Greetings!
Some book clubs take a break for the summer months, but that doesn't mean you have to stop reading! This month's newsletter offers fun beach reads for individual enjoyment and for great book club suggestions!
We also have other fresh ideas for discussion, new chances to win newly released titles, July's Ladies' Home Journal Book Club pick, a guest blog post from a debut novelist, reading group favorites taking the stage, a NEW "Spotlight" Book Club and a book trailer for a brand-new Meg Waite Clayton novel!
**Reading Group Choices has renovated our Website!**
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Reading Group Choices NEW Website!
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Our NEW Website is easier to navigate and offers new ways to enhance your book club meetings and selections!
- Fresh new layout
- Easy navigation
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- More monthly selections
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- 2013 RGC Guide as an eBook
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- "Spotlight" Book Clubs
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Fresh Ideas for Discussion
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The Curiosity by Stephen Kiernan
 Dr. Kate Philo and her scientific exploration team make a breathtaking discovery in the Arctic: the body of a man buried deep in the ice... "The Lazarus Project." A scientist in a groundbreaking project run by the egocentric and paranoid Erastus Carthage orders that the frozen man be brought back to the lab in Boston and reanimated. As the man begins to regain his memories, the team learns that he was-is a judge, Jeremiah Rice, and the last thing he remembers is falling overboard into the Arctic Ocean in 1906....
Food by the Book
Frozen Man Mocha Delight, An Ice Cream Recipe
Dream with Little Angels by Michael Hiebert  Abe Teal wasn't even born when Ruby Mae Vickers went missing twelve years ago. Few people in Alvin, Alabama, talk about the months spent looking for her, or about how Ruby Mae's lifeless body was finally found beneath a willow tree. Even Abe's mom, Leah, Alvin's only detective, has avoided the subject. But now, another girl is missing. Abe watches his mother battle small-town bureaucracy and old resentments, desperate to find the girl and quietly frantic for her own children's safety. As the search takes on a terrifying urgency, Abe traverses the shifting ground between innocence and hard-won understanding, eager to know and yet fearing what will be revealed.
The Summer Everything Changed by Holly Chamberlin
 Blindsided by her husband's affair, Louise Bessire has used her divorce settlement to buy Blueberry Bay, a picturesque bed and breakfast in Ogunquit. And with a celebrity wedding taking place on the premises this summer, business is looking up. While Louise deals with paparazzi and wedding planners, her sixteen-year-old daughter, Isobel, is falling hard for local boy Jeff Otten. Being singled out by Jeff--nineteen, handsome, and from a wealthy family--almost makes up for her father's increasing neglect. Yet even in the glow of golden beach days there are sudden, heart-wrenching revelations for both Louise and Isobel.
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| Far Far Away |
In this strange and fateful tale of a boy, a girl, and a ghost, readers will find themselves asking, "Will this fairy tale end happily ever after?"
Jeremy Johnson Johnson has always been an outsider . . . and not just because of his strange name. Jeremy can hear the ghost of Jacob Grimm, one half of the famous Brothers Grimm, the collectors of fairy tales. Jacob stays close to Jeremy, protecting him from something called The Finder of Occasions. But who or what that is, neither of them knows. When a dark chain of events is set in motion, readers will be reminded that while some of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales had happy endings, some definitely did not.
Beautifully written, readers will find themselves entranced from start to finish with acclaimed author Tom McNeal's fairy tale, making it the perfect read for book clubs everywhere.
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| Ladies' Home Journal Book Club Picks |
 In the Ladies' Home Journal Book Club July selection, Tigers in Red Weather, debut author Liza Klaussman tells the Post-World War II story of two cousins, Nick and Helena, and the secrets that undo them. Their dramas span the course of their rocky marriages, only children, and a diabolical murder that turns their high-society hometown of Martha's Vineyard upside down. In order to escape from her ordinary life as a mother, and as a wife to the dashing Hughes Derringer, Nick is involved in a string of affairs that offer her the attention and excitement she craves. Simultaneously, Helena, the lamb to Nick's wolf, marries Avery Lewis, a Hollywood opportunist who controls her with pills and booze. Read " The Pathological & the Privileged" by Reading Group Choices' Neely Kennedy for discussible topics and themes! |
On the Bookcase Posts
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Neely's Beach Favorites
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Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
 From the moment it opens--on a rocky patch of Italian coastline, circa 1962, when a daydreaming young innkeeper looks out over the water and spies a mysterious woman approaching him on a boat--Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, Beautiful Ruins is gloriously inventive and constantly surprising--a story of flawed yet fascinating people navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.
Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
 Andrew Yancy--late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff's office--has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it's not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters.
Sea Glass Island by Sherryl Woods
 With her two younger sisters heading for the altar, will Samantha Castle exchange old dreams for new ones? Lately she'd rather be on the North Carolina coast with family than in New York with agents and actors. Though she vows not to let her teenage crush on Ethan Cole influence her decision, it's hard to ignore her feelings for the local war hero. Ethan lost more than his leg in Afghanistan. He lost his belief in love. Even being surrounded by couples intent on capturing happily-ever-after won't open this jaded doctor's heart. It's going to take a sexy, determined woman--one who won't take no for an answer.
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Book Club Favorites on Stage
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 From Shelf Awarness: The cast has been announced for the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, adapted by Mike Poulton from the novels by Hilary Mantel. The cast includes Ben Miles (Thomas Cromwell), Lucy Briers (Katherine of Aragon), Paul Jesson (Cardinal Wolsey) and Nathaniel Parker (Henry VIII). Playbill reported that Wolf Hall begins performances December 11 and Bring Up the Bodies December 19, before opening on a press day on January 8, 2014, for a run through March 29. Both plays are directed by Jeremy Herrin.
 "It's very exciting for me to see the characters from the Cromwell novels spring to life, ready for the stage this winter," Mantel observed."I'm delighted we have secured such gifted actors for four of the major figures in the plays, and look forward to meeting the rest of the cast in the near future."
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Book Trailer: The Wednesday Daughters
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 | | The Wednesday Daughters by Meg Waite Clayton (Book Trailer) |
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NEW "Spotlight" Book Club
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Become one of our "Spotlight" Book Clubs!Email us at info@readinggroupchoices.com with a picture of your book group and description of what makes your reading group unique. If your book club is chosen, we will send you and your group a box of books to share! Our current "Spotlight" Book Club is The Reading Circle from Saint Michaels, Maryland. Read about their group here.  |
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Thanks for keeping the joy of reading alive,
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Beach Bum Books
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July means that high summer is finally here! For the book lover, discovering a new novel makes the best vacation. Whether you are traveling or staying put, kick back with one of our fun and breezy suggestions: visit Southern Florida, the South Carolina coast, even the Ligurian Sea with authors who bring us this season's irresistible beach reads.
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Ladies' Home Journal
Book Club
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See what Ladies' Home Journal's Book Club and Reading Group Choices' Neely Kennedy are discussing!
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Book Group iPad App
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Download our Free iPad App to enhance your book club! Search " Reading Group Choices" in the App Store.
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| More About Reading Group Choices |
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