ReadingGroupGuides.com

About Us

Editorial

Carol Fitzgerald
Founder/President

As a child, I used to read before the sun came up. Today I still remember many of those books like old friends. In the early '70s, I read A TRACE OF FOOTPRINTS by Ruth Wolff, a book I wanted to read again. It is out-of-print, but one of our readers found me a copy at some point, and I love seeing it sitting on my bookshelf with my current favorites. The pleasure of finding a great book like this is why I love running The Book Report Network so much.

My house is filled with books. My son Gregory (age 17) plows his way through pleasure reading while also juggling books for his AP English class. He has an interest in shipwrecks and lighthouses, which keep him reading a fair share of nonfiction as well. He searches Amazon the way I used to peruse the shelves at my local library. He's been working with us for the past four years doing production work and he also weighed in on our Teenreads.com Ultimate Reading List. It's such fun to see what books spark his interest.

My son Cory (age 12), like Gregory, never goes anywhere without a book taking one when we get into the car, even for a short trip to the grocery store. His current favorite authors include Anthony Horowitz, Garth Nix and Eoin Colfer. Watching him explore a new book or series is such a pleasure. He has interviewed a couple of authors with me and prides himself on his book collection and trading books with friends. He takes special pride in turning his reluctant reader friends onto books that he thinks they will enjoy. He proves to me day after day that there are GREAT books out there for boy readers.

My husband Tom counts Tom Clancy, Ken Follett and Elmore Leonard among his favorites, though lately he has been reading a lot of expedition and history titles. He's always looking over my shoulder to see what I am reading, and urging me to "read faster."

Authors I can't put down: most suspense-thriller writers (which is why we are doing our Suspense/Thriller Author Feature), as well as a number of literary fiction and mystery authors. Today so much of my life is filled with business reading that I love the pure escape of fiction. Also, I am amazed at how many authors I have come to know from spending time at The Book Report Network. I love reading reader comments at Word of Mouth --- there's always a great idea there on what to read.

Before logging onto the Internet for the first time in 1995, I spent 17 years at Mademoiselle magazine in Promotion and Marketing. I relish the online medium for its immediacy --- and for the ability it gives me to work anywhere, anytime, so long as I can log on. Any bets on where I am writing this?

I am enormously proud of the network of sites we have launched that includes www.bookreporter.com, www.readinggroupguides.com, www.faithfulreader.com, www.teenreads.com, www.kidsreads.com and www.authorsontheweb.com.

I would love to hear what you enjoy about The Book Report Network and what you would like to see more of. Feel free to drop me a note anytime. I appreciate the feedback from our readers --- it's some of the best reading that I do.

Marisa Emralino
Editorial Coordinator

I've always been a firm believer in the idea that you can tell the most about people through the littlest details of their personalities. For example, I'm addicted to cooking shows, but I'm a terror in the kitchen. I have an incredibly selective memory, so that I'd be able to tell you what I had for lunch on the first day of kindergarten (PB&J sandwich, a box of apple juice, and a Twinkie that the boy sitting next to me sat on), but I probably won't recall what I did yesterday. I like eating ice cream with a baby's spoon because it makes me feel taller than I really am, and sleeping with my head buried underneath the pillows and my feet sticking out of the sheets. I dislike most puns, and people who spit on the street. I drink more than three cups of tea a day (both caf and decaf), and if weather permitted, I would wear flip-flops all year long. So, what have we learned about me? Absolutely nothing. Remind me to toss this "littlest details" theory out the window.

To get down to the basics, most of my spare time is spent listening to or watching music, eating, taking black and white pictures, and reading as if my life depended on it. Ironically, when I first learned how to read, I detested it. It wasn't until I picked up THE VELVETEEN RABBIT for a second-grade reading assignment that the bookworm in me finally emerged. I found this little story --- about a stuffed bunny who was loved so much by his owner that he became REAL --- so touching that it actually made me cry. I didn't understand until then that words had the power to stir emotions. At that moment, I decided two things: 1) that I would rotate my toys so that they'd all receive an equal amount of Marisa-loving, and 2) that this whole reading thing wasn't so bad after all.

About 15 years, a B.A. in English Literature, and buckets of tears later, my appetite for reading has grown immense, and quite random at times. Currently, THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN KEATS sits on my nightstand next to an ALICE IN WONDERLAND pop-up book; a collection of food essays keeps me company during subway rides, while a stack of literary fiction novels occupies the few and rare moments of office downtime. I'll also devour everything from historical fiction to biographies, from humor and pop culture commentaries to poetry and classics. And amidst all of this, I'm ready and waiting for my next good cry.

Anne Staszalek
Community Leader

Since the day I puzzled out the words to the copy of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA left by my brother in the backyard, I realized that books could take me places I could never go myself and I was lost to the allure of the printed word. During my school years I worked in various school libraries and was lucky enough to grow up within the expansive Queens Library system in New York. I was never without a portable portal to another place or time in hand. Even my spare time was of a literary nature, being deeply involved with fantasy and science fiction fandom and various writing groups, many of which I still enjoy today.

I enjoy nearly every genre of books and must admit to getting impish delight when people walk in and I’m in the middle of five different books of varying sorts, waiting for the inevitable question of “don’t you get terribly confused?” No, I don’t --- not sure WHY, but I never have confused plots, characters, or titles --- and since I’m usually writing things at the same time, I figure that my mind is like my office: confusing to others, orderly to me and me alone.

It is a wonderful thing that I’ve been able to work with my love of books, whether bouncing into the warm community of readers on the ReadingGroupGuides.com message boards, or doing marketing outreach for some really incredible authors and titles. What amazes me is how neatly something as timeless as a book works so wonderfully with the ultramodern universe of the Internet. I am very glad I’m in the middle of both of these worlds.

Promotion and Advertising

Alex Kassl
Promotion Assistant
In the center of my elementary school library, there was an array of mismatched armchairs and sofas where I could have sat with my pile of plastic-wrapped hardback of THE SOLAR SYSTEM or SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK and read forever. Only being allowed to borrow two books at one time, I always had difficulty deciding which books I would get to explore beyond the allotted period of “Library Time.”

When I was growing up, going to the bookstore was like going to a candy shop. Even today, I still feel this way. Within each set of pages lays an entire world and I could escape from everyday life, even if for only a few moments. Each page I turn brings upon the feeling of sweet satisfaction. Rainy days can be a real treat when I have a good book in my hand. There is nothing like reading THE SHINING while listening to the sleet rattling the windowpane. I can actually look forward to a long subway ride, road trip or flight because I know I’ll always have my reading with me. Books like Joan Didion’s SLOUCHING TOWARD BETHLEHEM and WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE have been most rewarding traveling companions.

My contentment with all of the wonderful books I have read is only dwarfed by the fact that there are so many books out there that I haven’t. When the opportunity to work with The Book Report Network arose, I saw it not only as an opportunity for professional development; I saw it as a chance to work with a variety of authors and the works they produce. As a result, even coming to work can be a trip to the candy shop.

Design and Production

Eric P. Rhodes
Web Developer/Producer

I was surrounded by books as a child, as both of my parents love to read. My mother, who still works at the family-owned auto parts store, loves Pop Fiction. My father, a retired Captain of the Hoboken Fire Dept. Rescue Co., has shelves filled with the classics like Sherlock Holmes as well as biographies and autobiographies of prominent figures in American culture.

But it wasn't until the summer after my first year of college that I really wanted to read for fun. I guess seeing all of those books on the shelves eventually had an impact on me. And because I heard about the book in some movie I can no longer remember, I chose The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I probably could've chosen something quicker to read, but I like to challenge myself.

So there I was with my Webster's Pocket Dictionary in one hand and THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO in the other. A week later it was finished; I couldn't put it down. I read every chance I could --- on the way to work, at lunch, on car rides, during class and after dinner. Next was THE HOBBIT and thus I began to catch on to the classics that I had missed as a kid. THE CAT'S CRADLE, 1984, THE GREAT GATSBY, THE CRUCIBLE and ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE were soon to follow. It’s been a love affair with books ever since.

Working at The Book Report Network gives me the unique opportunity to work in an industry that interests me personally, exposing me to authors and books I may never have been introduced to. It also feeds my professional interest in graphic design and web developing.

I’ve been called a 20th Century Renaissance man before. I don’t know how true that is, but it probably comes from the range of my interests. When I’m not producing websites for The Book Report Network, I do freelance illustration and graphite portraits and assist award-winning illustrator Tony Capparelli at his Art of Sport workshop.

Vicky Kariolic
Web Producer

When I was a child, neither my parents nor my teachers could understand how someone they saw as intelligent would refuse to read. I was shuffled into remedial reading classes for the first few years of my education. I enjoyed stories, but I hated reading.

All through my grade school years, the hardest thing anyone could get me to read was Nancy Drew, Beverly Cleary or Choose Your Own Adventure. In high school something changed. As a freshman, I was told to read GONE WITH THE WIND. I laughed. I, who hated reading, was going to read this giant super-long novel? I started out by skimming, and failed the first quiz. I sighed and read the chapters --- and was amazed that I couldn’t put it down! Sure that was a good story, but I wasn’t really compelled to read anything independently. Until sophomore year.

My high school handed out suggested reading lists for each grade level. In an attempt to get me to read, my parents pulled all the matching titles from their small collection and put them on a shelf in my room. One fateful day, I was really bored. I had gone through the shelf of books on many occasions, and this time I was determined to read something from it. A title caught my eye, THE HOBBIT. My father would only tell me it was an adventure story.

After I read the book and told my father how fantastic it was, he informed me that there was more. Excited, I asked him for the next book. THE LORD OF THE RINGS did not look as daunting as it did when I was younger. After initially accompanying my father to the neighborhood bookstore, I starting going there on my own.

One of the employees gave me a suggestion: ARROWS OF THE QUEEN by Mercedes Lackey. I ended up joining the fan club after reading this book, and as far as the world is concerned, the rest is history. I have gone through many series, and while I do enjoy stand-alones, I am rarely satisfied by them. I ended up at the bookstore I had frequented, working part-time...for 12 years. I only left to move to New York.

When I walked into the offices of The Book Report Network for the first time in January 2007, I was impressed by the shear volume of books that were in the office. It looked like a smorgasbord and I wanted to dig in. The friendly staff clinched it for me, and I couldn’t wait to become a part of it all. When I was hired, I was ecstatic. It combined the best of several things I love --- books, the Internet and friendly co-workers.

Greg Fitzgerald
Assistant Producer

I was six when The Book Report Network began in 1996, and I can say that I have been involved with the company in one way or another since the beginning. You see, my mom is Carol Fitzgerald, who co-founded the company. Growing up my life has been filled with books and conversations about the Company.

Early memories include floating in the pool looking at preliminary sketches of Kidsreads.com (quickly becoming illegible by the splashing of my two-year-old brother), a few weekends where our family room became a branch office of the Postal Service when my mom had to get an early mailing out (although I think that postal workers get fewer paper cuts) and then a few summers of working in the New York office. Most recently I have been working as an Assistant Producer on ReadingGroupGuides.com and I weighed in on the Teen Ultimate Reading List on Teenreads.com.

When I was younger, I was often the test audience for the latest kids’ series, from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to John R. Erickson’s Hank the Cowdog. I became exposed early to many future classics, including reading early copies of the first two Harry Potter books just before it became a phenomenon.

Nowadays, my reading interests span many genres. I love suspense/thrillers and literary fiction, with too many favorites to list; I can devour any book on American or maritime history. I also have a tendency to gravitate towards the travel sections of bookstores and spend 15 minutes flipping through Lonely Planets and Rough Guides to offbeat destinations like Belize and Vietnam. And I’m one of the few kids in my AP literature classes who actually enjoyed reading all those 19th-century classics (with the definite exception of MOBY-DICK).

When I’m not reading, I have plenty else to do. I love photography, as our photo-covered refrigerator shows. I’m a huge lighthouse enthusiast and have seen almost 200 in America. I’m also an ocean liner nut, and I spend a lot of time (too much) in the garage trying to figure out why my beloved 1993 Range Rover does not look like the picture in the repair manual.

I’ve been truly lucky to grow up along with The Book Report. I’ve been exposed to so many great authors in ways I never could have otherwise, and I’ve been fortunate to get to meet many of them. Plus, my mom brings books home, and she never hesitates to hand me her credit card to buy more.

Marketing

Wiley Saichek
Marketing Director

Coming from a family of teachers, I grew up surrounded by books. Mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, fantasy and historical fiction quickly became --- and remain --- my favorite genres.

I became seriously interested in the book industry in the mid-1990s after a bookstore owner friend introduced me to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's books. After becoming a huge fan and initiating a correspondence with Yarbro, I began assisting with online publicity projects. This eventually led to online publicity jobs for novelists Suzy McKee Charnas and Tamara Thorne.

During all of this I stumbled across The Book Report Network. I volunteered for the company from 1998-2002, first as one of the chat hosts and later as a message board monitor.

The Book Report Network hired me in February 2002. As Marketing Director I help develop and oversee Internet Marketing campaigns for our author and publisher clients.

Wonderful colleagues, supportive family and friends and books. Who can ask for more?

Anna Jarzab
Marketing Assistant

Anna Jarzab Photo

I can't imagine what my life would be without books. When I meet people who don't read, I always have to bite my tongue to keep from asking, "Well, then, what DO you do?" For me, books are like food --- I need them to live. I've been doing a lot of moving in the last few years, and each time minds are boggled by the lengths to which I will go just to bring a few more books with me. I am most comfortable with a paperback in my hands, and I always keep at least one or two in my purse, just in case --- even if I'm just running out to the store. I never know when I'll get caught in a long line and feel the need to brush up on theoretical physics or make certain that Elizabeth Bennet does in fact end up with Mr. Darcy --- I've read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 12 times now, but it never hurts to be sure!

When I was young, I loved all the traditional series for girls --- Nancy Drew, The Baby-sitters Club, Sweet Valley High --- and I went through a very exhaustive Mary Higgins Clark phase in early high school. As an adult, I read anything and everything, trying to hit a goal of at least 50 books for pleasure per calendar year, although I often exceed it. Nancy Mitford, the bold, brilliant British novelist who is sadly neglected today, is probably the closest thing I have to a literary hero --- THE PURSUIT OF LOVE and LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE are absolutely the funniest books I've ever read. Douglas Coupland's HEY NOSTRADAMUS! moves me more than I ever thought a novel possibly could, and Anne Fadiman's EX LIBRIS: Confessions of a Common Reader is a perennial favorite that never fails to make me geek out about just how great books are.

Working at The Book Report Network is more than a job to me; it's a chance to surround myself with people who value reading, to watch the future of publishing as it unfolds, and to get an inside look at the industry as it moves into a new era of blogs and podcasts.

Nicole Bruce
Marketing Assistant

Nicole Bruce Photo

When I first told my mother I was going to work for a company called The Book Report Network, she laughed. "It sounds so official," she said. Then I laughed, reflecting on the irony.

The company name stirs up images of me as a third grader forgetting that the first book report of my life was due, scrambling to pull something creative together while the rest of the A- and B-lettered last names were called up to present, one by one. I managed to throw a brief synopsis paired with a doodled game (complete with torn fragments of paper as game pieces) and went up to the front of the classroom to meet my doom.

When my mother found out I hadn't told her about the book report that was due, she disciplined me with years upon years of book report punishment. My mother… is … a teacher. I never minded reading the books, or even writing the book reports. What paralyzed me were book report "performances." I was embarrassed to walk up to the front of the classroom with yet another beyond the typical bare-basics book report. As someone who just wanted to blend in, the attention certainly didn't help. People still remember my puppet shows, my hand-drawn constellation maps, and the televised report of Helen Keller's life story (of which my four-year-old brother was Alexander Graham Bell kneeling beside my six-year-old sister as the deceased Helen Keller).

So, when I think of reading, I think of when it first started. I'm THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR, greedily absorbing words. FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER gave me the desire to sleep in a museum, and then when I did this twice as a Girl Scout, the blinding exit sign and spooky dinosaur bones kept me up all night. IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE fed my hunger for another book…and a cookie. HARRIET THE SPY challenged the way I observed my surroundings, typically from my maple tree post. NUMBER THE STARS left my heart pounding and took me places that made me grateful to be sitting where I was at the time. Roald Dahl's THE BFG made making certain noises funny and fun. THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE led me in search of a cricket cage in Chinatown, which I found, but now I'm missing that smart cricket to keep me company. THE BORROWERS and THE LITTLES perpetually left me with strange dreams of me as a miniature being with a tail. MISS RUMPHIUS instilled my desire to live by the ocean as I grow old. Henry Reed, Ramona, Nancy Drew, and Scout from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD were rambunctious children with a passion for mystery in their hearts, which made it difficult to grow up. WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS inspired my first book cry. Words have an immeasurable weight. Oh, the things books carry….

Of course, many books for grown-ups (fiction, nonfiction, poetry --- anything goes) have changed my life, but it's safe to say that there's just nothing like a good book for kids to bring you back to where it all began. One of the reasons I'm so drawn to the Internet in the publishing world is the possibilities of getting more and more people to connect with books.

The Book Report Network provides me with the opportunity to work in publishing and help give a book a greater chance of finding more readers. I also don't know where else I could have a job where my manager thanks me for my work literally every day (thanks, Wiley).

The Book Report Network:

the book report network is an internet company comprised of 5 websites and 4 aol areas that provide a vast array of online opportunities for readers, writers and publishers. the book report network’s websites for readers provide original book content including author interviews, reviews and commentary; interactive elements such as polls, questions, and message boards; and reading group guides and other reader resources. Our newest site, AuthorsOnTheWeb.com, offers website design services, website hosting, and various Internet marketing opportunities to authors and publishers. AuthorsOnTheWeb.com also features the AuthorsOnTheWeb Yellow Pages, a directory of author websites and online events.

Established in 1996 and headquartered in New York City, The Book Report Network has drawn enthusiastic approval and critical praise from publishers, authors, educators and librarians. With close to 500,000 unique users and more than 50,000 newsletter subscribers, these sites are recognized by publishers as the catalyst to efficiently and effectively reach audiences to promote books and authors, as well as generate book sales.

Our Websites:

Bookreporter.com
Our flagship website. Launched in August 1996, Bookreporter.com provides book reviews, interviews and excerpts on all the latest books as well as special features, polls, and contest about books, authors and reading.

Teenreads.com
Debuting in July 1997 Teenreads.com, is the younger version of Bookreporter.com, providing teens with an opportunity to read about the books that interest them the most and to share ideas and suggestions with their peers.

Kidsreads.com
Booker T. Worm brings his special brand of fun and reading advice to kids aged 6 to 12.

ReadingGroupGuides.com
ReadingGroupGuides.com is the first website built especially for reading groups, providing them with all they need to make their book club experience better than ever.

AuthorsOnTheWeb.com
AuthorsOnTheWeb.com promotes the author websites that the Company builds for authors as part of its web development division. AuthorsOnTheWeb.com is the only website with the sole purpose to spotlight and drive traffic to author websites. The editorial surround on this website is geared toward giving readers a deeper look at the authors that they are reading as well as the writing process.