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Welcome!
Dear Readers,
We're thrilled to introduce the new look for the Reading Group Center, which was created entirely with you in mind. And we didn’t stop there—the RGC is now easier to navigate, more functional, and filled with great content and resources for your reading group. So browse around and let us know what you think!
And watch out for more exciting features to come!
Your Friends at the RGC
One Book, One Community
Community-based reading initiatives are a growing trend across the country, and we're pleased to support these programs with a wide range of resources.
Enter The Full Moon Frenzy Contest and Win a Copy of The Last Werewolf
There’s a full moon hanging high in the sky, and what better way to celebrate than to give away copies of The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan? This isn’t your typical monster tale—it’s a powerful re-imagining of the werewolf legend with a powerfully human heart. Click to enter our Full Moon Frenzy Sweepstakes for a chance to win a copy of the paperback, on sale April 17th.
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Five Short Story Collections For Book Clubs
If your book club has tired of novels and nonfiction, consider a change of pace: short fiction! Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer is an unforgettable collection of short stories that explores the hidden crevasses and unforseeable perils of family life. With these stories, Packer illuminates the moral predicaments that define our lives, the frailty of ordinary grace, and the ways in which we are shattered and remade by loss. Read on for more reading group-friendly short story collections.
More >Author Chats
Request a Phone Call with
Meghan Daum
Or invite another one of our authors to your next book club meeting!
Click below to see who's available.
Group Talk
Book Club Members: Take the Book Club Survey and Win a Free Book!
Attention all book club members—we want your input! Fill out this brief survey about your book club habits and we’ll send you a free book. Click here to begin the survey.
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Five Great Reading Group Books Set In Africa
The Clouds Beneath The Sun by Mackenzie Ford is an extraordinary novel set in Kenya in 1961. Hoping to escape painful memories of her past, archeologist Natalie Nelson accepts an invitation to join a famous excavating team’s dig in the Serengeti. Before she can get her bearings, the dig is surrounded by controversy involving the local Maasai people, and Natalie is swept up in a passionate affair that threatens to spark even more violence and turmoil. Inspired by the book’s rich setting, we’ve compiled a list of great reading group books set in Africa.
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Video: The History That Inspired The Healing by Jonathan Odell
The Healing by Jonathan Odell is a masterfully written novel about a mysterious and charismatic healer. After mississippi plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera, she takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada. Meanwhile, concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave reputed to be a healer. Polly recognizes “the gift” in Granada, and a domestic battle of wills ensues. Seventy-five years later, Granada must revive the buried memories of her past in order to heal a young girl abandoned to her care. Read on to watch the book trailer and to hear selections from an interview with a midwife who Jonathan Odell interviewed before writing the book.
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Behind The Scenes of Alex Kava’s Electrifying Thriller
Special Agent Maggie O’Dell returns in Hotwire by Alex Kava. On a crisp fall evening in western Nebraska, two teenagers are seemingly electrocuted when their drug-fueled party turns into an explosive light show. While Maggie tries to make sense of the witnesses’ stories, her friend, Colonel Benjamin Platt, is at the scene of a deadly outbreak that has infected children at a Virginia elementary school. Despite the miles that separate them, the two cases collide when Maggie and Platt uncover a threatening conspiracy.
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Go Wild With Cheryl Strayed’s Inspiring Memoir
At age twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. After all, she felt as though she had nothing left to lose. Her marriage was destroyed, and her family had scattered in the wake of her mother’s death four years earlier. Wild is the story of that journey, an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and then built her back up again. Click through to watch the trailer.
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Recipe by the Book: Vanilla Ginger Cupcakes for The Foremost Good Fortune
When Susan Conley, her husband, and their two young sons left their house in Maine for a two-year stint in a high-rise apartment in Beijing, they were prepared to weather the inevitable onslaught of culture shock. But the challenges of living and mothering in an utterly foreign country became even more complicated when Susan learned that she had cancer. The Foremost Good Fortune is a poignant memoir set against the eternally fascinating backdrop of modern China and full of insight into the trickiest questions of motherhood. While your reading group discusses the book, serve these delicious Vanilla Ginger Cupcakes—a family recipe provided by Susan Conley herself!
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See PEN/Faulkner Winner Julie Otsuka On Tour
Buddha in the Attic is a gorgeous novel by Julie Otsuka, the celebrated author of When the Emperor Was Divine, that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago. The book was a 2011 National Book Award Finalist and is currently a finalist for the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Julie Otsuka will be touring the country and making select appearances throughout the coming year.
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Video: Watch Alexander McCall Smith Discuss The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
In The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party—the latest installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series—Precious Ramotswe faces two confounding cases: the mysterious fate of some cows, and the ghost-like reappearance of her dear old white van. As ever, Precious will draw on her trademark grace and wisdom as she helps unravel all these tangled threads. Click through to watch video of Alexander McCall Smith discussing the book, plus read Mma Ramotswe’s guide to wedding etiquette!
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