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Win a Copy of Gold by Chris Cleave for Your Group
We are celebrating the upcoming release of Gold by Chris Cleave --- the story of two longtime friends and rivals who each desperately want to win gold at the 2012 Olympics --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to each win a copy of the book, which will be in stores July 3rd, for their group. The deadline for entries is Friday, June 8th at noon ET.
 More about Gold:
Kate and Zoe met at 19 when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling --- a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one-tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair.
Now at 32, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose.
 Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.
Win a Copy of Next to Love by Ellen Feldman for Your Group
Next to Love by Ellen Feldman follows the lives of three young women and their men during the years of World War II, beginning with the men going off to war and ending a generation later, when their children are on the cusp of their own adulthood.
The paperback edition releases on May 15th, and we’re celebrating with a special contest. One group will receive 12 paperback copies of Next to Love, while 25 additional readers will be awarded a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Friday, June 8th at noon ET.
 More about Next to Love:
It’s 1941. Babe throws like a boy, thinks for herself, and never expects to escape the poor section of her quiet Massachusetts town. Then World War II breaks out, and everything changes. Her friend Grace, married to a reporter on the local paper, fears being left alone with her infant daughter when her husband ships out; Millie, the third member of their childhood trio, now weds the boy who always refused to settle down; and Babe wonders if she should marry Claude, who even as a child could never harm a living thing.
Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.
Win a Copy of Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones for Your Group
We are celebrating the paperback release of Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones --- a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle --- with a special contest. One group will receive 12 paperback copies of Silver Sparrow, while 25 additional readers will be awarded a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is Friday, June 8th at noon ET.
 More about Silver Sparrow:
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families --- the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed “one of the most important writers of her generation” (the Atlanta Journal Constitution).
Click here to read all the contest details.
Click here for the reading group guide.
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 Home
by Toni Morrison
Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life.
» Click here for the reading group guide.
 True Sisters
by Sandra Dallas
In order to encourage Mormon converts to emigrate to the promised land (Salt Lake City), a plan was implemented by Brigham Young himself: emigrants were outfitted with two-wheeled handcarts. The settlers were then expected to walk, pushing the handcarts, for the 1,300-mile journey from Iowa City. Several “companies,” as they were called, completed this perilous trek and successfully reached Salt Lake City. But for the Martin Company, one of the very last groups to leave from Iowa City that year, the trip proved disastrous.
» Click here for the reading group guide.
 The Cottage at Glass Beach
by Heather Barbieri
Forty-year-old Nora Cunningham has it all: a handsome husband, Malcolm --- the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts state history --- and two healthy, lively daughters, seven-year-old Annie and 11-year-old Ella. That is, until she and the rest of the world learn of Malcolm’s affair, and his refusal to give up his lover turns their lives upside down.
» Click here for the reading group guide.
 Objects of My Affection
by Jill Smolinski
In the humorous, heartfelt new novel by the author of The Next Thing on My List, a personal organizer must somehow convince a reclusive artist to give up her hoarding ways and let go of the stuff she's hung on to for decades. In doing so, they both learn a lesson in what in life is worth keeping, and when it's time to let go.
» Click here for the reading group guide.
 Shelter
by Frances Greenslade
For sisters Maggie and Jenny growing up in the Pacific mountains in the early 1970s, life felt nearly perfect. But at night, Maggie --- a born worrier --- would count the freckles on her father’s weathered arms, listening for the peal of her mother’s laughter in the kitchen, and never stop praying to keep them all safe from harm. Then her worst fears come true: Not long after Maggie’s 10th birthday, their father is killed in a logging accident, and a few months later, their mother abruptly drops the girls at a neighbor’s house, promising to return. She never does.
» Click here for the reading group guide.
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There are no registered book club contests for May. Please check back next month. If your group is not registered with ReadingGroupGuides.com, click here to register.
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Book Group Spotlight Feature
The Book Group Spotlight Feature is designed to share a selected book group with our readers. The spotlight may focus on a group's discussion of a book or on a group that we feel is particularly interesting.
This month we have TWO Book Group Spotlight interviews for you. Jane Blackledge talks about her group, the North Wales Area Library Book Club; and Emily Hicks (who we found through 20SomethingReads.com’s Facebook page!) gives us the scoop on her newly formed book club in the Oklahoma City metro area.
Click here to read the interviews.
Click here to read previous interviews.
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ReadingGroupGuides.com's "What to Read Next? Suggest a Book for This Group"
Is your book group stuck in a rut? Or looking to stretch beyond its comfort zone? Maybe you're just searching for that next great read?
We're here to help! Our latest ReadingGroupGuides.com feature, “What to Read Next? Suggest a Book for This Group,” aims to help a group by taking suggestions from our thousands of book group members.
We'll regularly feature groups, tell you something about them and share their previous 6 selections here, and then ask you to leave a suggestion for them in our special form. We're excited to see groups sharing picks back-and-forth, and hope this feature helps groups find a new favorite discussion title!
Click here to see this month's featured groups.
Click here to see the suggestions for last month's group.
Click here to see the suggestions for previously featured groups.
Click here to submit your group for consideration.
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- The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin: "Anyone suffering ‘Downton Abbey’ withdrawal symptoms will find an instant tonic in Daisy Goodwin’s The American Heiress… a deliciously evocative first novel that lingers in the mind." -- Allison Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It and I Think I Love You
- The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler: Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances --- in their house, on the roadway, in the market.
- A Bitter Veil by Libby Fischer Hellmann: American Anna follows her beloved Nouri to his native Iran where their world is abruptly turned upside down by the overthrow of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic.
- Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall: Blue Asylum is a vibrant, beautifully imagined, absorbing story of the lines we all cross between sanity and madness. It is also the tale of a spirited woman, a wounded soldier, their impossible love, and the undeniable call of freedom.
- The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri: Escaping the scandal from her husband’s infidelity, a woman attempts to reconnect with her childhood home on a remote island off the Maine coast, uncovering startling secrets.
- The Discovery by Dan Walsh: When literary giant Gerard Warner dies, he leaves his Charleston estate to his grandson, Michael, who discovers an unpublished manuscript his grandfather had written --- something he'd kept hidden from everyone but clearly intended Michael to find.
- Echoes of the Moon by Kathryn Clark: An American woman chronicles daunting challenges and enlightening experiences during her spirit-filled journey to discover a place of her own in Greece.
- Gold by Chris Cleave: Little Bee author Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.
- Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World by Sadakat Kadri: Providing a clear-eyed perspective on an often provocative topic, Heaven on Earth raises important questions about the very nature of governance in the 21st century as nations confront conflicts between modern, secular culture and religious tradition.
- Home by Toni Morrison: Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this 20th-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.
- Iron House by John Hart: Two families. Two brothers. One explosive secret. John Hart has written four New York Times bestsellers and won an unprecedented two back-to-back Edgar Awards. Now he delivers a gut-wrenching, heart-stopping thriller no reader will soon forget.
- Next to Love by Ellen Feldman: Next to Love is a love letter to the brave women who shaped a nation’s destiny, and their stories of love, war, loss and the scars set during the years of World War II and its aftermath.
- Noah's Wife by T.K. Thorne: Noah’s wife is Na’amah, a brilliant young girl who sees the world through different eyes (a form of autism now known as Aspergers) and wishes only to be a shepherdess on her beloved hills in ancient Turkey --- a desire shattered by the hatred of her powerful brother, the love of two men, and a looming disaster.
- Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski: In the humorous, heartfelt new novel by the author of The Next Thing on My List, a personal organizer must somehow convince a reclusive artist to give up her hoarding ways and let go of the stuff she’s hung onto for decades.
- Paris in Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James: In 2009, Eloisa James took a leap that many people dream about: she sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor, and moved her family to Paris. Paris in Love chronicles her joyful year in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
- The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan: The Big Chill meets The Group in Deborah Copaken Kogan's wry, lively and irresistible new novel about a once-close circle of friends at their 20th college reunion.
- The Replacement Wife by Eileen Goudge: From New York Times bestselling author Eileen Goudge comes a poignant new novel that asks the question “What would you do if you were told you had only six months to live?” For one professional matchmaker, the answer is heart-wrenching: She must find her husband’s next wife.
- The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman: Fifteen years after the publication of his acclaimed novel Mason’s Retreat, Christopher Tilghman returns to the Mason family and the Chesapeake Bay in The Right-Hand Shore with this masterful novel that confronts the dilemmas of race, family and forbidden love in the wake of America’s Civil War.
- Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: This National Book Award winner, now available in paperback, is a searing novel about one family’s struggle to survive Hurricane Katrina.
- Shelter by Frances Greenslade: Two young sisters search for the truth behind their mother’s sudden, mysterious disappearance.
- Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones: Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, Silver Sparrow revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families --- the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters.
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy.
- Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories by Etgar Keret: With Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, bestselling author Etgar Keret brings us more than 30 global tales of karmic revenge, unruly children, solitary lovers, the weirdness of the workplace, and other aspects of human existence.
- This Life is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family's Heartbreak by Melissa Coleman: Set on a rugged coastal homestead during the 1970s, This Life is in Your Hands introduces a superb young writer driven by the need to uncover the truth of a childhood tragedy and connect anew with the beauty and vitality of the back-to-the-land ideal that shaped her early years.
- True Sisters by Sandra Dallas: From the New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the story of four women, brought together on a harrowing journey of Mormon settlers in this incredible novel based on a real-life event.
- An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer: Prep meets Dead Poets Society in this elegant and remarkably insightful coming-of-age debut, with an underground Shakespeare Society at Wellesley at the novel’s center.
- The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. by Carole DeSanti: Eugénie R., born in France’s foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next 10 years fighting to get her back.
- West of Here by Jonathan Evison: Spanning more than a hundred years, from the ragged mudflats of a belching and bawdy frontier to the rusting remains of a strip-mall cornucopia, West of Here chronicles the life of one small town in a saga that turns America’s history into myth and myth into a nation’s shared experience.
- What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel: From Harvard University's Michael J. Sandel --- the New York Times bestselling author of Justice and “perhaps the most prominent college professor in America” (The Washington Post) --- comes a timely look at the relationship between markets and morals, a book that asks fundamental questions about the reach of markets into our daily lives.
- When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams: When Women Were Birds explores the shaping of a life through 54 precisely honed chapters, each with its own unique wisdom. Through evocative scenes, captured in lyrical words, Terry Tempest Williams has created a work that startles and illuminates.
- The World Without You by Joshua Henkin: From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Matrimony (“Beautiful…. Brilliant” - Michael Cunningham) comes a moving, mesmerizing new novel about love, loss, and the aftermath of a family tragedy.
- The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller: In this debut novel, a budding teenage journalist at an elite prep school and her enigmatic science teacher each separately attempt to track down a secret society that may hold damning evidence about a shadowy tragedy in the school's --- and the teacher's --- past.
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Oprah's Book Club Selection
Contest
Win Copies for your Book Group
This month's prize:
The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri
Click here for more
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