Book Bytes - News from the Book Club Cookbook
  Summer, 2009
Visit bookclubcookbook.com


IN THIS ISSUE

Book Clubs Recommend

Choose a Book - Invite an Author

Read & Feed Contest Winner


QUICK LINKS

Enter Book Club Buzz

Author Recipes

  Choose a Book - Invite an Author

Novel Noshes




COMING SOON:
BOOK CLUB BUZZ CONTESTS


  July 1

Two Years No Rain



TWO YEARS, NO RAIN
by Shawn Klomparens



August 1

Face Time

FACE TIME
by Hank Phillippi Ryan


 
Greetings,

Summer is a great time to catch up on reading and explore new titles for your book club.  We're pleased to bring you terrific summer reading recommendations by groups around the country. 

Our new website feature, Novel Noshes, highlights food and book pairings from groups around the country, and is sure to spark your culinary creativity.  Please send your group's creative food pairing ideas to share with our readers.

And... we have a winner!  The Epicureaders of San Francisco, California, won our Read & Feed Contest with their creative, delectable book-and-food pairing. 

New authors have joined our Choose a Book - Invite an Author program and we bring you news from the authors in our directory, including new releases, paperbacks, awards and special events.

Remember to enter the current Book Club Buzz contests to win Donna Woolfolk Cross's Pope Joan and George Rabasa's The Wonder Singer.

 
Pope JoanWonder Singer

Happy Reading and Bon Appetit!

Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp

Co-authors of The Book Club Cookbook
and
The Kids' Book Club Book

Recommendations

BOOK CLUBS RECOMMEND
Reading Suggestions from Book Clubs


Guernsey
The Page Turners of Fallston High School of Bel Air, Maryland, recommend:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial, 2009), Historical Fiction, 304 pages

"Using a series of letters, the author tells the story of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands - Guernsey Island in particular - during World War II.  Our book club enjoyed discussion about the dying art of letter writing and how putting one's thoughts and feelings down on paper by hand is still very important for the writer and welcomed by the receiver, although we are living in a world of email.  We compared past wars (WWI, WWII, and the German Occupation on Guernsey Island) with current day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and found that they are similar in many ways. Reading about the islanders' lives during and after the German Occupation was eye opening.  The colorful characters were superbly described by the author and made you feel as if you knew them personally.  Reading about the birth of another book club - completely by accident - was quite interesting."

Paired with: "Grilled kielbasa slices, carrot sticks, and chocolate. We compared our fare to that of the night the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was discovered.  They were secretly feasting on roast pig!  The carrots and chocolate represented the types of rationed food they were provided during the German Occupation."

More Book Recommendations

Including:

American Wife
by Curtis Sittenfeld
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe by Jennie Shortridge
Moloka'i
by Alan Brennert
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski



Reading GroupChooseABook
CHOOSE A BOOK - INVITE AN AUTHOR
Author News


Our Choose a Book - Invite an Author program allows you to browse for great titles for your club and schedule author chats. Remember to visit our location directory to find an author close to home who will visit your group in person.

Welcome to new authors:




NEW AND UPCOMING PAPERBACK RELEASES
  • Life in the Balance: A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia by Thomas Graboys, M.D. and Peter Zheutlin  (September)

NEW AND UPCOMING RELEASES
AWARDS
  • The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein: A Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" Summer Pick.
  • The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister: NPR's Morning Edition Recommended Summer Read.
  • Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman: Short-listed for the U.K.'s Orange Prize, awarded to the best novel written in English by a woman.
  • Signora da Vinci by Robin Maxwell: Selected by Sons of Italy National Book Club for Italian American Magazine as one of five Spring Selections.

SPECIAL EVENTS AND APPEARANCES

Read & Feed Contest NOVELCULINARYCOMBOS
READ & FEED CONTEST WINNER
Most Creative Food and Literature Pairing

Congratulations to the Epicureaders of San Francisco, California, for their winning entry in our Read & Feed Contest.  The Epicureaders savored a Persian Love Cake when they discussed The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (Random House, 2008).  Member Lena Zentall describes the cake as "delicately infused with cardamom and saffron, and topped with an ethereal whipped cream icing.  An enchanting dessert fit for a moghul emperor."

The Epicureaders will receive a collection of upcoming 2009 titles (advance reading copies) from Algonquin Books.  From Water for Elephants and Mudbound and The Children in Room E4 to Last Child in the Woods, Algonquin Books continues to go against the grain. Thanks to Algonquin Books for contributing this fantastic prize, and congratulations to the winners!



 
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