Search Results for: book club

Choosing a Read for Your Book Club

If you belong to a book club, inevitably, there comes a month when it’s your turn to pick the book. Over time, you learn that this can be a trickier task than you anticipated. Obviously, you want your fellow members to enjoy reading the book. I, personally, can’t always guess what people will like. Last year, I chose Madeline Miller’s Circe, which was an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Several people in my club had never read Homer or studied Greek myth…

Read More Read More

Speaking to a Book Club

A book club recently decided to read The Wysman and invite me to speak at their meeting. Actually, I should say “our” meeting because it’s a club I belong to. I swear I didn’t suggest the book! Someone else did. The members are all avid readers though, so they decided that having an author to talk to would be interesting. I was, of course, happy to oblige. I love talking about writing. I must say it was a different kind…

Read More Read More

On Book Clubs

Until recently, I’d never belonged to a regular book club. When I lived in Iowa, I did belong to one sponsored by the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, but the members were all writers who were interested in discussing technique, so I thought they probably weren’t typical. When I moved to Illinois, though, the building complex I live in turned out to have two book clubs, and I was invited to join both. I read all the time,…

Read More Read More

The Story Idea Notebook

Recently, I was walking down my building’s hallway behind an old guy with a cane. He was talking very loudly on his cell, and he said, “I am driving in my car, and I cannot take your call.” At that point, he turned down a side hall, so that was all I heard. I went home and wrote what I’d seen in my story idea notebook. The Story Idea Notebook My story idea notebook is exactly what it sounds like:…

Read More Read More

Goodreads Project, Part 12: Non-fiction

I’m working on a project to read a semi-finalist in each category of Goodreads’ Best Book of the Year contest. The winners of the contest are listed here. If you click back through my posts, you can see what I have to say about Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mysteries and Thrillers, Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction, YA Fantasy, YA Fiction, Horror, and Debut Novel. This post reviews a book from the Non-Fiction category. I don’t read much non-fiction, so I was looking…

Read More Read More

Goodreads Project, Part 8: Horror

I’m working on a Goodreads project, reading a semi-finalist from each of the fifteen categories Goodreads uses for its Best Book of the Year Award. If you click back through my last seven blog entries, you can see reviews of the books I read in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Thriller, Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. When I started, readers were still voting. Since then, Goodreads has announced the winners. I don’t usually read Horror, so I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t…

Read More Read More

Goodreads Reads: A New Project

In my experience, people are happier if they’re working on a project. I’ve blogged about this before. By project, I mean some set of actions that people undertake freely. It’s what collectors do, for instance, or quilters, or runners training for a marathon. When Goodreads published their list of finalists for best book of the year in fifteen categories, I saw a potential project. I decided to read one book from each category. If I’d already read a book from…

Read More Read More

What Is YA?

I find that people outside the world of Young Adult fiction often don’t understand what YA is. I have neighbors without children around or older book club members who lump it in with the whole children’s market. They see it and chapter books as being in the same category. Even people in children’s fiction sometimes have trouble. I once read opening pages a loud at a meeting of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and someone suggested that…

Read More Read More

Goodreads Project: Part 3, Mystery and Thriller

I’m working on a project in which I read a book from each of the fifteen categories Goodreads uses in its best books of the year contest. The first category was fiction. You can see my comments on that category here. The second category was Historical Fiction. My comments are here. The third category was Mystery and Thriller. I’d already read The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. But by the rules of my project, I had to choose a new…

Read More Read More

My Favorite Reviews

What kind of reviews stand out to a writer? As I write this, Amazon has The Wysman on sale, the paperback for $4.84 and e-book for $2.99. Here are my two favorite Amazon reviews of this book, both about the main character, Jarka, who was born with a club foot: First, from a 5-star review: “Often – especially in movies, but plenty of times in books – a character can be injured or have some condition that’s only their nominally,…

Read More Read More

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial