In this, the last issue of Book Club News for 2020, we look back on some of this year's features including some recommended reading lists, articles relating to our "Inner Lives of Book Clubs" research, and interviews with book clubs.

In addition, we have a new article from our just published "Book Clubs in Lockdown" report based on a survey of 3,400 book club members. You can download the entire report for free simply by clicking here (if you have trouble opening the file, reply to this email and we will send a PDF).

Also, we have recently opened our final book club discussion of the year, for Sorrow by Tiffanie DeBartolo, a story of friendship and love, art and music, and how these pursuits can save us from ourselves. Do join us to discuss or find out more about the book!

If you subscribe to our BookBrowse Highlights newsletter, you'll find an email in your inbox this Thursday. After that, we'll be taking a break until Jan 3 when the first Publishing This Week issue of the new year will release.

With best wishes,

Discussions are open to all. Please do join us! See upcoming discussions.

Over the course of 2020, we've published many recommended reading lists. Here are a sample, with more in our blog.

What are your top three all-time favorite book club books? This is the question we posed to the 1,901 book club members who took part in our January 2020 survey. They also shared with us their favorite nonfiction and thriller/mystery books; and the books they most enjoyed discussing in 2019.

With the ongoing global health crisis continuing to impact day-to-day life, drifting away to another place and time through an absorbing work of historical fiction sounds more appealing than ever. To that end, here we recommend six historical novels that have recently been released in paperback for your own reading pleasure, or to read with your book club.

2019 has inspired many book clubs to hold valuable discussions about fighting systemic racism and to consciously read more books from Black authors. With all of the reading lists flooding the internet, it can be difficult to know where to begin. So we've put together some focused lists for different types of reading that you can use as a starting point for antiracism discussions and actions in your book club.

There can be few of us who aren't wishing for the Covid-19 pandemic to be over so we can go about our lives again. But when will that be? And will things go back to the same as they were or will there be a "new normal"?

This was one of the topics we explored for our just published "Book Clubs in Lockdown" report based on an October 2020 survey of more than 3,400 book club members, 90% of whom live in the USA. You can download the full report immediately for free by clicking here. More info at bookbrowse.com/wp/lockdown

Book clubs can be such a wonderful space for people to share their ideas; diverse viewpoints can lead to deeper and more valuable discussions that help us grow, both as individuals and as a society.

But what do you do when people don't speak up? How do you encourage quiet members to contribute?

Back in April Kathleen wrote to us saying, "My book group is at a stalemate during the COVID-19 pandemic because it's hard for our members to get the next book. We read in print and most of us prefer to borrow books from the library, but we can't at the moment because the library building is closed. How can we keep our book club going?"

Here are 15 suggestions which will be particularly relevant to groups that normally borrow print books from the library, but could be used at any time by any book club that's looking for ideas to keep their group fresh.

Discussions are open to all, so please join us! If you would like to receive a message when a particular discussion opens, you can sign up for a one-time notification. You can also find inspiration for your book club among our more than 150 past discussions including the books we discussed in 2020.

Lastly, here are three interviews with book clubs, with more on BookBrowse.

The Couples Book Group is a group of five couples who live in and around Seattle. Richard and his wife, Gretchen, began the group because they thought it would be fun to get a few friends together to read and discuss good books. And now, 23 years later they are still going strong!

Linda's Postal Book Group has been discussing books for six years—through the mail! This group and others like it use journals to record and pass thoughts between members who sometimes live hundreds of miles apart.

The C Facility Book Club at Sacramento State Prison, led by Adrienna Turner, provides a space for prisoners to share ideas and have in-depth conversations.

Usually published once a month, Book Club News is one of BookBrowse's four free newsletters. We also publish BookBrowse Highlights every Thursday, Publishing This Week every Sunday; and Librarian News monthly.