Book Movement

So excuse me while I nerd out for a minute, but I just discovered Book Movement, a website for book readers/lovers/clubbers. Some of the features are a daily e-mail for a book-of-the-day (through free membership), detailed book summaries, book reviews, and reading lists and suggestions from book clubs/members of book clubs who have joined the online community. Book Movement links to Amazon if you wish to purchase, which of course has its own reader reviews as well; I like Book Movement for the running list of top books as rated by members of the site and for the reading guides for discussion.

I actually found this site as I was looking for suggestions for my own book club.  Our "club" met for dinner this past Thursday at Levante's (highly recommend, excellent Mediterranean fare) in Dupont Circle to discuss our most recent selection, Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay (more on this book in my next post). We've decided on the following system for choosing books:  There are six of us, and we will each take a turn choosing three books to read; then the club votes on one out of the three.  Since we just adopted this system, we're going in alphabetical order by first name, so it was my turn to choose a book.  Since I am my mother's daughter and have a difficult time making decisions, I brought four suggestions with me; even if I don't read these for book club, I'll read them on my own time.  My suggestions were: A Secret Kept, also by Tatiana de Rosnay; Little Bee, by Chris Cleave; Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann; and Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides.  After voting, we've decided on Let the Great World Spin, and I can't wait to get started once I finish The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen.

Since I already happened to be at the bookstore, of course I picked up two other books during my visit this morning.  John Irving is one of my favorite authors, so I picked up his latest, and I bought Still Alice, about which I've heard/read great things.  It's about a woman's descent into Alzheimer's, a debilitating disease that my grandmother suffered from shortly before her death several years ago.  I will update with my thoughts on each of these at some point in the future.