Book discussion groups | Book discussion groups
Nov.14.2012
There's a lively discussion going on over at BlogHer.com this month about a book that asks you to think about your past, present and future, then map out what you want and expect in various parts of your life - family, friends, learning, work, service, and play.
Do you map out or...
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Sep.24.2012
I’m sitting next to Rob, someone I met a couple of hours ago at the beginning of an American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport this afternoon. We’ve been talking about the work he does on data protection and retention and the training-teaching-learning work I do in...
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Oct.21.2011
A few years ago, I read a post about short stories and the challenges book groups had to them. Short story collections rarely get discussed in book clubs because as Dawn explained in her above post, how do you discuss not one story but many?
Last year, I took this very challenge to my college...
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Aug.23.2011
Recently a local area sanitation district manager called me about my latest book, Strictly Liable. He said that he had read it, told all his upper management to buy and read it, and asked if I would come talk to his staff about it over lunch. How could I say no?
It was really...
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Jun.16.2011
Men behaving bravely, men behaving badly, and sharks. These are the themes explored in my gift book recommendations for Father's Day--guaranteed to provide an escape from whatever Dad needs to escape from. Women will most likely enjoy these, too--I know I did--so pack them into summer travel bags...
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May.03.2011
Mary Gordon, a 61-year-old Catholic girl from Far Rockaway, Queens, slipped into Keplers Bookstore in Menlo Park last Friday night on a book tour. She spoke softly and without pretension . Thankfully, despite years in academia and time spent in Europe, she has not taken on the British cadences...
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Apr.05.2011
This past weekend, in between trips to Home Depot, Costco and Ikea, we stopped at Keplers independent bookstore in Menlo Park for a break from new homeowner obsessions.
Instead, we found ourselves drawn to the "shelter" magazine section.
And, there, lo and behold, we found a magazine...
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Jan.30.2011
Back east in a writing class called City Room 101, veteran Boston newsman Jon Klarfeld taught us that before we could break the rules of reporting, we had to learn them.
So when describing a fire, we had to tell where it happened, how it happened and if there were any fatalities. Heaven help the...
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Oct.20.2010
Russian writer, philosopher, and cultural icon Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) wrote a lot of very very long novels (War and Peace, Anna Karenina) which many book group members pretend to have finished.
If you are one of the pretenders or know someone posing as a "Tolstoy finisher", here's an...
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Oct.07.2010
Once a month I am privileged to sit around a long table with some of the Bay Area's best and brightest women to talk about books and decide which ones to buy for our private library. We review fiction, mysteries, biography, and a wide range of nonfiction and select an average of fifteen books a...
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