Find book club resources at the library

The interest in book clubs continues unabated with more and more people joining one or starting their own. The Manatee County Public Library can help current book club members as well as those considering joining or starting a book discussion group.

“Good Books Lately: the One-Stop Resource for Book Groups and Other Greedy Readers,” by Ellen Moore and Kira Stevens, reveals how to start and maintain a book discussion group, recommended titles, titles to avoid, and much more.

“The Book Blub Bible: the Definitive Guide that Every Book Club Member Needs,” by Lionel Shriver, consists of a list of about 100 books, with a summary and discussion points for each.

“The Book Bunch: Developing Book Clubs for Beginning Readers,” by Laura J. H. Smith, includes a short introduction describing the benefits of book clubs for early readers and gives steps for starting and running them. The bulk of the book consists of 26 programs, each centered on a different picture book. For each title, the author gives a summary, lists discussion questions, and suggests an activity.

The Central Library has a small collection of “Book Club Kits,” which contain four regular print and four large print copies of a title, as well as discussion questions. Find these in the online catalog (manatee.polarislibrary.com) under “Book Club Kits.” They may be requested and sent to the branch of your choice.

On the library’s webpage (www.mymanatee.org/library), click the “Want to Know What to Read Next?” button to access the system-wide “Book Discussion Groups & Author Events” page, as well as links to websites for recommended books. You can also subscribe to “NextReads” newsletters here. “NextReads” are free fiction and nonfiction newsletters delivered to your email. Fiction genres include historical fiction, thrillers and suspense, mysteries, fantasy and science fiction, and more. Subscribe to as many as you wish!

An American Library Association initiative, “Book Club Central” (www.bookclubcentral.org) is a great resource, not only for book recommendations, but also for “How to Book Club” information. There are links to online book clubs like “Goodreads,” “Reddit” and “Reading Group Choices” and information on how to start your own online book club, how to troubleshoot a book club that might be struggling, how to be a better book club member, and much more.

If you are looking for book club title suggestions, “Book Page” is a great place to start. You can pick up a free copy at the Second Edition bookstore in the Central Library. Current and back issues may also be read online at https://bookpage.com. Click on “Issue Archive” at the bottom of the page to view back issues. Each issue has a “Book Clubs” title recommendation column.

Oprah Winfrey gave book clubs a real boost when she started her book club way back in 1996. You can print off the entire list by Googling “Oprah’s Book Club: the Complete List” (with a handy “I read it already” check box next to each title).

By the way, if everyone is reading the same title, you might want to make check the online library catalog at http://manatee.polarislibrary.com to be sure the Library System has enough copies for everyone.

Happy reading.

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 2:18 PM with the headline "Find book club resources at the library."