Book Clubs–Time to Decide!!

This time of year, many book clubs decide which books they are going to read for the coming year. This is true if the club uses a ‘school’ calendar with the year ending with May and begining with September. Usually, when someone suggests a book for the entire club, that person has read the book herself. Sometimes that is even a requirement. There are, however,

Who writes the questions??

Most of you are members of a book club; and you notice at the end of many books, the editor will include discussion questions for the book clubs. Frankly, I’ve never been impressed with most of the questions because they don’t seem to provoke critical thinking. Nevertheless, these questions often serve as a starting point that can lead to other questions. I happened upon an

Let’s hear it for grandparents!

Grandparents are certainly important family members. No scientific study is needed to verify that fact. When your grandparents are the President and the First Lady, however, it’s worth writing about. Agreed? That is exactly what Jenna Bush Hager has done with her new book Everything Beautiful in Its Time. The book is a collection of journal entries Hager began writing in 2018 when her grandmother

More on Ukraine

Three books are that are relevent to the crisis in Ukraine are worth mentioning for those of you who like to explore situations in depth. (See blog entry on The Gates of Europe.) Two of the books are non-fiction and the third is considered historical fiction. Lessons from the Edge was written by Marie Yovanovitch. Remember her? She was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until

Just in from Linda Malcolm

I recently received an e-mail from Linda Malcolm telling me about a Mt. Pleasant author, Lindy Carter, whose new book The Rice Birds was published by Evening Post Books In Charleston. Below is a description of the book from the publisher: In 1849, twin sisters fleeing Ireland’s famine arrive at New York’s seaport. Only Nora is allowed to get on the boat to South Carolina

Kate Quinn’s new book

Today at the Sandcastle Book Club meeting, Martha Zink led the discussion of The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn. The novel was based on real women who worked as code-breakers at Betchley Park during and after World War II. Martha printed photos of the ‘real’ people who were featured in the book. Several club members shared their experiences touring Bletchley Park. Quinn has a new

Spoiler Alert

Did you ever really love a book and want to read every book by that same author? What about the Nancy Drew series? I can’t imagine how many young girls were turned on to reading because of Nancy Drew. Notice the author’s name is Carolyn Keene. Well, that was NOT the real author of the Nancy Drew Books. In fact, there was no Carolyn Keene.

Parton and Patterson

This cover image released by Butterfly Records shows “Run Rose Run” by Dolly Parton. The iconic singer also has a book co-authored by James Patterson releasing this week with the same title. (Butterfly Records via AP)Stacie Huckeba/AP Yes, as unlikely as it may seem, Dolly Parton and James Patterson have co-authored a book!! An article in the Parade magazine, Sunday, March 6, 2022, focused on