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October 08, 2011

Book Club in a Bag!

 Have you always wanted to start your own book club but did not have the resources to make it happen? Is your book club looking for a new and exciting read that everyone can agree on? YOUR local Neill Public Library is pleased to introduce Book Club in a Bag!
    This new collection offers a great way for friends to share in a story’s landscape of images, language, and characters that come together to create a unique and enticing story for each reader. Nancy Pearl, the Library Journal’s 2011 Librarian of the Year captures this sentiment: “The joy and mystery of reading is that each of us reads a different book from everyone else . . . even when it’s the same book. We bring all of our life experiences to the reading of a book, any book, and each person’s history is different from everyone else’s.” Great discussions arise from the differences in which we interpret a book, allowing individuals to gain insight from one another in a book club setting. Neill Public Library now offers an avenue to make book club-ing easier than ever.
    Book Club in a Bag is available to all Neill Public Library cardholders and each bag may be checked out for six weeks. Each bag consists of ten copies of a single title, a notebook with information designed to stimulate conversation, including author interviews and biographical information, book reviews, discussion questions, and other book recommendations.
    Some of the titles we are excited to offer include Lottery by Patricia Wood, which tells a fictional story of an Everett, Washington man who wins a $12 million jackpot lottery, having to face his jealous relatives while battling his own mental disability. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, is a humorous tale told from the perspective of Enzo, a dog with a philosopher's soul trying to fix a broken family from heartache and life’s turmoil. Moloka’i by Alan Brennert takes the reader to Honolulu in the 1890s, where Rachel, a young girl diagnosed with leprosy, is being exiled from her homeland to an island colony of people suffering from the same condition. Arriving as a foreigner in this new environment, she is forced to recognize the importance of friendship as she searches for her own self-identity. These titles are but a sample of the wider variety of genres and titles available to choose from.
    Stop in at Neill Public Library today to browse our Book Club in a Bag Display and pick up a comprehensive list of titles available for check out. Be creative! Come up with a theme for your book club night, plan a dinner that involves foods from the book, or have a guest speaker give a talk. No matter your age, book clubs are a great way to have fun and to share your love of books with others.
by Jodi Prout
Neill Public Library
Library Assistant - Circulation

2 comments:

Rachael said...

It would be great if there was a list of all the available titles online.

Randi said...

Try a "subject alphabetical" search in the catalog for "book club in a bag" and that should bring up the list of titles. Alternately, a "general keyword" search for "book club bag kit" will work.