Well I think everyone enjoyed our last meeting, American Wife led to a very interesting discussion. I’m glad so many people were able to attend. Thank you to Cheryl who brought an amazing amount of information to us, let me see if I can remember it all!

First the book club website. Reading Group Choices is a site to help book clubs find books and enhance their discussions. There are book suggestions, discussion questions, a newsletter, updates to movies based on literature, printable guides, and a million other helpful little things. The address is http://www.readinggroupchoices.com/index.cfm. The home page is one of the handouts we passed around the table. If you register to become a member (which is free) you can opt to get their monthly newsletter and enter their drawings to win free books or cash prizes. If you’d rather not create an account you can still look at the newsletter through the website. On a side note, when you register it asks for your book club’s name. I have always just used the name Book Club at Big City Diner, pretty straight forward. But if anyone has any other ideas shout ‘em out!

In the Reading Group Choices pile of information were different guides from various publishers and other book club resources. Here are the links to their guides or newsletters. I will also be bringing the packet to our next meeting if anyone would like to look through it then.

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/

http://dacapopressreadersguides.com/

http://www.harpercollins.com/Imprints/Avon/

http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/

http://www.bookclubgirl.com/

http://vpbookclub.com/

http://www.wwnorton.com/trade/rgg.htm Email readinggroup@wwnorton.com for a free copy of The Age of Shiva while they are still available.

http://katemosse.com/content/clubs.asp An Author’s site where she will actually call or email your book club with questions you have about your book.

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/books.html

http://www.middlewaypress.com/reading.html

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/bookclubs/index.html

leslie.schwartz@us.penguingroup.com Email to set up a meeting to talk to author Meg Wolitzer.

http://www.wnba-books.org/

http://nationalreadinggroupmonth.org/

http://www.moodypublishers.com/Publishers/default.asp

The second item Cheryl brought up is the Book Clubs and Literature Fest at UH Manoa on April 18. This is a free event ($5 if you want lunch) open to the public from 8:30am to 2Pm at the Art Auditorium on campus. There are going to be a ton of writers there including Lois-Ann Yamanaka and Christopher Moore. I’m not sure if you have to have tickets to all of the events of just some but in any case to register you have to contact Lorna Hershnow at hershinow@gmail.com, or call 239-9726. Here is some more information and handouts on the event.

http://www.hawaii.edu/calendar/manoa/2009/04/18/6656.html

http://www.hawaii.edu/hwp/announcehwp/current_Oahuflyer.pdf

There will also be another festival on Kauai put on by the same people April 24th. Here is that flyer.

http://www.hawaii.edu/hwp/announcehwp/kauai_09flyer.pdf

The March meeting also brought up the subject of used bookstores. I have visited two since our meeting. Rainbow Books in Honolulu and The Book Rack by the stadium. Rainbow Books is great to look for a hidden treasure. It is categorized but a little messy so you never know what you’re going to find. It’s right by UH so a lot of students use it to trade their textbooks. There was also a huge Hawaiian section. The store is really small next to a bank and Blazin’ Steaks and across the street from Down to Earth. It also carries movies, video games and music. Their website is http://www.rainbowbookshawaii.com/. I haven’t been to their Aiea store so I don’t know if it’s still open. Has anyone visited there lately?

The other store was much different. The Book Rack was much more put together, maybe a little too much. It was a little over categorized (Spies? What category is that?) and I found it hard to know what category to look in for which book. They seemed to have huge mystery, western and romance sections. All the books were fairly new so not a lot of collector’s items if that’s what you’re looking for. It was very clean with classical music playing, a total 180 from Rainbow Books. The Book Rack is located near the Ice Palace in the Stadium Mall tucked away in a corner. The address is, 4510 Salt Lake Blvd # C7, Honolulu. If anyone has been to any other used bookstores lately please let us know. And I’ll keep you all updated on any new finds as well.

Last but not least our next book is The Master and Margareta by Mikhail Bulgakov. http://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/0679760806 We will be meeting April 26th (Yolanda’s birthday!). Well I think I’ve covered everything, whew! If I forgot anything please let me know. See you all soon!