Our Book Club in the News!

It was exciting to see book clubs featured in a recent issue of our regional newspaper, the Cape Ann Beacon... and to get coverage for our local library and our Mystery Book Club. So with this post, the cat is out of the bag! You will learn the identity/location of the library book club I referred to in various initial posts as well as my real identity! Makes me think of a Superman plot where Lois finds out about Clark Kent.

OK- here we are... well not quite. We had about 4 more members arrive after the photographer left. This picture was taken from the stacks/upper level. Looks almost like the setting for a mystery, don't you think? We have a grand little library building.



In the next picture, you can see Mike, our assistant librarian and moderator just to the left of the table lamp listening patiently to the guy to the right (me) make a point about Joe Finder's Paranoia. You can tell from the picture that we are a bit of a handful for our moderator-- it is not unusual to have more than one conversation going on at once. We are very animated throughout our meetings.



We meet at the Manchester Public Library, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. And you can read the news story about book clubs here.

Do you like to keep a list of books you read? I started doing this some years back in order to make trips to the bookstore and library more productive. I wish I had started 20 years ago! I use a simple MSWord document with all entries alphabetical by author. Here are two sample entries:

Freedman, JF - 96House of Smoke-ok; 91Against the Wind; 98TheDisappearance-ok-unrealistic; 97KeyWitness+++; 00Above the Law+ 01Birds Eye View+

Friedman, Philip – Reasonable Doubt++; Grand Jury+; 92Inadmissable Evidence+;

At some point I started adding the publication date in front of the title so that I could tell the sequence of the stories, especially if the book was part of a series. My rating system was pretty simple:
+++ Fantastic book, A
++ Great book, A
+ Good book, B
ok All right book, C, probably wouldn't get another by this author
skip Poor book, F

If I read a book I really liked, I would sometimes look up the other titles in the series, and list them in bold. These would be books to borrow/buy.

Today I discovered that you can use one of several online resources to get even better mileage on your "list." You can get all the details in a blogpost by Timothy Broder. He describes and compares the pros and cons on three services:

My Library (Google)
Shelfari
Library Thing

All three are new and wonderful discoveries for me! Thanks Timothy!

Welcome

I've been reading mystery books all my life. You could say I am addicted to them! During the last 15 years I have been writing down the titles of the hundreds of books I've read, and grading the books. My list has helped me in two ways:

1) When I go back to the bookstore or library, I can be sure not to get the same book again. Yes I take the list with me. I just hate to have taken a book along for a plane trip only to get to page 6 and realize -- oops! Been there - read that.

2) I will tend to look for more books by the authors of books I have already ranked highly. (Sometimes that doesn't work, but generally it does.)

Around 2005, I joined our local library's "Mystery Book Club." It was (and is) a small group of regulars. We read a different book each month and gather to discuss the book. In the second year, I proposed that we actually grade the book, using a ranking sheet. Not every participant enjoys doing that but it has really focused the discussion.

One thing is clear, we don't always agree about what we like or dislike! Sometimes we are almost shocked to find that a book that one person "loved" was almost "hated" by another. We have learned that these different evaluations are almost unpredictable! But it has been such FUN!! At times uproarious!! I hope you won't think me mad if I tell you that the Book Club is the high point of my life (apologies to Poe).

So I am inviting YOU to join our little book club (virtually). For the next twelve months we will be reading award winning mystery books of different genres. The due date is the 10th of the month! The first due date is November 10, '07, so please get the book and start reading. You will have the opportunity to share your thoughts on the book, and, after the 10th, to hear what the members of my (non-virtual) Book Club thought as well.

We are just finishing The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. More on that in future posts.

So I invite you to read along with me (us): California Girl by T Jefferson Parker. Get it from your library, local bookstore, or buy the book from this web page (see right, top).

More on participation in the Book Club reading, and participation in the Blog can be found by clicking these Labels-
*Join/Participate
*Future Plans

(By the way, for now, I will leave the city library that hosts my Mystery Book Club a secret. Maybe it will forever remain a secret, I don't know yet.)