Greetings!
Reading Group Choices 2014 is coming out in September! We wanted to give you a sneak peak into some of the exciting selections in the upcoming guide.
Plus a new Spotlight Book Club, new On the Bookcase blog post, Food by the Book, and other fresh selections for discussion.
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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
- Powerful search function
- More monthly selections
- New Book Profile Extras
- 2013 RGC Guide as an eBook
- Easy social network sharing
- "Spotlight" Book Clubs
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Fresh Ideas for Discussion
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Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life--steady boyfriend, close family--who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life--big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel--and now he's pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Will is acerbic, moody, bossy--but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected...
The Butterfly Sister by Amy Gail Hansen  Ten months after dropping out of all-girl Tarble College, Ruby Rousseau is still haunted by the memories of her senior year, a time marred by an affair with her English professor and a deep depression that caused her to question her sanity. When a mysterious suitcase arrives bearing Ruby's name and address, she tries to return it to its rightful owner, Beth--a dorm-mate at Tarble--only to learn that Beth disappeared two days earlier. With clues found in the luggage, including a tattered copy of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, which Ruby believes instigated her madness, she sets out to uncover the truth.
Etched in Sand by Regina Calcaterra
In this story of perseverance in the face of adversity, Regina Calcaterra reveals how she endured a series of foster homes and intermittent homelessness in the shadow of the Hamptons, and how she rose above her past while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together. Etched in Sand is an unforgettable reminder that regardless of social status, the American dream is still within reach for those who have the desire and the determination to succeed.
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Chances to Win
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On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars--on both sides of the Atlantic--serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent. **Check out Zadie Smith's newest novel NW.
Enter for your Chance to Win a Free Copy!
If You Could See What I See by Cathy Lamb
Since her husband's death a year ago, Meggie's emotions have been in constant flux, and so has her career as a documentary film maker. Finding ways to keep the family lingerie business afloat--and dealing with her squabbling sister and cousin--will at least give her a temporary focus. To draw customers to their website, Meggie decides to interview relatives and employees about their first bras and favorite lingerie. She envisions something flip and funny, but the confessions that emerge are unexpectedly poignant. There are stories of first loves and aching regrets, passionate mistakes and surprising rendezvous. And as the revelations illuminate her family's past, Meggie begins to find her own way forward.
Enter for your Chance to Win a Free Copy!
Three Months in Florence by Mary Carter  Lena Wallace's husband, Alex, is on yet another business trip to Florence without her. Lena deals with his absences in the same stoic way she deals with all her responsibilities. And then comes the call that changes everything--the one from Alex's Italian mistress. Stunned and heartsick, Lena flies to Florence to confront Alex. But the further she goes to salvage her marriage, the less Lena recognizes herself--or the husband she's trying to win back. Instead, she's catching glimpses of the person she once hoped to be and the life and family she truly wants. Most of all, she's wondering if the real journey is only just beginning. . .
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On the Bookcase Posts
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2014 RGC Guide Sneak Peek
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Brewster by Mark Slouka
The year is 1968. The world is changing, and sixteen-year-old Jon Mosher is determined to change with it. Racked by guilt over his older brother's childhood death and stuck in the dead-end town of Brewster, New York, he turns his rage into victories running track. Meanwhile, Ray Cappicciano is trying to take care of his baby brother while staying out of the way of his abusive, ex-cop father. When Jon and Ray form a tight friendship, they find in each other everything they lack at home, but it's not until Ray falls in love with beautiful, headstrong Karen Dorsey that the three friends begin to dream of breaking away from Brewster for good...
Carissima by Rosanna Chiofalo
In college, Pia Santore dreamed of going to New York and taking the Big Apple by storm with her younger sister Erica. Instead, Pia has arrived in Astoria, Queens, with a prestigious journalism internship at a celebrity magazine...and without Erica. Though the neighborhood has an abundance of appeal--including the delectable confections sold at her Aunt Antoniella's bakery--the pain of losing Erica a few years ago still feels fresh. Pia gradually learns how to love and when to let go. For when in Rome, you may find your carissima--your dearest one--and you may even find yourself...
Days in the History Silence by Merethe Lindstrom
Eva and Simon have spent most of their adult lives together. He is a physician, she is a teacher, and they have three grown daughters and a comfortable home. Yet what binds them together isn't only affection and solidarity but also the painful facts of their respective histories, which they keep hidden even from their own children. But after the abrupt dismissal of their housekeeper and Simon's increasing withdrawal into himself, the past can no longer be repressed. Lindstrom has crafted a masterpiece about the grave mistakes we make when we misjudge the legacy of war, common prejudices, and our own strategies of survival.
Equilibrium by Lorrie Thomson
In the year since her husband died, Laura Klein's world has shifted on its axis. It's not just that she's raising two children alone--fact is, Laura always did the parenting for both of them. But now her fifteen-year-old daughter, Darcy, is dating a boy with a fast car and faster hands, and thirteen-year-old Troy's attitude has plummeted along with his voice. Just when she's resigning herself to a life of worry and selfless support, her charismatic new tenant offers what Laura least expects: a second chance. Exploring the effects of grief on both mother and daughter, Equilibrium is a thoughtful, resolutely uplifting novel about finding the balance between holding on and letting go.
Margot by Jillian Cantor
In the spring of 1959, The Diary of Anne Frank has just come to the silver screen to great acclaim, and a young woman named Margie Franklin is working in Philadelphia as a secretary at a Jewish law firm. Margie Franklin is really Margot Frank, older sister of Anne, who did not die in Bergen-Belsen as reported, but who instead escaped the Nazis for America. But now, as her sister becomes a global icon, Margie's carefully constructed American life begins to fall apart. A new relationship threatens to overtake the young love that sustained her during the war, and her past and present begin to collide.
The Returned by Jason Mott
Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time.... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep--flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
When ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, friends, Nat and Archy, fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen, Nat and Archy's wives, also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship. Adding another layer of complications to the couples' already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of fifteen-year-old Julius Jaffe's life.
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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!
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Thanks for keeping the joy of reading alive,
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Our 20th Anniversary!
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Please enjoy this sneak peak of Reading Group Choices 2014 (the print edition), available in late September. In honor of our upcoming 20th anniversary, we are proud to present an outstanding collection of books to inspire your book club toward lively discussions. Here you will find an array of genres including fictional drama, humor, romance, adventure, and fantasy, as well as non-fiction, all carefully selected for discussibility. Thank you for keeping the joy of reading alive!
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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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Other Discussible Suggestions |
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More About Reading Group Choices | *********
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