October is National Reading Group Month, a observation that commenced in 2007 when it was designated by the Women’s National Book Association. Reading is usually a largely solitary activity, with some notable exceptions such as when a parent reads to a child, or in a setting such as a nursing home community room, wherein residents may gather to listen to a recorded book. The opinions and ideas generated by the mental digestion of the contents of books, however, is chiefly anything but a solitary undertaking. The power of the printed word, as has been veracious ever since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, retains the capacity to alienate entities (who above the age of forty cannot recall the death threats placed against author Salman Rushdie’s life as an expression of great opposition to the author’s The Satanic Verses?) as well as to cause individuals to congregate. People gather for a variety of reasons over the printed word—Bible study groups, audience members at plays and movies and, in increasing numbers, book discussion groups. According to an article by James Atlas ("Really? You're Not in a Book Club?") that appeared in the March 22, 2014 New York Times, "By some estimates, five million Americans gather every few weeks in someone's living room or in a bar or bookstore or local library to discuss the finer points of 'Middlemarch' or 'The Brothers Karamazov.'" Some authors today append a list of book discussion questions to their respective books (such as Joyce Magnin in The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow).

Book discussion groups, as a form of a reading group, are ideal formats for the lively exchange of ideas, opinions and information. Book discussion groups also serve to broaden the reading horizons of book discussion group participants, as books are often scheduled for discussion in said groups that do not represent the customary book selections for said partcipants. Book discussion groups may also serve to coax individuals who may be recalcitrant to read into renewing reading or commencing same on a regular basis, including (but not limited to) high school students.

Readers of my prior blog posts are or should be well-acquainted with the fact that I am a bit of a reactionary where technology is concerned. Those same readers should also be aware that I am unabashedly a doting aunt who wants only the best life has to offer for my nephew and niece. So, when my niece, Amanda, stated to me that her English teacher divided up my niece’s eleventh grade English class into small groups and assigned a different book for each group to read, I was elated that Amanda was expanding her reading material to text that represented words that were not displayed on her iPhone after being enciphered by another adolescent. When I expressed my delight in this regard to my niece, she added, in a tone of high dudgeon, “Yeah, well, it’s not so great that each group has to discuss the text with the teacher!” After citing my usual spiel to Amanda that her near-constant text messaging to her friends will essentially only prove useful in her future if she pursues a career as a thumb dancer, thumb wrestler or cryptographer for the CIA, Amanda sighed and said, “I’ve heard this before!” I reminded Amanda that I never text, only to receive a look of astonishment so intense that I momentarily wondered if I inadvertently stated that I manage quite well without oxygen. I hastened to add, “You know, because of my level of vision loss.” “Oh,” Amanda responded, as if mentally scratching off escorting me back to my spaceship from her “to-do” list.

My nephew and niece are both breathtakingly beautiful, and my niece is considering pursuing an acting career. Seizing the opportunity to meld knowledge with opportunity for the betterment of my niece, I mentioned that I noticed an article on the Internet concerning a Victoria's Secret Supermodel Book Club. “Really?” Amanda inquired, raising a naturally perfectly arched eyebrow. I hurried to provide Amanda with information to the relevant web link and was quite satisfied with my success in encouraging my niece to perform her school reading assignment until I heard the words, “Okay, I’ll use my NYPL card to download the e-book on my Kindle now.” I whirled around and asked in a voice that was hardly more than a squeak, “Kindle? Your teacher is allowing you to read the assigned text on an e-reading device? For school?!?” Amanda, drawing upon her experience as Tevye in her school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, borrowed a line from the song, Do You Love Me?” as she stated in a Russian-accented voice, “It’s a new world!”

My niece's usage of that quote in that context is as veracious as it is sagacious. Not only does the NYPL offer a multitude of e-books to NYPL patrons, the NYPL offers an online book discussion group, The Reader's Den. Additionally, book discussion groups that convene in the more traditional milieu (i.e., in person, with a trained NYPL facilitator present) meet at various NYPL branches. Membership is open to all NYPL patrons, contingent upon age classification (Adult, Young Adult and Children). The Great Kills Branch Book Discussion Group is scheduled to next convene on Saturday, October 4, 2014  at 10:45 a.m. to discuss Ann Patchett's Run (pre-registration required). Book discussion groups may also be greatly enhanced by the use of "Skype" technology if one is sufficiently fortunate to encounter an author who is generous with his/her time by agreeing to answer questions directly from book discussion group participants via use of the immmediately aforementioned technology. The munificent appearance of the author tremendously augments the quality of the book discussion group. For readers who, for a variety of reasons, experience difficulty in reading books in the standard-size print format, the Andrew Heiskell Library's Book Discussion Group meets the first Saturday of every other month at 10 a.m. (pre-registration required) to discuss books available on tape from that library.

Please find below materials contained within the NYPL's Circulating Collection pertaining to the topic of book discussion groups, as well as some titles discussed in previous NYPL book discussion groups and useful web site links.

Fiction

• The Reading Circle
• The Accidental Book Club
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
• Big Girls Do Cry
• Cover Story
• Dare to be Dirty
• Dead Between the Lines
• The Cherry Cola Book Club
• The Jane Austen Book Club
• Mayhem at the Orient Express
• A Tale of Two Biddies
• Something on the Side
• Summer Reading
• The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society
• Well Read and Dead
• You or Someone Like You
• The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow
• Stalling for Time
• Night Watch
• Murder in Chelsea
• Death of Yesterday
• No Angel
• Under and Alone
• Run

Nonfiction

• Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America
• Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads
• Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs, and Book Clubs
• The Book Club Connection: Literacy Learning and Classroom Talk
• More Reading Connections: Bringing Parents, Teachers and Librarians Together
• Teen Book Discussion Groups @ the Library
• The Teen-Centered Book Club: Readers Into Leaders
• Book Club for Middle School
• Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs
• The Book Club Cookbook
• Read It and Eat: a Month-by-Month Guide to Scintillating Book Club Selections and Mouthwatering Menus
• Reading Raps: a Book Club Guide for Librarians, Kids and Families
• The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: the True Story of a Thief, a Detective and a World of Literary Obsession

Websites

• Book Discussion at NYPL
• The Readers Den
• Andrew Heiskell Library Book Discussion Group
• Great Kills Book Discussion - Run
• Women's National Book Association
• National Reading Group Month
• Kindle English Mystery Book Club on GoodReads