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Better World Book Club: The Accidental Bestseller

Posted by Dana on 06.19.2009 at 8:12 am

Don’t forget to sign up for the Better World Book Club. We pick a new book each month that you can discuss with us here on the blog or take back to your neighborhood book club. We even set you up with everything you need for your meeting…. a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.

You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER by Wendy Wax

Last month I promised you a great beach read for June…so here it is. To me a beach read is not necessarily all lightness and fluff, but rather a page turner where you care about the characters and are left feeling upbeat or hopeful at the end. Wendy Wax’s latest doesn’t disappoint.

The Accidental Bestseller does for (or to) publishing what The Devil Wears Prada did for fashion mags: gives you an under the covers look into a world you wouldn’t otherwise get to see.

Wendy uses the backdrop of the publishing industry to explore friendship, marriage and career and introduces us to four unique women who struggle with all of it.

Here’s a couple of questions the book brought up for me:

Does you career define you? What would you do if you woke up one morning and it was over?

Do your friends have to know everything about you in order for them to truly be your friends?

How much would you risk to help a friend?

And here’s some trivia for you…there’s a character named after me somewhere in the book. The first person to comment here on the blog with the page number I appear on gets a $25 gift certificate!

For more discussion questions and a tasty summer recipe, check out the book club email and feel free to leave some comments and let me know what you thought of the book!

– Dana

1 Comment » | Tagged Better World Book Club, Beach Read 2009, Better World Book Club, Summer Read 2009, The Accidental Bestseller, The Devil Wears Prada, Wendy Wax

Better World Book Club: Ella Minnow Pea

Posted by Dana on 05.28.2009 at 10:54 am

Don’t forget to sign up for the Better World Book Club Newsletter. Our monthly book club email includes a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.

You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

ELLA MINNOW PEA by Mark Dunn

I actually read Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea several years ago for a book club I was part of and it stuck with me, so now I want to share it with you. While clearly a literary exercise (as letters fall off a statue - they are removed from the written and spoken vocabulary of an island community by its totalitarian government), it is also a really good story and a thought provoking political statement.

I have read other books that felt like literary exercises to me. Some work and some don’t. The one that pops into my mind first is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book was very highly acclaimed but I found myself distracted by some of his literary devices, and for me that took something away for the book. I felt like it was a project for a graduate level writing class. It would get an A for sure, but I want to feel the emotion and discover the plot rather than be cleverly deviced to death.

2 Comments » | Tagged Better World Book Club, Author Mark Dunn, Book Club Pick, book reviews, dana barrett, Ella Minnow Pea, Everything is Illuminated, jonathan safran foer, literary devices, literary works, Mark Dunn

Better World Book Club: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Posted by Dana on 04.20.2009 at 5:35 pm

Still not signed up for the Better World Book Club Newsletter? Our monthly book club email includes a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.

You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford

As you can imagine, I love books and authors and love to do what I can to help promote them. It’s not just my current and former life as a bookseller that makes me feel this way — I have always loved books. So, when I come across a debut novel like this one, I am especially happy to be able to help get the word out.

Jamie Ford’s HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER & SWEET has officially become one of my new favorite books. Ford paints a personal picture of race, culture, family, love and loyalty in the 1940s in America. He shows us, through the eyes of children, a time we, as Americans, would rather forget; when Japanese Americans were rounded up and forced to live in internment camps. It is a politically important story for sure, but it is the personal story that sweeps you up and makes you unable to stop turning pages.

I loved Henry, both as a child and as a man. He is loyal, brave and young Henry seems wise beyond his years. What did you think of his quiet disobedience of his father? What about his father’s rule that he could only speak English at home when his parents only spoke Cantonese? Keiko and her family were so very American and worldly and open. Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Better World Book Club, Better World Book Club, book club, dana barrett, fiction, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford, Japanese internment camps, World War II

Better World Book Club: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Posted by Dana on 03.14.2009 at 6:19 pm

You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This is one of those books that I have been curious about for awhile. It was somewhere on my list of books to read, but just had not risen to the top. I think it finally jumped to the top of the pile after I saw Slumdog Millionaire, which is based on the book Q & A by Vikas Swarup. Of course the main thing these two books have in common is that they take place in India, but after seeing the movie, I was interested in reading more about the country and the culture.

I actually really loved this book. Though I have to say I am a bit surprised that I do. In fact, the last book that I reviewed in which the main character was a murderer (we learn that very early on, so I’m not ruining anything for you) was Almost Moon by Alice Sebold which I struggled with a bit. Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Better World Book Club, Aravind Adiga, book club, fiction, Q & A, Slumdog Millionaire, The White Tiger, Vikas Swarup

Better World Book Club: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Posted by Dana on 02.06.2009 at 1:31 pm

Are you all signed up for the Better World Book Club Newsletter? Our monthly book club email includes a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.

Our Pick for February 2009

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

This month we’re talking about Loving Frank. It’s a fictional account of Frank Lloyd Wright’s tragic love affair with Mamah Cheney. The book is very well researched but is fictionalized so that the author would have the freedom to invent the personal details of the relationship that will never be known.

I have always loved Frank Lloyd Wright’s design aesthetic and so that made me curious about the man. The book does not paint him in the best light, but I think I tended to want to give him a pass because he’s Frank Lloyd Wright. When my local book club discussed the book, many of the women were very upset Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Better World Book Club, book club, Frank Lloyd Wright, Loving Frank, Mamah Cheney, Nancy Horan

Better World Book Club: Run by Anne Patchett

Posted by Dana on 12.12.2008 at 12:31 pm

Welcome to the Better World Book Club! This is a monthly feature in which we’ll send you a fabulous book pick, our own discussion questions to encourage friendly debating at your next book club meeting, and fun recipes for snacks to munch on. In other words, you do the reading, we’ll do the preparing. We’ll also be holding our own discussion about the book here on the Better World Blog, so stop by, hear what others have to say, and share your own opinion. Use the “Share This” button at the bottom of the post to forward this recommendation on to all of your book club besties-let the discussions begin! (To sign up for the newsletter go to manage subscriptions).

Book Club pick for January: