A Review of Book Club Recommendations

You find that you're nowhere near the friends and share your literature tastes. It's been a Stone Age since you've been in school and you don't have access to a hip librarian or brick-and-mortar bookstore or informative publications like the New York Times Book Review. But it dined the oldest of quality literature. So what do you do?A really great way to find excellent books to read is to look at book club recommendations. Of course, you might want to nose around a little too get an idea as to which book club profile fits your tastes first, so the following are a few descriptions of the clubs and the kinds of recommendations they put forth, whether direct suggestions or indirect tips:MAIL ORDER BOOK CLUB RECOMMENDATIONSWhen I was a kid, Mom--a voracious reader--belonged to a mail-order book club. Later, when I was old enough to have my own account, I joined with her. I don't remember exactly which club that initial one was, but these are the most popular:Book-of-the-Mont
h-ClubQuality Paperback BooksThe Literary GuildEach mail-order set up is unique, but does have a common, tedious trend: they send you a notification of the recommended title (based on the information you signed up with about your reading habits) and or whichever bookends the hat at the time. If you get the card first and do not refuse the offer, you get the book...and have to pay for it. If the books are automatically sent to you, you have to return it within a relatively short period of time after getting it or you will be charged. This is the main complaint of these clubs, though a close second complaint is the title listings aren't all that inspiring. These aren't always the current bestsellers and they're obviously inventory that they want to clear out.TV BOOK CLUB RECOMMENDATIONSOn TV there to television shows that discuss books that I can think of. Charlie Rose's author interviews and Oprah's Book Club. Both are, in my case, American offerings, the former showing on
ly on public broadcasting, but 214 of them throughout the country.Charlie Rose runs the gamut by covering just about any kind of literature. The authors that he usually speaks are contemporary fiction and nonfiction writers. A few of the authors that I've seen on these very shows include such literary luminaries as the embarrassingly liberal Maureen Dowd, action man Tom Clancy, James Risen, Toni Morrison, and Seamus Heany.Oprah is a horse of a different color. She generally interviews authors, too, but her book club goes a bit further, she is an avid reader and because of that she finds the authors of books she loves, which is of course completely understandable. She first introduces the book and then panels a book discussion session on the book. If you find, as I did, that Oprah's recommendations mirror the kinds of work that you enjoy reading, or what you once read and agree is a must-read, then it only makes sense to follow her recommendations in the future. She has bee
n dead-on about such titles as Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone; Kaye Gibson's Ellen Foster; and, of course, all (or most) of Toni Morrison's works--books that you must read, as Morrison is one of the most prolific authors of our century.INTERNET BOOK CLUB RECOMMENDATIONSThe Internet is a great place to find niche books sites. That is, if you are an adolescent seeking highly recommended books, you will find TeenInk.com to be a wonderful destination for locating the best books for your age group. If you are Christian who enjoys reading fiction, you will find like-minded individuals on FocusonFiction.net to be most helpful in listing and detailing the best books for Christian fiction lovers.And single genre sites and top 100 book list sites serve do pretty much the same thing. These include the following:Nextbook.org - a gateway to Jewish literature (comprehensive archive)Storycode.com - book recommendations made by way of a unique search toolRandom House's List of 100 Best n
ovels [of all time] - at /modernlibrary/100bestnovels.htmlThese are more than a half to keep you happily reading for many, many years to come.

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