Online and inline for reading

For central Mass. book clubs
• Seeking others who love reading? Scanning through www.meetup.com, one finds dozens of interest groups, among them readers and writers.
• Leominster’s “Literary Critics” lists 60 members. Find it at http://www.meetup.com/Reading-Sharing-and-Laughing.
• There are 53 members in Baldwinville’s Cover to Cover Book Club, which meets at Gardner cafes and homes. You can find them on Facebook, or at http://www.meetup.com/covertocoverbookclub/
• Candlelight Readers Circle of Ware’s 17 members are also on the Net. Look for them at (http://www.meetup.com/Candlelight-Readers-Circle-of-Ware/).
• Check out the Mark Twain House web site for a listing of Connecticut-area book discussions and author appearances it sponsors, including The Nook Book Club’s Harriet Beecher Stowe discussion on June 2, and an imaginative day dedicated to family activities surrounding Tom Sawyer, “Yo Ho—The Pirate’s Life,” on June 11.

Explore the writing of T.C. Boyle
Los Angeles novelist and short story writer T.C. Boyle, wry and insightful, writes across a diverse territory of very human characters in conflict with their world. While he’s among the most-published writers in the magazine world, not many book clubs read him yet. I first encountered Boyle through short stories like “Greasy Lake” and “Dogology.” Two of his novels, The Tortilla Curtain and Talk Talk, are favorites. His latest is When the Killing’s Done, exploring the conflict between animal rights activists and biologists. While he sticks to fiction, he’s creatively explored the life of architect and philanderer Frank Lloyd Wright in The Women and the cornflakes’ founder, John Harvey Kellogg, in The Road to Wellville. He even hit on Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle.

The dearly departing

Feeling inundated? Cluttered? There are solutions.
Those who love the sensations of paper and print, clinging to books despite electronic readers, can become hoarders of the best sort, jamming books into bags and backpacks, squeezing them onto shelves and bedside tables, sharing them with friends. But sometimes friends must part—at least those less-loved—and that’s where library sales, second-hand stores, book boxes and book swaps come in. In some cases, donated books make a big difference in others’ lives.
‘Read It and Reap’ feedback indicates readers stand firm: Give us this day our daily book! They treasure their books. As the mega-stores pare down their books and extend into other retail areas, we may even see a resurgence of small, independent bookstores. Every town needs a place to read, hang out with computer/wifi, meet friends, buy books and enjoy coffee and snacks. Is there anything better?
Admittedly, e-readers are aboard airplanes, in cafes and waiting rooms, but books aren’t going away. The reading life is about more than a screen: collectors love to acquire, and book lovers are no different. But we all need to thin the shelves occasionally. With over 1,000 books, I'm faced with the task too often, gleaning the chaff from the shelves. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Here are some ways to pare down:
• Book exchanges. Have each club member bring books to a meeting. You set the rules: book for book, or open selection. Donate what’s left over to the local library.
• Store collections. Some cafes, like the Starbucks in Leominster, have a nook for “leave-one, take-one” choices. We’ve even seen them at The Strand movie theater lobby in Clinton, in medical offices, even some very good ones in our hairstylist’s waiting room.
• The Prison Book Program (www.prisonbookprogram.com). This national organization's Massachusetts chapter is in the basement of United First Parish Church in Quincy, as the "Lucy Parsons Bookstore." Donated books in good condition are redistributed to prisoners throughout the state, to provide educational and recreational reading for prisoners, especially as state budgets reduce funds for such materials. Prisoners aren’t allowed books from family or friends; they must either be shipped from bookstores and publishers or received through the prison library. This program accepts books with an ISBN (bar code) on the cover or jacket, and textbooks no more than three years old, but not damaged books, encyclopedias or academic journals and magazines. Phone (617) 423-3298 or write info@prisonbookprogram.org for drop-off details.
• Amazon.com's buyback program accepts recent textbooks from a designated listing. You'll be paid, if they're accepted, with an amazon.com credit.
• Used bookstores vary as to which topics they like, but often have websites listing their preferences. The Toadstool, an excellent bookstore with used and new books, is in Keene and Peterborough, N.H. The Book Bear on Route 9, West Brookfield (www.bookbear.com) is a big store, buying and selling. The Rabbit Hole in Fitchburg features an eclectic collection including used vinyl and books. The Haunted Bookshop in W. Boylston is another specialty shop with collections of uncommon books on history, art, medieval life. Call (508) 835-4738 for details. Barely Read Books on Route 20 in Sudbury is terrific. While some shops are better, and more varied, payback is usually a few dollars.
• Libraries. Most libraries hold daily, weekly and annual book sales as a way to raise money for operations. Worcester Public Library's "storefront" bookshop is open most days. Libraries love your new used books, children's books, classics in good condition, how-to manuals and cookbooks. (Check upcoming library sales at www.booksalefinder.com/MA)
• Worcester. John and Anne-Marie Monfredo, founders of Worcester: The City that Reads Committee, run an annual book drive (the fifth ended in May), seeking books for children in preschool through Grade 8. They are distributed to schools, preschools and local organizations in June. For more information, call the Monfredos at (508) 853-3444.
Ann Connery Frantz’s past columns are included on her blog about books and book clubs at http://readitandreeap.blogspot.com (note the two ee’s). Email comments or questions to ann.frantz@gmail.com.

Book collection needs your help

John and Anne-Marie Monfredo, founders of the Worcester: The City that Reads Committee, recently kicked off their fifth annual book drive.

They hope to gather more than 25,000 new or gently used books for children in preschool through Grade 8. The books are distributed to schools, preschools and local organizations in June. Collection sites will gather books between now and May 15 and are spread throughout the city and include banks, bookstores, the Worcester Public Library, supermarkets, restaurants, the Senior Center on Vernon Street, the DCU Center, the Jewish Community Center on Salisbury Street, the Greendale YMCA and a variety of other businesses.

Individual public and private schools, colleges, organizations, and businesses are holding individual drives to benefit the effort, and Scholastic Books has already donated more than 1,500 books to get the drive started. For more information, call the Monfredos at (508) 853-3444.

for Book clubs - get moving!

Don’t just sit there—get moving. While many book groups simply greet, meet and treat, some groups are more enterprising: they explore, travel, invite in or Skype with authors, play with book themes (like Sutton’s cupcake party for Buttercream Bumpoff, mentioned Feb. 27).
Members’ appetites are voracious and they want more. It’s out there, waiting for them; they just have to locate it.
“I so wish that some of the local Worcester colleges would host occasional lectures, open to the public, on classic books like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Steinbeck,” wrote Brenda Yates, of the Sutton group, “Full Court Press.”
We second that idea, but add that contemporary fiction is just as interesting to some. Published authors especially fascinate both readers and aspiring writers; increasingly, authors and bookstores are catering to book groups, as a way of increasing sales. Anita Shreve lectured and signed books at Tatnuck Booksellers in Westborough last year. She packed the store’s meeting room. The Toadstool bookstores in Keene and Peterborough, N.H., regularly bring in regional authors to good-size crowds.
When Fitchburg State College invited Jodi Picoult to speak at its 2006 New England Writers Series, she also visited the Leominster Barnes & Noble to sign books—and a long line formed as dozens of fans presented her with their books, many of them planned to attend the FSC session that evening.
Oh, yes; the interest is there. “I think that there are enough book groups in the area that if local colleges would sponsor some evening book seminars—perhaps pay as you go, $15 to attend a lecture or something—that there would be a good market for it,” Yates said. “I think there are plenty of people who would love to read a book and then have the book taught to them. I just read Wuthering Heights and I sure would like someone to explain that one to me!”
Those who love writing love books as well—and dozens of people in this region hone their craft in writing groups. The Worcester Writers Group’s 67-person membership is hardworking and healthy. The poets of Worcester’s Poets’ Asylum are just as active. In Berlin, the Metrowest area, Lancaster, Shrewsbury—community after community—writers groups have formed alongside their reading counterparts. And they share a love for sessions with authors.
Being so close to Boston, there’s a generous amount of activity in this area (as there is in the Berkshires). Emerson College in Boston, home to Ploughshares literary journal, sponsors readings, as do PEN New England and Grub Street—“the” center for serious writers. PEN’s monthly series is generally free, but involves jogging into the Boston area.
Once a year, the Boston Book Festival hosts a passel of noted writers and hundreds wander about freely, listening to and seeing writers like Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates and Bill Bryson. It’s a premiere event and a great fall field trip.
To find events, check regional book stores and libraries (where your club can also rent a movie that pairs with what they’re reading). Libraries bring in speakers when funding permits. The New England Crime Writers makes the rounds of many area libraries, discussing mysteries and writing—they’re a large group, made of fledgling as well as more published mystery writers. Groton Library’s large endowment permits it to bring in a roster of speakers. The Greater Worcester Community Foundation funds speaker programs within area libraries.
Speak up. Librarians want to know what you’d like, and they’ll try to move mountains to get it. Lucky libraries have a few thousand set aside for speakers (and willingly accept donations to the cause). Book sales are a critical resource for funding such activities, so take your satchel and buy, buy, buy. Find out if your library offers free meeting space for book club events, and ask if such assists as Skype—for phone-video interviews—and large-screen projection are available.
“We travel at least twice a year,” reports Debby McDonald of Millbury’s Roving Readers Book Club (second Tuesdays, monthly, 2 p.m., at Barnes & Noble in Millbury). “We read a book and choose a destination connected it.” The club’s 12 to 15 members met at the Orchard House in Concord while reading Louisa Mae Alcott’s Little Women—and there are several writer-connected sites in the region. Mark Twain’s Hartford, Conn., residence is a historical site with many book-related events (www.marktwainhouse.org).
The Millbury group’s meetings are published in Millbury’s Barnes and Noble newsletter as well, promoting interest. Reading Ethan Frome, they traveled to author Edith Wharton’s house. “While reading The Diaries of Adam and Eve, we went to the Mark Twain House,” McDonald said. “We went to Salem to a museum, to see a Chinese home, as we had read so many Chinese stories. We have had two different authors come and talk to our group; one was Amy Belding Brown, the author of Mr. Emerson’s Wife.”
Food matters. The group has had a formal tea at one member’s house. They always plan a visit to a good restaurant in their travels. (Currently, McDonald says, they’re reading Jodi Picoult’s House Rules.)
If your group has had different adventures, share them through this column. I’m glad, also, to include other libraries and clubs as they make their programs known. Princeton Public Library’s book club meets monthly—with an evening and an afternoon group, as well as two children’s book groups, says Wendy Pape, director.
Ann Connery Frantz is a journalist and fiction writer. Past columns are included on her blog about books and book clubs at http://readitandreeap.blogspot.com (note the two ee’s). E-mail your comments or questions to ann.frantz@gmail.com.

Review of A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé, published by Europa Editions in 2009.
Cossé, a journalist, playwright, critic and author of historical novels and a satirical thriller, lives in

In her fanciful mystery, a paean to great literature, “A Novel Bookstore,” author Laurence Cossé portrays the world of books and booksellers while, at the same time, blissfully indulging in those thoughts about great writing that entertain so many who love literature.
Publishing and bookselling are in a crisis—as threatened in other nations as they are in the U.S.—with electronic books and mass-produced best-sellers grabbing the top focus among those who market and sell books. But what of true readers, Cossé asks; who serves those who love great writing and savor works they can place on their shelves at home? Who or what in the publishing industry is serving them by devoting the bulk of promotion money and display space to those who write the kind of thrillers and romances, non-fiction “how-to” books, trashy biographies and personal exploits that have come to dominate the once-enviable best-seller lists at respected journals and newspapers? It is as much an indictment of the reader as the industry.
There is a passion to great literature, believe the founders of The Good Novel bookshop, and they attempt to conduct a business dedicated only to the top one or two percent of writers, refusing to sell what is deemed less than wonderful by their board of secret writing advisers. The goal seems simple enough, but it upsets the publishing world around Paris.
A mystery takes shape amid the framework of likeable, dedicated characters, whose love for literature can’t permit them to sell anything but the best; members of their advisory board—who don’t even know each other’s identity—are being killed or injured. Alarmed by this, the owners quietly attempt to work with an investigator who can link the incidents to the perpetrator. At the same time, their lovely idea begins to turn to chaos: not because the people don’t like their bookstore, but because they, in fact, do.
Everyone who is left out by the selection process wants in. And, therein, jealousy is born.
Competitors stake a place for themselves on the high road, decrying the store as a self-indulgent, wasteful drain on the “fragile publishing economy.” The biggest of the chains, VLAM, cannot tolerate The Good Novel’s existence (yes, we get the tongue-in-cheek reference), and charges elitism, class condescension, the impossibility of judging what is destined for greatness over time. The chain challenges the little store’s values, placing itself in the position of servant to the masses and moral champion. In a published statement, VLAM exclaims, “Our love of the novel and of the book is so great that we cannot see why, or even how, one could exclude, by means of a selection process, 99 percent of the titles available. Our passion, and our cause, is to respect the diversity of cultures, and the diversity of individuals.” It sounds so noble, so correct—but is it?
Indeed, The Good Novel bookstore, in Meribel, France, represents an improbable concept for operating a profitable business, but VLAM’s campaign raises a counter hue and cry among book lovers, who flock to the little store with their purses, ready to buy books in support of the idea that great literature must be supported. A sympathetic letter from an author tells of the same response to the success of an early novel—first praise and excitement, then “the attacks” from every quarter. It is the world of ideas at its worst, is it not?
The war of words carries over to the internet, where readers duke it out in support, or rejection, of the store’s ideals. An actress tells of her weariness with books recommended by others, and her need to escape her work through reading. She praises The Good Novel for bringing her the relief she seeks. “How can people attack a place that is so good for you?” she writes.
“Every subtlety in life is material for a book,” Cossé writes through a character. “Novels don’t contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched. … Literature informs, instructs, it prepares you for life.”
In the aisles of The Good Novel, readers quietly, and excitedly, explore worlds they had not discovered through the massive walls of popular culture in larger bookstores. While many of the novels cited are French, Ivan Georg, known as Van, is the store manager, and a partner to Francesca in the enterprise. An American by birth, he holds Cormac McCarthy as the greatest living author on the planet, thus introducing French customers to All the Pretty Horses and its successors, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. Van is captivated by people he sees in public, reading great books; they alone fascinate him, leading to long conversations with strangers about literature. “… One of the most fortunate purposes of literature is to bring like-minded people together and get them talking,” he says to a fellow bus rider. And that explains the great popularity of book groups these days, as well—even if they do dip into the less-than-great works available to them. After all, A Novel Bookstore’s concepts are arguable among many who love reading not just for greatness but for its gifts of experience and entertainment. And that is one of the devices that keeps this novel going: one wants to know whose idea will win.
The mysterious deaths? On one level, they are symbolic of the store’s battle to survive amid industry-wide self-immolation—catering to the lowest common denominator in a world polluted by that sensibility. They will be solved, or not, toward the book’s end.
We all love to take a breather in a popular novel sometimes; that doesn’t make us bad, simply human. Most of us will admit, secretly at least, that we are as ready to snack on the latest chiller-thriller or well-written romance as the next browser. We want that change of pace, that easily digested tidbit. But when we’re ready for an eight-course meal, we must seek a great book—and those are the books on The Good Novel’s shelves. A different menu for a different customer. Call it snobbery, if you will, but who does superiority better than the French.
A friend once commented that he never reads novels, that only nonfiction meets his desire to learn more of the world. Yes, we reply—you’ll learn about the world. But what of its emotions, the desires and failures of the people who make things happen, the parallels between one stage and another, the mechanics of life when they’re first felt, rather than demonstrated by history? What about imagination, joy, bitterness and cries from the unheard? They are in fiction—in Dickens and Dumas, in McCarthy and Mistry, in Hemingway and Faulkner—on the shelves of The Good Novel bookstore.

A review of Shadow Tag, Louise Erdrich's novel of love's dissolution

Since reading the first, tormented pages of her beautiful, emotionally riveting first novel, “Love Medicine,” I have been drawn to works by Louise Erdrich, who in many of her novels weaves the lives of contemporary Native Americans into the complexity of modern times. She does so with honest, compelling characters, drawn within saga-like stories of families coping with alcoholism, joblessness, discrimination, misdirected passion, and insecurity—joined, for better and worse, by the stone-hard love of family and shared history.
Her 14th novel, Shadow Tag, details the dissolution of a marriage between an artist and an academic, twisting from the dangling ties of guilt and memory, acting out the cruel moments of extending a failed marriage beyond its time. Irene America has lost trust in her artist-husband, Gil, upon discovering that he has been reading her diary; she uses his deception as a final excuse to stop pretending love remains between them. Both are alcoholics, and he is an abusive father as well. He both loves and resents the children. She begins two diaries—falsifying the one he is reading with affairs intended to provoke him into ending the marriage he is so insistent on preserving; the other is true, locked away from him in a safe deposit box.
Yet, Irene is elementally attached to Gil, a noted artist, both as the subject of his acclaimed series of work, and as a woman who struggles against his faith in her, finding it hard to deceive her husband in the face of his suffocating control over her. Gil’s possession of Irene’s body through his art is complex, complete, invasive and cruel.
Throughout the story, Irene’s revelations about the exploitative, callous treatment of Indian people and animals that symbolize the very soul of the West by artist George Catlin, her doctorial subject, provide a parallel to her own life with Gil, and his fierce attempt at possessing her nature and freedom.
Erdrich’s portrayal of their deteriorating relationship is wrought through weakening cords of love and hatred, strength and weakness, need and resentment—territory the author undoubtedly knows from her own troubled marriage to author Michael Dorris, who committed suicide in the wake of a family trauma. Irene wants to let Gil go, but not destroy him. It is that conflict which ultimately destroys them both.
The story unfolds through both of her diaries, and a third narrative which fills in the gaps between her journals and records the anger and confusion of their children, while examining the ways men and women use each other for love, inspiration, fame, punishment.
Throughout her writing career, Erdrich has intimately created lives of contemporary Native Americans with both wit and tragic insight. Her words burn into the heart, changing what we know of modern Indian life—always on display for historians, curious non-Indians, art collectors, but lost to the truth.

A fun read - and a late night

Just finished a book that isn't exactly what I'd choose for book club material, but I do recommend it for the fun you may have reading it.
Cecilia Ahern is an Irish writer whose first novel, "P.S. I Love You" became a movie with Hilary Swank in a starring role. Not a bad start, eh?
"The Book of Tomorrow," her seventh release, has a stylish cover that caught my eye from the Thayer Memorial Library shelf recently, so I picked it up - knowing I had other books to read first - and brought it home to simmer while I plunged through Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections." (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that book is dense. Well-written, to be sure, with rich, showy language, humor and style, but dense, baby, dense.)
Finally I picked Ahern's novel up and started carrying it with me to waiting rooms, passenger seats and the kitchen table. It starts slowly and builds, requiring patience, so some folks will put it down, which is too bad. Its narrator is a blunt, smart-mouthed 16-year-old whose life is about to change - and I began to enjoy her sassy shock-value retorts as I got to know her.
"The Book of Tomorrow" is a mystery with gothic undertones, a la Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale." Set in rural Ireland, on the grounds of a decaying castle, it's the story of a mouthy, wealthy teenager from the Dublin area whose life changes after her father's suicide. She and her traumatized mother are forced to move in with her quiet brother, Arthur, and his tight-lipped, domineering wife, Rosaleen. Young Tamara dubs them "the Deliverance duo." They live in a cottage near the ruins of a castle once occupied by an impoverished Irish family, and it's Tamara's boredom with rural life that leads to her discovery of an old book. She finds it's a journal with a twist: its blank pages reveal her own handwriting, and much about her life as it will unfold tomorrow, disappearing as each day unfolds and a new one begins. It's not long before Tamara is immersed in fearful concern for her unresponsive mother, growing suspicions about Rosaleen's control over them all, and a desire to figure out all the puzzles the book raises--including the old woman living in a shed on the property, and the nun who becomes her friend, but won't reveal much about secrets she certainly knows.
The story's pace picks up about mid-way, and "The Book of Tomorrow" becomes a page-turner. Even better, for me: it's a mystery I couldn't figure out. Ahern springs it on the reader skillfully. There are many unknowns, well masked, and it's only as Tamara unravels them that I, too, learned about her life.
This book has a contemporary setting, made gothic by its setting and the events that unfold, but it also has much of the spirit, bravado and curiosity an adolescent girl possesses. It's as good a read for teens as it is for their mothers!
In her acknowledgments, the author records her respect for booksellers - something we should all remember if we value the industry supplying us with worlds in print. I couldn't put it better myself: "In "The Book of Tomorrow" I share my belief in the magic of books, how I believe books must contain some sort of homing device, which allows them to draw the correct reader to them. Books choose their readers, not the other way around. I believe that booksellers are the match-makers. Thank you."
Well said.