Reading Group Choices Newsletter
2014 Guide Is Now Available!
The Middle East
September 2013
Greetings!

The Reading Group Choices 2014 printed guide is now available! Order copies for your book group.

With the all the activity happening in the Middle East, we have put together selections that have a Middle East theme to help give your book club more insight into the culture and history of people in the region.

Plus a new Spotlight Book Club, new On the Bookcase blog post, Ladies' Home Journal September Book Club selection, "The Netflix of Books", and other fresh selections for discussion.
In This Issue
Reading Group Choices 2014 Printed Guide
Fresh Ideas for Discussion
On the Bookcase Posts
Ladies' Home Journal Book Club
Middle East Titles for Discussion
NEW "Spotlight" Book Club
Oyster: The Netflix of Books
Middle East Discussion
Reading Group Choices 2014 Printed Guide

We are pleased to announce that the 20th anniversary edition of Reading Group Choices 2014 is now available. Recharge and refocus your book club discussions with the help of our 2014 reading group guide. Here you will find over fifty of the year's best titles, their summaries, critical praise, as well as thoughtful discussion questions for each--titles including Mrs. Poe, The Weight of Small Things and Visit Sunny Chernobyl.  Make your next group get together seamless and relaxing by letting us do the work for you!

Buy a copy for yourself for $6.95 or for book club members for $3.95 each when you order 5 or more!
 
Fresh Ideas for Discussion


MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam 

Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recovering from a debilitating fever, so it's left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb...

 

 
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.

 

 

All You Could Ask For by Mike Greenberg

 

All You Could Ask For Brooke has been happily married to her college sweetheart for fifteen years. Samantha's newlywed bliss is steam-rolled when she finds shocking evidence of infidelity on her husband's computer. Katherine works eighteen hours a day for the man who irreparably shattered her heart fifteen years ago. Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another yet, but all three are about to discover the conquering power of friendship--and that they have all they could ask for, as long as they have each other.    

 

On the Bookcase Posts
Laura On the Bookcase


Read the how Mingmei Yip created the character in her newest book Nine Fold Heaven in a new guest blog post.

Ladies' Home Journal Book Club

Alys, Always In the September Ladies' Home Journal Book Club selection Alys, Always, journalist turned first time novelist Harriet Lane instantly captures the reader's attention as she moves us through a concise psychological thriller. Ignited when a chance accident presents her with the opportunity to manipulate a celebrity author and his family to her great advantage, junior newspaper editor Frances aims to climb the glamorous literati social ladder to dazzling new heights. Frances reveals that underneath her fa�ade of good listening skills, insightful observations, and intellect, lays a darker character.

Read "How to Lie, Cheat and Manipulate Your Way to the Top" by Reading Group Choices' Neely Kennedy for discussible topics and themes! 

Middle East Titles for Discussion


The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

 

The Yellow Birds

In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him, and Bartle takes actions he could never have imagined.

 

 

The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

The Watch Following a desperate night-long battle, a group of beleaguered soldiers in an isolated base in Kandahar are faced with a lone woman demanding the return of her brother's body. Is she a spy, a black widow, a lunatic, or is she what she claims to be: a grieving young sister intent on burying her brother according to local rites? Single-minded in her mission, she refuses to move from her spot on the field in full view of every soldier in the stark outpost. Her presence quickly proves dangerous as the camp's tense, claustrophobic atmosphere comes to a boil when the men begin arguing about what to do next.


 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Kite Runner The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons--their love, their sacrifices, their lies. The first Afghan novel to be written in English,  The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before...


What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton

What Changes Everything What Changes Everything is the story of Todd's wife, Clarissa, who tries to save her husband, while her own life spins out of control in the dark nights of Brooklyn. There on the night streets, she meets Danil, an angry New York graffiti artist whose life was derailed by a loss in the same incomprehensible war half a world away. Danil's mother Stela writes letter after letter from her bookstore in Cleveland in hopes of comprehending the loss of one son on an Afghan battlefield and of reconnecting with Danil, who abandoned her in anger when his brother died. This is also the story of Mandy, a mother from Texas, grappling with the fury of a wounded son who barely made it home from that war. And it's Todd's story, too, who for only a moment let down his guard in a Kabul marketplace and now confronts the worst of possibilities.


NEW "Spotlight" Book Club
  
Our current "Spotlight" Book Club is The Book Club from Durham, NC. Read about their group here.

Durham Book Club
 
Become one of our "Spotlight" Book Clubs!


Email us at [email protected] 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!

 

Oyster: The Netflix of Books

Finally! An new book app, Oyster, has been created to give members access to unlimited book just like Netflix does for movies. According to the Huffington Post, the Oyster book app is a $9.95 month membership that allows you to read books from your iPhone with no time limit. Why is this especially great for book clubs? Because you can test out books for discussion without the commitment of buying the book! Essentially, Oyster is a digital library, that has unlimited copies of books, with no return due date. The app's name speaks for itself...it is your oyster, into the world of books.

Oyster Book App

 
Thanks for keeping the joy of reading alive,
 
LogoNwsltr
 
Middle East Discussion   
 
The Middle East
  

Today, talk of the Middle East dominates much of our national dialogue. For many of us, the current situation is both difficult to comprehend and filled with ambiguities. Through literature, we can gain a deeper understanding of the Middle Eastern region, it's people, and our place there. We hope that our selections this month help to illuminate this controversial topic.   

    

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Chances to Win!
 

Top Book Group Favorites
 
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See what Top Book Group Favorites other book club's said produced the liveliest book discussion  
 
Favorite Discussible Books of 2009  

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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!

Ladies' Home Journal Side Bar


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Book Group iPad App

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iPad


Download our Free iPad App to enhance your book club! Search "Reading Group Choices" in the App Store.


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Choices
 
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New Blog Posts 
 
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Shelley Fraser Mickle


Mingmei Yip

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"Spotlight" Book Club 
 
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Enter to be our "Spotlight" Book Club & receive a Box O' Books for your book group!

Spotlight Book Club 

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Other Discussible Suggestions

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Defending Jacob
 
 
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More About Reading Group Choices 

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