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Over the next couple of weeks we're going to be introducing some remarkable book clubs --- ones that have been meeting for at least twenty years. We've asked members to share their insight on how they've been able to keep the momentum going and what recommendations they have for other groups that would like to make it to the two-decade mark...and beyond.

As Brooke and Keith Desserich share in Notes Left Behind, their six-year-old daughter Elena was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer and died just nine months later. As Elena lost her voice and the ability to walk, she communicated through writing and drawing. Unbenownst to her parents, she was writing notes and leaving them around the house tucking them in between books in the bookcase, the holiday ornament boxes and other places where they would later find them as they moved through their everyday lives.

Oprah Winfrey is joining forces with CNN's Anderson Cooper, host of the television show AC 360, for what is being billed as "the biggest book club event ever." There will be an in-depth discussion with Uwem Akpan, author of the latest Oprah's Book Club selection, Say You're One of Them, tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST.

Today Jeff Potter, a member of The Great Apes Reading Group of Fort Collins, Colorado, shares the three books that sparked their best discussions. The group's name comes from their 10th reading selection, Tarzan of the Apes. The main character in the book is "an avid reader, even teaching himself to read by reading Paradise Lost, if you can believe that," says Jeff. The Great Apes, an all-guy book club with members ranging in age from 37 to 64, has been going strong for 15 years.

Continuing with best discussion books, as submitted by readers of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter (sign up here), below are some of the comments that were shared.

Susan Meissner, today's guest blogger, talks about being both a reading group member and a writer whose works are read by book clubs. She offers her thoughts on why books can make strangers the best of friends...and what she thinks readers deserve when they journey through one of her novels.

Katherine Stockett's debut novel, The Help, has been generating interest since its publication earlier this year. Set in 1963, it's the story of three women --- two African American maids in Mississippi and a young white woman who sees a story in the world that they live in.

Sometimes it happens --- a book club meeting just doesn't go well. And sometimes they're among the most memorable discussions. RGG.com contributor Heather Johnson's group, Storie delle Sorelle, recently experienced this in back-to-back meetings, and today she talks about these two extremes.