October 14th edition of Publishers Weekly, the October 13th edition of Shelf Awareness, and a blog post in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's daily blog from October 15th. Click the publication to name to view respective articles.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:
-Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
-Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund
-Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
-Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
-Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
-Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger by Lee Smith
-Night Road by Kristin Hannah
-True Colors by Kristin Hannah
-Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Special Features and Contests

Win a Copy of SARAH'S KEY by Tatiana de Rosnay for Your Group

Here’s your chance to win a copy of the international bestseller Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay --- the bestselling book club favorite from one of Europe’s most acclaimed authors --- with a special contest. 80 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, November 3rd at noon ET.

More about Sarah's Key:
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win a Copy of A HAPPY MARRIAGE for Your Group

We are celebrating the paperback release of A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias --- an emotional, deeply-felt novel of one man’s beloved wife --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win one paperback copy of the book, which is in stores now, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, November 3rd at noon ET.

More about A Happy Marriage:
A Happy Marriage is both intimate and expansive: It is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife, Margaret, a novel that alternates between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret's life as she says good-bye to her family, friends and children --- and to Enrique. Spanning 30 years, this achingly honest story is about what it means for two people to spend a lifetime together --- and what makes a happy marriage.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win an Advance Copy of THE OTHER LIFE for Your Group

We are previewing next year’s release of The Other Life by Ellen Meister --- a haunting novel of one woman’s paranormal ability to see the consequences of her decisions --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores February 3, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, November 3rd at noon ET.

More about The Other Life:
If you could return to the road not taken, would you? Happily married and pregnant, Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret. Every time she makes a major life decision, she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice --- not only that, she knows how to cross over. But even in her darkest moments --- like her mother’s suicide --- Quinn hasn’t been tempted to slip through…until she receives devastating news about the baby she’s carrying.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

Win an Advance Copy of YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE for Your Group

We are previewing next year’s release of You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon --- a collection of short stories about military wives and the tension-filled lives they lead --- with a special contest. 100 readers will have the opportunity to each win one advance copy of the book, which will be in stores January 20, 2011, for their group. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, November 3rd at noon ET.

More about You Know When the Men are Gone:
If you could return to the road not taken, would you? Happily married and pregnant, Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret. Every time she makes a major life decision, she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice --- not only that, she knows how to cross over. But even in her darkest moments --- like her mother’s suicide --- Quinn hasn’t been tempted to slip through…until she receives devastating news about the baby she’s carrying.

Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended Fiction
The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire
International bestselling author Gregory Maguire --- who re-imagined the land of Oz and all its fabled inhabitants in his monumental series, The Wicked Years --- brings us a wildly farcical and gloriously imaginative tall tale of faith, Catholic dogma, lust, and questionable miracles on the eve of Y2K. The very bizarre and hilarious goings on in the eccentric town of Thebes make for a delightfully mad reading experience --- as The Next Queen of Heaven shows off the acclaimed author in a brilliant new heavenly light.

Click here for the reading group guide.

To the End of the Land by David Grossman
Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer’s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the “notifiers” who might darken her door with the worst possible news. Recently estranged from her husband, Ilan, she drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend and her former lover Avram, once a brilliant artistic spirit. As Ora and Avram sleep out in the hills, ford rivers, and cross valleys, avoiding all news from the front, she gives him the gift of Ofer, word by word; she supplies the whole story of her motherhood, a retelling that keeps Ofer very much alive for Ora.

Click here for the reading group guide.

Bound by Antonya Nelson
Wichita, Kansas is back in the headlines. Twenty-five years ago, the serial killer known as BTK --- Bind, Torture, and Kill --- was in the backdrop of Catherine and Misty’s adolescence in Wichita. Now the BTK has struck again, and Catherine is flooded with memories of growing up in the killer’s heyday with her best friend, Misty, who left town for good after graduation. Catherine learns that Misty has just died in a car accident --- and left her daughter, Cattie, in the hands of her namesake, Catherine. In the midst of all these secrets and lies, Catherine isn’t sure she can take care of a teenager she’s never met. And Cattie isn’t sure she can face the world without her tough-talking, devoted mother.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Debutante by Kathleen Tessaro
She brought us Elegance, Innocence and The Flirt --- and now the exceptional Kathleen Tessaro takes contemporary women’s fiction to new heights with The Debutante. The story of a troubled New York artist transplanted to London, where she gets drawn into the strange, secret history of a notorious debutante from the previous century, Tessaro’s novel is a mystery combined with a love story within a poignant tale of a modern young woman’s self-discovery --- and readers of Jane Green, Anna Maxted and Marian Keyes will take it deep into their hearts.

Click here for the reading guide.

Undressing the Moon by T. Greenwood
At 30, Piper Kincaid feels too young to be dying. Cancer has eaten away her strength. Yet with all the questions of her future before her, she’s adrift in the past, remembering the fateful summer she turned 14 and her life changed forever. Her nervous father’s job search seemed stalled for good, as he hung around the house watching her mother’s every move. What he and Piper had both dreaded at last came to pass: Her restless, artistic mother, who smelled of lilacs and showed Piper beauty, finally left.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel
Now Available in Paperback
A novel that combines the moving story of a friendship told in letters with more than 80 delicious recipes, The Recipe Club is a wonderful literary banquet. A celebration of female bonding and excellent cooking --- with scrumptious dishes developed by New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark --- The Recipe Club will satisfy readers who previously devoured The Friday Night Knitting Club, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Click here for the reading group guide.

The Secrets Sisters Keep by Abby Drake
The secrets sisters keep can be startling --- and in the hands of Abby Drake, author of Perfect Little Ladies and Good Little Wives, they can be outrageous, eye-opening, wickedly smart and wildly funny. With The Secrets Sisters Keep, Drake once again takes women’s fiction far beyond common chick lit --- delighting readers with a deeply satisfying story of four sisters gathering at a rich uncle’s home to celebrate his birthday. But they’ll have to find the old man first, since he’s inconveniently gone missing.

Click here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended – Nonfiction

Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
Now Available in Paperback
Sue Monk Kidd has touched the hearts of millions of readers with her beloved novels and acclaimed nonfiction. Now, in this wise and engrossing dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, chronicle their travels together through Greece and France at a time when each was on a quest to redefine herself and rediscover each other.

Click here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

New Christian Guides

Faithful by Kim Cash Tate
For Time and Eternity: The Sister Wife Series, Book 1 by Allison Pittman
A Hope Undaunted: Winds of Change, Book 1 by Julie Lessman
The House on Malcolm Street by Leisha Kelly
Making Waves: Lake Manawa Summers, Book 1 by Lorna Seilstad
A Memory Between Us: Wings of Glory, Book 2 by Sarah Sundin
Whisper on the Wind: The Great War Series, Book 2 by Maureen Lang

Registered Book Club Promotion

For October we have two very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are Finny by Justin Kramon and Secrets of Harmony Grove by Mindy Starns Clark. Groups who registered with us by Tuesday, October 19th have the chance to win author chats and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

Click here for details.

New Guides

Bound by Antonya Nelson: Critically acclaimed author Antonya Nelson’s much anticipated first novel in a decade --- a story of tangled lives, set in a Wichita riveted by the reemergence of an infamous serial killer.
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham: Michael Cunningham’s masterly new novel is a heart-breaking look at the way we live now, much like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours.
Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship by Cathie Beck: A memoir of friendship about a mother who puts an ad in the paper seeking friends, and finds a group that changes her life.
Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson: A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation --- and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners.
Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela: After a lifetime of taking pen to paper to record thoughts and events, hardships and victories, Nelson Mandela has bestowed his entire extant personal papers, which offer an unprecedented insight into his remarkable life.
The Debutante by Kathleen Tessaro: An auction appraiser stumbles across a box full of pricey items and sets out to return them to their rightful owners.
Doors Open by Ian Rankin: Ian Rankin creates a highly-charged caper of second guesses and double crosses right until the harrowing finish.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer: The bestselling book --- by one of the preeminent literary voices of his generation --- that has ignited a national conversation about what we eat.
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett: This first installment of Follett’s The Century Trilogy follows five families spread across the continents in sweeping historical detail and narrative as only the master behind Pillars of the Earth can do.
The False Friend by Myla Goldberg: A woman who was presumed kidnapped more than 20 years ago returns to her hometown, much to the disbelief of its citizens, and offers her account of the fateful event.
Finny by Justin Kramon: A funny, emotional and honest coming-of-age story follows a young woman from her teen years through her mid-30s in this highly-praised debut.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow: An ambitious, award-winning debut told from multiple perspectives about an 11-year-old biracial girl and the event that shattered her world.
The Golden Hustla by Wahida Clark: Nina Coles, hood chick from What's Really Hood?, makes a home in Atlanta hoping to turn her life around. But she'll learn that you can't run from trouble in New York Times bestselling author Wahida Clark's newest urban tale.
The Good Sister by Drusilla Campbell: The gripping story of two sisters, one of whom begins suffering from postpartum depression while the other sister helps her recover as she comes to terms with the family legacy of lies and secrecy.
A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias: The fictional account of a courtship, 30-year marriage and its tragic outcome from the author of Fearless.
In the Belly of Jonah: A Liv Bergen Mystery by Sandra Brannan: The first novel in this series follows amateur sleuth Liv Bergen as she uncovers the death of an intern at a mining camp and the strange circumstances surrounding it.
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli: A richly detailed, vivid novel of the Vietnam War and its aftermath on three people: a photographer, a deserter and a woman seeking answers to her brother’s death.
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal: Now a Judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship.
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden: A successful playwright procrastinates her next project by visiting her friend’s Dublin apartment, and reflecting upon their 20-year friendship.
The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire: The bestselling author of Wicked offers this religious satire on the eve of the Y2K hysteria as a town’s residents become embroiled in church scandals.
The Other Life by Ellen Meister: Happily married and pregnant, Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret as every time she makes a major life decision, she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice --- not only that, she knows how to cross over.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender: A young baker discovers she can taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, which leads her to confront friends, family members, past decisions and her mother.
The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel: Loyalty, loss and the ties that bind: These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a "novel cookbook" that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than 80 delicious recipes.
The Reversal by Michael Connelly: Detective Harry Boesch and attorney Mickey Haller team up to keep a brutal serial killer behind bars despite exonerating evidence.
Room by Emma Donoghue: The haunting bestselling, Man Booker-nominated novel of a young boy, his mother, the only room he knows and the circumstances that put him there.
Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye: Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father 35 years after the tragic wreck upon the Great Lakes.
The Secrets Sisters Keep by Abby Drake: Drake's funny and wise family soaper features four unhappy sisters who arrive at their uncle’s 75th birthday party, only to find the guest of honor has gone missing.
The Stray Sod Country by Patrick McCabe: McCabe's enjoyable final installment to his Small-Town series is the charming and often dark ensemble story of Cullymore in 1957, a small Irish town near the U.K. border.
Tears of Pearl by Tasha Alexander: This historical mystery set in Constantinople focuses on a husband and wife’s investigation of the murder of a harem girl, and the lengths that those in power will go to keep it covered up.
To the End of the Land by David Grossman: An Israeli mother fears for her son’s safety as he enlists in a military campaign, but keeps her hope and faith strong by sharing fond memories of their family.
Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor: The bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and her daughter embark on a trip to discover more about themselves and each other.
Two Cents Plain: My Brooklyn Boyhood by Martin Lemelman: A graphic novel memoir of a boy’s childhood in the rapidly decaying Brownsville section of Brooklyn during the 1950s and 1960s.
Undressing the Moon by T. Greenwood: A breast cancer survivor recounts her troubled childhood and the free-spirited artist mother who abandoned her.
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris: The Unnamed is a deeply felt, luminous novel about modern life, ancient yearnings, and the power of human understanding.
Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson: Tillie Harris's life is in disarray --- her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren't unpacked, the telephone isn't connected yet --- and sudden labor pains force Tillie to reach out to her estranged father for help.
Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature by Osprey Orielle Lake: Artist-author-advocate Osprey Orielle Lake explores how the beauty, vitality and ecological systems of the natural world can guide and transform human perspective, particularly as we face current environmental crises.
The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink: The acclaimed author of The Reader follows old friends as they plan a party for a friend just out of prison, and plot their next attack.
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon: Fallon takes readers inside the homes and hearts of army wives anxiously awaiting the return of their husbands in this collection of stories.

Please note that these titles, for which we already had the guides when they appeared in hardcover, are now available in paperback:

The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison: The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition --- boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town.

Oprah's Book Club Selection
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Click here to read the October 2010 edition of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter.

Click here to visit the ReadingGroupGuides.com homepage.

October 2009

2009-10-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The following features and discussion guides began running on ReadingGroupGuides.com on Thursday, October 8th.

The titles below are also mentioned in the ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter Opener, which can be read here:
-The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
-Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

New and Recommended Fiction

The Lost Symbol
by Dan Brown

In this stunning follow-up to the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown demonstrates once again why he is the world's most popular thriller writer. The Lost Symbol is a masterstroke of storytelling --- a deadly race through a real-world labyrinth of codes, secrets and unseen truths...all under the watchful eye of Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol accelerates through a startling landscape toward an unthinkable finale.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

Chronic City
by Jonathan Lethem

The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires and lies. Like Manhattan itself, Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is beautiful and tawdry, tragic and forgiving, devastating and antic, a stand-in for the whole world and a place utterly unique.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

The Concubine's Daughter
by Pai Kit Fai

Take a journey back to early 20th century China in The Concubine's Daughter. Just as Lisa See captivated readers with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The Concubine's Daughter will leave you mesmerized with its passionate tale of love and courage.

From remote mountain refuges to Hong Kong on the eve of World War II, this adventurous tale spanning two generations reveals an amazing cultural journey of a mother and daughter as sweeping changes unfold in 20th century China.

The Concubine's Daughter is destined to be a reading group favorite, so don't miss the extensive bonus content in the back of the book; and click here for a chance to win a free copy!

Click Here for the reading group guide.

Lying With the Dead
by Michael Mewshaw

In this novel, Greek tragedy meets a dysfunctional family from Maryland, when the matriarch calls home her three children. Quinn must fly in from England, putting a new love interest and a career-boosting role on hold. Maury rides in on a bus from his quiet life out west. Candy is already in Maryland, where she takes care of her mother and dreams of retiring to North Carolina with her boyfriend. Once the family is reassembled, Mewshaw invites us into the heart of a family dynamic, exploding prejudices about love, religion and murder.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

The Book of Fathers
by Miklós Vámos

Now Available in Paperback:
When in 1705 Kornél Csillag's grandfather finds a gold pocket watch gleaming in the mud, the shipwrecked fortunes of the Csillag family suddenly take a new and marvelous turn. The golden watch brings with it the gift of clairvoyance. Passed down from father to firstborn son, the gift is a blessing for some, a curse for others. No matter the outcome, each generation records its astonishing, vivid and revelatory visions in a battered journal that becomes known as The Book of Fathers.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

The Return
by Victoria Hislop

Sonia knows nothing of Granada's shocking past, but ordering a cup of coffee in a cafe will lead her to the tale of the Ramirez family's fight to survive the horror of the Spanish Civil War 70 years earlier. Four siblings --- a serious teacher, a flamboyant matador, a skilled musician and a spirited flamenco dancer --- must choose whether to submit, fight or attempt escape, and their decisions impact their family forever.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

Angel Lane
by Sheila Roberts

Have you ever wanted to change the world for the better?

In this heartwarming novel, three small-town shop owners and best friends set their sights on doing just that. But their aspiration to "keep the heart in Heart Lake" by asking their neighbors to commit one random act of kindness every day leads them to some pretty wild situations, and shows one woman that love can grow from the most unexpected places.

Ripe with irresistible humor, friendship and delicious recipes inspired by the story, Angel Lane teaches the important of kindness, friendship and taking a chance on love.

Click here for a chance to win a free copy of Angel Lane!

Click Here for the reading group guide.

According to Jane
by Marilyn Brant

Jane Austen fans will relish Marilyn Brant's new novel, According to Jane, as the ghost of Jane Austen takes up residence in brainy Ellie Barnett's mind. Follow Ellie's adventures in pride, prejudice and the pursuit of the perfect guy...as she must decide whether to follow her head or her heart to find her own happy ending.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

Sunflowers
by Sheramy Bundrick

When love blossoms between Vincent van Gogh and a young prostitute, the artist finds the inspiration he needs to fully invest himself in his paintings. But as time passes, Rachel gains a deeper insight into a man struggling with personal demons. Can Vincent's growing attachment to Rachel save him? And will Rachel find the strength to stand by a man she has come to care for deeply, even as he spirals into darkness?

Click Here for the reading group guide.

New and Recommended Nonfiction

Thin Is the New Happy
by Valerie Frankel

Now Available in Paperback:
For anyone who loves feel-good, relatable memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love. Val Frankel may be a successful novelist and magazine writer, but she was a very unsuccessful dieter: cabbage soup, lemon juice, etc... and she hated herself for it.

Not wanting to pass this legacy to her daughters, Val stopped dieting and started living. Conclusion: unburden yourself from body image, and excess weight dissolves too. Val lost 20 lbs., looks smokin' and, most notably, loves herself more now than ever!

Click here for a chance to win a free copy of Thin is the New Happy.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

The Ladies' Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets
by Irene Vilar

Eleven years after her mother's suicide, 18-year-old Irene Vilar awakens in a psychiatric hospital after her own attempt and begins to face the devastating inheritance of abandonment and suicide passed down to her from grandmother and mother. Alternating between Vilar's notes from the ward and the unraveling of her family's secrets, this lyrical and powerful memoir of three generations of Puerto Rican women is urgent, impassioned and unforgettable.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict
by Irene Vilar

Impossible Motherhood is a heartrending and ultimately triumphant testimonial as told by a writer pregnant with her 17th child, looking back at her history of addiction. Abortion has never offered any honest person easy answers, and Vilar's journey through self-inflicted wounds, compulsive patterns and historical hauntings revisits the difficulties of this difficult subject, and it prompts an important, much needed discussion --- literary, political, social and philosophical. Impossible Motherhood is at once a fragile coming-of-age story and an affirmation of the spirit.

Click Here for the reading group guide.

For Christian Readers

New Christian Guides

Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World by Suzanne Woods Fisher

Divine Inspirations: Words of God's Love and Grace by Cindy A. Warren

The Jewel of His Heart: Heart of the West, Book 2 by Maggie Brendan

Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh

The Swiss Courier by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey

Thirsty by Tracey Bateman

White Picket Fences by Susan Meissner

Registered Book Club Promotion

For October we have FIVE very special opportunities for Registered Book Groups. Our featured titles this month are The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan, Oxygen by Carol Cassella, Windfall by Penny Vincenzi, Thirsty by Tracey Bateman and Where Grace Abides by BJ Hoff. Groups who have registered with us by Thursday, October 15th have the chance to win author chats and/or free books. If your group is not registered, click here to register.

Click here for details.

New Guides

According to Jane by Marilyn Brant: Jane Austen fans will relish According to Jane, as the ghost of Jane Austen takes up residence in brainy Ellie Barnett's mind. Follow Ellie's adventures in pride, prejudice and the pursuit of the perfect guy.

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence -- and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process by Irene Pepperberg: Irene was 28 when she bought Alex, a one-year-old African gray parrot. Little did she know that 30 years later Alex would pass away as the smartest --- and most famous --- parrot to ever live.

Alexander and Alestria by Shan Sa: The imaginative tale of the dramatic love affair between Alexander the Great and Alestria, queen of the Amazons, when both are at the height of their powers.

Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World by Suzanne Woods Fisher: Organized around five central themes in Amish life, Amish Peace shows you how you can cultivate a simple life of love, gratitude and faith in the midst of a very complicated world.

America Libre by Raul Ramos y Sanchez: When undercover detectives in San Antonio accidentally kill a young Latina bystander during a botched drug bust, riots erupt across the Southwest.

Angel Lane by Sheila Roberts: With irresistible humor, warmth, affection --- and recipes --- author Sheila Roberts serves up a generous, open-hearted story about the friendships we make, the chances we take, and the lives we touch every day.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell: With the mob, the government and death itself descending on the hospital, Dr. Peter Brown has to buy time and do whatever it takes to keep his patients, himself, and his last shot at redemption alive. To get through the next eight hours --- and somehow beat the reaper.

Better Because of You by Ginny Hutchinson and Cathy Haffner: Authors Ginny Hutchinson and Cathy Haffner share true-to-life stories that can help you do small things each day to make a big difference in your life.

Blame by Michelle Huneven: Blame is a spellbinding novel of guilt and love, family and shame, sobriety and the lack of it, and the moral ambiguities that ensnare us all.

The Blue Star by Tony Earley: This is a timeless and moving story of discovery, loss and growing up, proving why Tony Earley's writing "radiates with a largeness of heart" (Esquire).

The Book of Fathers by Miklós Vámos: For 300 years, a battered journal is passed down the Csillag family line, in which each generation's firstborn son records his life. Known as The Book of Fathers, the journal bears witness to holocaust and wedding feast alike.

The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini: The Way We Were set in Zimbabwe after independence, a moving and powerful love story set against the backdrop of political upheaval.

By the Time You Read This by Lola Jaye: Already a national bestseller in the U.K., Lola Jaye's By the Time You Read This is a profoundly beautiful story of a father's abiding love for the daughter he will never see grow up.

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve: The new novel about the fragility of a young marriage from one of our greatest chroniclers of the mysteries of the human heart.

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem: The acclaimed author of The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires and lies.

The Concubine's Daughter by Pai Kit Fai: An epic, heartwrenching story of a mother and daughter's journey to their destiny.

Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz: A Quinceañera Club Novel by Belinda Acosta: "...a book about damas of all ages, from teenage girls to the struggling mothers of those teenage girls..." --Julia Alvarez, author of Return to Sender

Divine Inspirations: Words of God's Love and Grace by Cindy A. Warren: This book is a series of love letters spoken from God that expresses the inseparable love that God truly has for all of His creation.

Dutch by Teri Woods: James Bernard Jr., a.k.a. Dutch, has become the most dangerous criminal in New Jersey. Feared by all, and completely fearless, Dutch and his dangerous clique take over the lucrative heroin business of a local African drug lord.

An Eye for an Eye: Heroes of Quantico Series, Book 2 by Irene Hannon: A fast-paced tale of romance, suspense and intrigue, An Eye for an Eye is the exciting second book in the Heroes of Quantico series.

Evenings at the Argentine Club by Julia Amante: Victor and Jaqueline Torres imagined moving to the U.S. would bring happiness and prosperity --- instead they found a world of frustration.

Feelin' the Vibe by Candice Dow: Clark Winston now has to make the most important decision of her life --- choose the man who broke her heart or the one who fixed it.

The Fire by Katherine Neville: The spectacular chess game in The Eight --- which captivated readers with exotic locales, fascinating historic figures and a labyrinthine plot --- returns in force in the dazzling sequel: The Fire!

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore: A dazzling new novel by the author of Birds of America --- an ambitious book about post-9/11 anxiety, race, war and love.

Generosity: An Enchantment by Richard Powers: From the National Book Award–winning author of The Echo Maker, a playful and provocative novel about the discovery of the happiness gene.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir by Katrina Kenison: An intimate memoir of a family in transition --- boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town.

Girl Trouble: Stories by Holly Goddard Jones: Rona Jaffe Award winner Holly Goddard Jones's debut short story collection, set around small-town Southerners caught in moral and sometimes mortal quandaries.

Have a Little Faith: A True Story by Mitch Albom: A book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story.

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb: A profound and heart-rending work of fiction. Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller, assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity.

I'm So Happy for You: A Novel About Best Friends by Lucinda Rosenfeld: A smart, darkly humorous and uncannily dead-on novel about female friendship.

Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict by Irene Vilar: A courageous and extraordinary memoir of one woman's journey through family trauma and self-mutilation, and her determined struggle to prevail into motherhood.

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea: Filled with unforgettable characters and prose as radiant as the Sinaloan sun, Into the Beautiful North is the story of an irresistible young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence.

The Jewel of His Heart: Heart of the West, Book 2 by Maggie Brendan: Juliana Brady is alone in an 1890s Montana mining town, with few prospects for making a living. But she is determined not to be dependent on the charity of others.

The King's Daughter: A Novel of the First Tudor Queen by Sandra Worth: In this groundbreaking novel, award-winning author Sandra Worth vividly brings to life the people's queen, "Elizabeth the Good."

The Ladies' Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets by Irene Vilar: A razor-sharp memoir about the allure of suicide for three generations of women in one Puerto Rican family and the frightening family secrets that have haunted a grandmother, mother and daughter in their search for self.

Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh: Piper Wick left her hometown of Pickwick, North Carolina, 12 years ago, and did not look back. Now all of Piper's hard-won happiness is threatened by a reclusive uncle's bout of conscience.

The Longest Trip Home: A Memoir by John Grogan: The funny and poignant memoir of faith, family and identity from John Grogan --- the #1 international bestselling author of the beloved Marley & Me.

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser: Tom Loxley, an Indian-Australian professor, is less concerned with finishing his book on Henry James than with finding his dog, who is lost in the Australian bush.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown: In this stunning follow-up to the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown demonstrates once again why he is the world's most popular thriller writer.

Lying with the Dead by Michael Mewshaw: Narrated by three very different siblings --- dutiful but tough Candy, sweet but disturbed Maury, and successful but despondent Quinn --- Lying with the Dead is a moving and darkly humorous story of three adult children and their aging, embittered mother.

Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato: A fiercely funny and touching debut novel about a young girl trying to find out the truth behind her sister's death.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison: An ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter --- a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope by Eleanor Herman: A scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose remarkable story is ripe with secrets, sex, passion and ambition.

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi: In the tradition of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, Douglas Preston weaves a captivating account of crime and punishment in the lush hills of Florence, Italy.

My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare by Jess Winfield: In this retelling of William Shakespeare's youth, his story is paired with that of another Shakespeare: a struggling graduate student in Reagan-era California.

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos: George Pelecanos achieves in The Night Gardener what his brilliant career has been building toward: a novel that is a perfect union of suspense, character and unstoppable fate.

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan: What would your life be like if you had zero impact on the environment? Colin Beavan tackled this question, embarking on a yearlong experiment with his wife and their toddler.

Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie: From the author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a haunting tale of love and the beguiling power of a lost language.

One Foot Wrong by Sofie Laguna: For Hester, the only child of religiously reclusive parents, the outside world is forbidden. But once she catches a glimpse of what she's been missing, escaping her sheltered life becomes something worth fighting for.

The Palace of Strange Girls by Sallie Day: Over a holiday week, the Singletons must struggle to find their place in the shifting world of promenade amusements, illicit sex and stilted afternoon teas in this touching and evocative novel.

The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley: An electrifying epic page-turner, based on the incredible true story of a princess turned spy.

A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison by R. Dwayne Betts: A beautifully, brutally honest memoir about one imprisoned boy's harrowing journey towards freedom and manhood.

A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory: A thrilling --- and often chilling --- tale that not only evokes strong emotions but asks important questions about our own morality.

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing: Stories by Lydia Peelle: Lydia Peelle brings together eight brilliant stories --- two of which won Pushcart Prizes and one of which won an O. Henry Prize --- that peer straight into the human heart.

The Return by Victoria Hislop: Family betrayals, forbidden love and historical turmoil converge between a family's heartwrenching struggle during the Spanish Civil War and a young woman traveling in present-day Granada.

Requiem of the Human Soul by Jeremy R. Lent: The human race is on trial at the U.N. in the late 22nd century. At stake... its continued existence.

The Sacred Cipher by Terry Brennan: More historically and biblically accurate than The Da Vinci Code and just as adventurous as an Indiana Jones movie, The Sacred Cipher draws readers into a world of ancient secrets and international escapades.

The Sari Shop Widow by Shobhan Bantwal: Shobhan Bantwal's compelling new novel is set on the streets of Edison, New Jersey's Little India, where a young businesswoman rediscovers the magic of love and family.

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan: Each story in this collection is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing situations our planet can offer.

A Separate Country by Robert Hicks: Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army --- and one of its most tragic figures.

Serena by Ron Rash: A gothic tale of greed, corruption and revenge set against the backdrop of the 1930s wilderness and America's burgeoning environmental movement.

Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee: In Alison McGhee's stunning novel Shadow Baby, 11-year-old Clara struggles to piece together her family history, while her mother refuses to talk about those people lost to her daughter.

Sisters & Husbands by Connie Briscoe: Ten years have passed since Sisters and Lovers, and Beverly, now 39, is engaged to Julian, a man her family and friends agree is the epitome of a great catch.

Skunk: A Love Story by Justin Courter: This darkly hilarious novel follows a social outcast who develops a bizarre addiction that he eventually overcomes when he discovers love.

Slumberland by Paul Beatty: Critical darling Paul Beatty's highly original, widely praised novel of race, identity and underground music.

Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke: Even though Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel, have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice.

A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand: Hearts break and emotions are pushed to the limit in this riveting story of one woman's attempt to deal with loves past and present, family, business and high-powered social pressures.

Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick: A hauntingly beautiful novel about Vincent van Gogh and his relationship with a mysterious young woman named Rachel and the passion they shared, in a debut novel from art historian Sheramy Bundrick.

Sweetwater Run by Jan Watson: In 1891 in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, two young women stand at a crossroads. As they struggle with the realities of life, both learn to rely on their faith above all else.

The Swiss Courier by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey: 1944: When a young woman is asked to "courier" a German scientist who is working on the atomic bomb out of enemy territory, the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

A Taste of Fame: The Potluck Catering Club by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson: A Taste of Fame serves up the perfect blend of humor, misadventure and mouthwatering recipes. Fans new and old will love this exciting trip into the wild world of competitive cooking!

Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel: The true story of one woman's quest to exorcise her bad body-image demons, to uncover the truths behind what put them there and to learn how to truly love herself.

Thirsty by Tracey Bateman: Recovering alcoholic Nina Parker wants to start fresh in her Ozark hometown, but a gruesome murder, her shattered family and a 250-year-old stranger's obsession have her torn between surrendering to darkness --- and salvation.

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch: One morning Jillian wakes up seven years in the past, and armed with 20-20 hindsight, she's free to choose all over again.

To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed by Alix Kates Shulman: In this elegant memoir, Alix Kates Shulman describes the ongoing anxieties and risks --- and surprising rewards --- she experiences as she reorganizes her world to care for her husband.

Transgression: A Novel of Love and War by James W. Nichol: A beautifully written World War II romance and mystery that follows Adele, a young French woman who falls in love with a German soldier and is cast out of her village as a "horizontal traitor" at the end of the war.

The Truth About Love by Josephine Hart: From the author of Damage, a novel that opens with the accidental death of a teenage boy who commits one final, heartrending act of love.

The Twelve by William Gladstone: What will happen in 2012? The Mayans predicted the end of the world. In his novel The Twelve, William Gladstone forecasts a new beginning as the fate of all humanity rests in the balance.

Under the Cajun Moon by Mindy Starns Clark: Mindy Starns Clark offers an exciting stand-alone novel, one full of Cajun mystery, hidden dangers and the glow of God's unending grace.

Whatsoever Things are Lovely: Must-Have Accessories for God's Perfect Peace by Rhonda Rhea: Using Philippians 4:8-9 as a springboard, Rhonda Rhea takes you on a fun adventure that can help you lead a more fruitful, blessed and peace-filled life.

Where Grace Abides: The Riverhaven Years by BJ Hoff : Readers loved Rachel's Secret, the first book in The Riverhaven Years, and are eagerly awaiting the continuing story of Rachel and Jeremiah Gant.

White Picket Fences by Susan Meissner: "White Picket Fences is a beautiful yet haunting portrayal of what lies beneath a seemingly perfect suburban family." --Mary E. DeMuth, author of Daisy Chain and A Slow Burn

Windfall by Penny Vincenzi: Windfall is full of the signatures that make Vincenzi's novels irresistible to devoted fans and newcomers alike: a sharp eye for detail, an assortment of loveable and despicable characters, and a titillating, suspenseful plot.

Please note that these titles, for which we already had the guides when they appeared in hardcover, are now available in paperback:

The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton
The Black Tower by Louis Bayard
A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Lulu in Marrakech by Diane Johnson
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

This month's prize:
Have a Little Faith: A True Story by Mitch Albom

Oprah's Book Club Selection
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

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