Blog

Here at ReadingGroupGuides.com we've been talking about Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz --- and telling others about it, too. After her husband Henry's sudden death in his early 40s, Julie discovered that for years he had been cheating on her, including an affair with the mother of one of her daughter's friends.

At the BookExpo America trade show a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with four fabulous book club facilitators: Jill Campbell, Katherine Schulz, Marsha Toy Engstrom and RGG.com blog contributor Esther Bushell.

The HarperCollins Publishers' library marketing team, headed by Virginia Stanley, shares reading suggestions and more on the blog LibraryLoveFest.

Lisa See's new novel, Shanghai Girls, explores the complex bonds of sisterhood in the face of clashing cultures and personal hardships over two volatile decades in the first half of the 20th century. Today we talk with Lisa about Shanghai Girls, what aspects of the story she's particularly looking forward to discussing...and what she loves most about book clubs.

Patti Callahan Henry stopped by The Book Report Network offices last month, and we taped a quick video interview with her (with my Flip camera). We hope to do more of these with authors who come by in the weeks and months to come.

Do you belong to more than one book club? If so, you have something in common with Julie Buxbaum, author of The Opposite of Love. Her debut novel is the story of a Manhattan attorney whose life unravels after she ends her happy relationship just as her boyfriend is on the verge of proposing.

Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist's debut novel, The Unit, is the story of Dorrit Weger, who checks into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. In pleasant surroundings, women over the age of fifty and men over sixty --- single, childless and without jobs in progressive industries --- are sequestered for their final few years.

"The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is not about a Mexico you'll see on the news, in tourist brochures, travel memoirs, nor in almost any other work of fiction," C. M. Mayo has said of her historical novel. It's based on the true --- but never before completely told --- story of the short, turbulent reign of the archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Hapsburg, who was made emperor of Mexico in 1864.

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji was a recent Bookreporter.com Bets On… selection. Set in Iran in the 1970s, as the country is on the verge of revolution, it's a story about growing up, discovering love and awakening to the reality of a new way of life.

In East of the Sun, Julia Gregson unfolds the story of Viva, Rose and Victoria, part of the "Fishing Fleet," the name given to the legions of Englishwomen who sailed to India in search of husbands and new lives.