Articles tagged "Outline"
The BIG Book Club Resource Guide
Ready to rev up your library’s book club? Great! We’ve got a TON of resources to help:
Reading Group Gold is the destination for reading group news, sweepstakes and giveaways, early copies of upcoming books, and reading guides for select titles from Macmillan. You can also sign up for their newsletter.
Our “One Book, One City” community reading recommendations are a good source for discussable fiction AND nonfiction titles. View the current catalog here (backlist: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014).
Our NEA Big Read Picks (2016) and Indie Next Picks for Book Clubs are solid choices:
Summer 2018
Winter 2017-2018
Summer 2017
Winter 2016-2017
We also recommend discussable titles during Booklist book club webinars and at other book buzzes. Don’t forget you can download these presentations to give in your own library!
Booklist “Summer Book Club Bash” Webinar Titles
Booklist “Best Bets for Book Clubs” Webinar Titles
Booklist “Book Clubs Abuzz” Webinar Titles
Ocean County Library (NJ) Book Club Buzz Titles
Invite an author to your library! These authors are willing to Skype in to book club meetings if they can’t attend in person.
Download a sortable spreadsheet (with ISBNs!!) of adult titles with reading group guides.
Our personal favorites include these timely titles on immigration, social justice, race relations, and feminism by Carol Anderson, Michael Eric Dyson, Diane Guerrero, Anthony Ray Hinton, and more.
And Seanan McGuire‘s Alex-Award winning Wayward Children series is highly discussable!
Top Macmillan Book Club titles (according to Bookscan rankings):
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
BEING MORTAL by Atul Gawande
ANNIHILATION by Jeff VanderMeer (the Southern Reach trilogy)
A LONG WAY GONE by Ishmael Beah
All titles by Kristin Hannah, especially THE NIGHTINGALE, THE GREAT ALONE, and WINTER GARDEN
SALVAGE THE BONES & MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn Ward
THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN by Anne Fadiman
STILL LIFE by Louise Penny (Armand Gamache series)
MR. PENUMBRA’S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE by Robin Sloan
GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson readmoreremove
Happy #BookBday (6/5/18 Edition)
Happy #BookBday to these top-notch new releases!
HOW HARD CAN IT BE? by Allison Pearson
Also available in audio
A June 2018 LibraryReads pick with THREE starred reviews! Hilarious and poignant, the new adventures of Kate Reddy, the beleaguered heroine of Allison Pearson’s groundbreaking New York Times bestseller I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. “Tackling sexism, growing older, and understanding one’s needs when catering to those of so many others, Pearson writes realism with all the fun of escapism.” — Booklist, starred review
KUDOS by Rachel Cusk
One of Publishers Weekly’s Spring 2018 Literary Fiction picks with THREE starred reviews! The critically acclaimed author of OUTLINE and TRANSIT, completes her “stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) trilogy with a finale that examines the relationship between pain and honor, and investigates the moral nature of success as a precept of both art and living. “Brilliantly accomplished and uncompromisingly dark.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
TREEBORNE by Caleb Johnson
THREE starred reviews! “Using language rich as mulch, debut author Johnson tells the superb saga of three generations of Treebornes, who live near the town of Elberta in the southern reaches of Georgia. Sentence by loamy sentence, this gifted author digs up corpses and upends trees to create a place laden with magic and memory.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review and editor’s pick readmoreremove
PW Best Summer Books of 2018
Publishers Weekly recently announced their Best Summer Books of 2018, including these 9 Macmillan titles:
Top 10 (full list)
NEW POETS OF NATIVE NATIONS, edited by Heid E. Erdrich
Rather than anthologize contemporary and emerging authors alongside classic or familiar ones, Erdrich introduces readers to 21 Native poets whose writing was first published after 2000. It’s a simple, powerful framing and all that is needed to introduce readers to a group of writers whose breadth and diversity of styles represent some of the best of contemporary poetry today. —Alex Green, New England correspondent
Fiction (full list)
BABY TEETH by Zoje Stage
Stage’s debut novel is a deviously fun domestic horror story that takes child-rearing anxiety to demented new heights. Frustrated stay-at-home mom Suzette attempts to pacify her seven-year-old daughter Hanna, who adores her father but distrusts Suzette, has dangerous tantrums, and only speaks in the voice of a 17th-century girl who was burned at the stake. As Suzette tries to connect with Hanna, Hanna plots ways to “step up her game against Mommy.”
BROTHER by David Chariandy
Set during the summer of 1991 in the Park, a housing complex in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Chariandy’s powerful and incendiary novel tracks the coming of age of two mixed-heritage brothers. Sensitive Michael fumbles through his first relationship while volatile Francis becomes obsessed with the burgeoning hip-hop scene. Chariandy imbues his resilient characters with strength and hope.
KUDOS by Rachel Cusk
Cusk’s final book in a trilogy (after OUTLINE and TRANSIT) expertly concludes the story of protagonist British author Faye. Like its predecessors, the novel eschews chronicling Faye’s life via traditional narrative, instead filling each page with conversations with and monologues by the many writers, journalists, and publicists she meets during her travels. As always, Cusk’s ear for dialogue and language is stunning. The author ends Faye’s trilogy with yet another gem.
Mystery (full list)
CAGED by Ellison Cooper
In her debut thriller, Cooper, an anthropologist who has worked as a murder investigator in Washington, D.C., channels “equal parts Kathy Reichs and Thomas Harris” (according to Lisa Gardner). In the basement of a D.C. house, a woman is found dead in a cage—left to slowly starve to death in a cold and calculating experiment with no clear motive. readmoreremove
For Your Consideration: June 2018 LibraryReads Titles
Download, read, and nominate your favorite titles for the June 2018 LibraryReads list!
*Nominations are due April 20! Click here for the full list of 2018 deadlines.
BRING ME BACK by B.A. Paris
Also available in audio
The new thriller from the LibraryReads author of BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. “Paris once again proves her suspense chops with this can’t-put-down psychological thriller.” — Library Journal, starred review
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
HOW HARD CAN IT BE? by Allison Pearson
Also available in audio
THREE starred reviews! Hilarious and poignant, the new adventures of Kate Reddy, the beleaguered heroine of Allison Pearson’s groundbreaking New York Times bestseller I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. “Tackling sexism, growing older, and understanding one’s needs when catering to those of so many others, Pearson writes realism with all the fun of escapism.” — Booklist, starred review
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
WITCHMARK by C.L. Polk
Two starred reviews! A “stellar” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) fantasy debut that combines intrigue, magic, betrayal, and romance in an original world with a historical WWI tone. “Many disparate elements are expertly woven together to make this debut a crackler, with layers like a nesting doll and just as delightful to discover.” — Booklist, starred review
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
JAR OF HEARTS by Jennifer Hillier
Also available in audio
What if you went to jail for something terrible your boyfriend did to your best friend? Then 5 years later, you’re free but your life is in ruins, and your boyfriend is back at it (killing, that is), and maybe he’s coming for you? “…this psychological thriller is unlike any other. Enthralled readers will be rooting for Geo in the end.” — Library Journal, starred review
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
KUDOS by Rachel Cusk
One of Publishers Weekly’s Spring 2018 Literary Fiction picks with three starred reviews! The critically acclaimed author of OUTLINE and TRANSIT, completes her “stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) trilogy with a finale that examines the relationship between pain and honor, and investigates the moral nature of success as a precept of both art and living. “Brilliantly accomplished and uncompromisingly dark.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
BLACK KLANSMAN: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime by Ron Stallworth
Also available in audio
The extraordinary true story of the African American police officer who goes undercover to investigate the KKK, the basis for the forthcoming major motion picture written and directed by Spike Lee, and produced by Oscar winner Jordan Peele.
Download the e-galley from Edelweiss
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Happy Women’s History Month/International Women’s Day 2018!
March is Women’s History Month and today we celebrate International Women’s Day! Get inspired by our 2018 ALA Amelia Bloomer Project Book List titles (best feminist books):
GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS by Melissa Bashardoust
DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES by Seanan McGuire
A HOPE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SEA by Melissa Fleming
For Women’s History Month, The New York Times’s staff book critics chose “15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.” Here are the Macmillan picks:
OUTLINE by Rachel Cusk
AMERICAN INNOVATIONS by Rivka Galchen
HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE? by Sheila Heti
HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado
SALVAGE THE BONES by Jesmyn Ward
Some of our faves on shelves now:
NASTY WOMEN: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America, edited by Samhita Mukhopadhyay & Kate Harding
WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & asha bandele
ONE DAY WE’LL ALL BE DEAD AND NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER by Scaachi Koul
GEEK GIRL RISING: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech by Heather Cabot & Samantha Walravens
REAL AMERICAN by Julie Lythcott-Haims
And future faves coming to your shelves soon:
ELOQUENT RAGE: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
MINORITY LEADER: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams
A POLITICALLY INCORRECT FEMINIST: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women by Phyllis Chesler readmoreremove
PW’s Spring 2018 Literary Fiction Picks
Publishers Weekly‘s Spring 2018 literary fiction picks include 8 titles from Macmillan:
Top 10
THE GREAT ALONE by Kristin Hannah
Hannah’s novel, starred by PW, follows the Allbright family, who barely make ends meet, as they move from 1974 Seattle to the untamed wilderness of Kaneq, Alaska, to claim a parcel of land left to the father by a slain Army buddy.
KUDOS by Rachel Cusk
Following OUTLINE and TRANSIT, this novel completes Cusk’s trilogy: a woman writer visits a Europe in flux, where questions of personal and political identity rise to the surface.
THE PARKING LOT ATTENDANT by Nafkote Tamirat
Tamirat’s debut is a coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston’s tightly knit Ethiopian community who falls under the influence of a charismatic hustler. The novel received a starred PW review. readmoreremove
NYTBR’s 10 Best Books of 2017 & Editor’s Picks
HOORAY! Two nonfiction titles made the New York Times Book Review‘s “10 Best Books of 2017” list and five more (plus two honorable mentions) are New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2017!
LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
A former public defender in Washington, Forman has written a masterly account of how a generation of black officials, beginning in the 1970s, wrestled with recurring crises of violence and drug use in the nation’s capital. What started out as an effort to assert the value of black lives turned into an embrace of tough-on-crime policies — with devastating consequences for the very communities those officials had promised to represent. Forman argues that dismantling the American system of mass incarceration will require a new understanding of justice, one that emphasizes accountability instead of vengeance.
PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
Fraser’s biography of the author of “Little House on the Prairie” and other beloved books about her childhood during the era of westward migration captures the details of a life — and an improbable, iconic literary career — that has been expertly veiled by fiction. Exhaustively researched and passionately written, this book refreshes and revitalizes our understanding of Western American history, giving space to the stories of Native Americans displaced from the tribal lands by white settlers like the Ingalls family as well as to the travails of homesteaders, farmers and everyone else who rushed to the West to extract its often elusive riches. Ending with a savvy analysis of the 20th-century turn toward right-wing politics taken by Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, Fraser offers a remarkably wide-angle view of how national myths are shaped.
Dwight Garner
“Great Book-Group Reads” Booklist Webinar — Macmillan Titles (08/01/17)
So you missed Booklist‘s “Great Book-Group Reads” Webinar… We got you! Here are the titles we covered:
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Hush by John Hart
After Anna by Lisa Scottoline
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
The Vengeance of Mothers by Jim Fergus
The North Water by Ian McGuire
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Transit by Rachel Cusk
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Download the full slide deck here.
Happy #BookBday (1/17/17 Edition)
It’s an all-star #BookBday!
TEARS WE CANNOT STOP: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
One of Kirkus Reviews‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2017! As the country grapples with race with anguish and anger at a level not seen since the 60s, one of America’s leading black voices speaks out honestly and provocatively to white America. “TEARS WE CANNOT STOP is a fiery sermon, and an unabashedly emotional, personal appeal. The result is one of the most frank and searing discussions of race I have ever read.” — New York Times Book Review
LILLIAN BOXFISH TAKES A WALK by Kathleen Rooney
A February 2017 Indie Next pick with two starred reviews! “Inspired by Margaret Fishback, poet and Macy’s ad-writing phenom of the 1930s, Rooney imagines an extraordinary walk through the streets of New York City on the last night of 1984, one that triggers a flood of memories for fictional ad woman Lillian Boxfish. Elegantly written, Rooney creates a glorious paean to a distant literary life and time—and an unabashed celebration of human connections that bridge the past and future.” — Publishers Weekly, boxed & starred review
Follow Lillian on her walk in NYC and listen to audiobook excerpts in this interactive map! readmoreremove
Fiction Stars!
Six forthcoming works of fiction have received several starred reviews. Make sure to clear some space on your library’s shelves!
LILLIAN BOXFISH TAKES A WALK by Kathleen Rooney — 3 stars!
“Inspired by Margaret Fishback, poet and Macy’s ad-writing phenom of the 1930s, Rooney imagines an extraordinary walk through the streets of New York City on the last night of 1984, one that triggers a flood of memories for fictional ad woman Lillian Boxfish. Elegantly written, Rooney creates a glorious paean to a distant literary life and time—and an unabashed celebration of human connections that bridge the past and future.” — Publishers Weekly, boxed & starred review
“Poet and novelist Rooney found sublime inspiration, thanks to a librarian friend, in real-life ad writer and poet Margaret Fishback. Rooney’s delectably theatrical fictionalization is laced with strands of tart poetry and emulates the dark sparkle of Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Truman Capote. Effervescent with verve, wit, and heart, Rooney’s nimble novel celebrates insouciance, creativity, chance, and valor.” — Booklist, starred review
“Rooney takes us on a delightful stroll with a colorful character, inspired by the life of poet and ad woman Margaret Fishback, sprinkling just the right details and arch bons mots appropriate to Lillian’s reputation as a woman of words.” — Library Journal, starred review
MARLENA by Julie Buntin — 3 stars!
“In Buntin’s vivid debut, Cath, now a New York City public librarian in her thirties, tells the story of the friendship that changed her forever. Though Cath tells her story in flashbacks, Buntin’s prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque.”
— Booklist, starred review
“In her impressive debut novel, Buntin displays a remarkable control of tone and narrative arc. Buntin is particularly sensitive to the misery of adolescent angst, and Cat’s growing happiness in Marlena’s friendship runs like an electric wire through the narrative. The novel is poignant and unforgettable, a sustained eulogy for Marlena’s ‘glow… that lives in lost things, that sets apart the gone forever.’”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Sensitive and smart and arrestingly beautiful, debut novelist Buntin’s tale of the friendship between two girls in the woods of Northern Michigan makes coming-of-age stories feel both urgent and new. Devastating; as unforgettable as it is gorgeous.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
