Many readers and book clubs have a special place in their heart for those rare books that nourish the soul without resorting to platitudes. For me, one such title is Major Pettigrew's Last Stand; another is The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson, the topic of our latest book club discussion. To be honest, when I first saw the description I didn't have high expectations; but now, some months after reading it, I find myself still mulling it over in my mind.

We also have two new blog articles drawn from our October 2020 research report: Book Clubs in Lockdown, titled Fostering Connections and The Good and Not So Good; and a preview of our upcoming book discussions.

Talking of book discussions, did you know we have over 1,600 reading guides on BookBrowse? More about these below.

Very best wishes,

Davina

Discussions are open to all to view and participate, so if you've read this book, please do "join the discussion." If you have not, we suggest you go to "about the book."

We have more than 1,600 discussion guides in our book club section on BookBrowse -- and each and every one is for a title that we've recommended, which means that in addition to the discussion guide, you'll find the supporting information you need to decide if it's a good choice for your book club, including in almost all cases, a substantial excerpt, BookBrowse's own review and "beyond the book article."

All visitors can search for guides by title, author and genre. Members have access to additional options including searching by time period, setting and a wide range of themes.

How is your book club doing these days? If you're like most of the respondents to our October 2020 survey, your group has gone through some changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether you're meeting on Zoom or gathering in person with social distancing and masking protocols, your book club meetings probably don't look quite like they used to. But not all change is bad! As we discovered in our research, satisfaction among book club participants is still high, despite the curveballs this pandemic has thrown us ... continued

As we've been discussing in recent posts, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown have required book clubs to change course and do things differently. From the responses to our October 2020 survey, "Book Clubs in Lockdown," the most frequently reported change has been a switch from in-person meetings to virtual. In total, two-thirds of book clubs that were meeting at the time of the survey were doing so virtually, and of these all but a few percent were using Zoom.

We'll be looking more closely at how those virtual meetings work and what book club participants have to say about them in a future article. Here we look at some of the good and not so good aspects of the book club experience during the pandemic, irrespective of whether groups are meeting virtually or in person.... continued

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.

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.