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A Celibate Season by Carol Shields

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD --- the 20th century's most widely read American novel --- has sold 30 million copies and still sells a million yearly. In this in-depth biography, first published in 2006, Charles J. Shields brings to life the woman who gave us two of American literature's most unforgettable characters: Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout. Now, 10 years after its initial publication --- with revisions throughout the book and a new epilogue --- Shields finishes the story of Harper Lee's life, up to its end.

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Harper Lee, author of Go Set a Watchman

Originally written in the mid-1950s, GO SET A WATCHMAN was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014. GO SET A WATCHMAN features many of the characters from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD some 20 years later. Returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Jean Louise Finch --- Scout --- struggles with issues both personal and political, involving Atticus, society, and the small Alabama town that shaped her.

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Children's Choice Book Award 2016

The Children’s Choice Book Awards are the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by children and teens; they were launched in 2008 by the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader. The 2016 Children’s Choice Book Awards winners have been announced. The announcement is a highlight of Children's Book Week, which is running this year from May 2–8.

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Children's Choice Book Award 2016

The Children’s Choice Book Awards are the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by children and teens; they were launched in 2008 by the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader. The 2016 Children’s Choice Book Awards winners have been announced. The announcement is a highlight of Children's Book Week, which is running this year from May 2–8.

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May 2016

This month’s Cool and New roundup includes EXILE FOR DREAMER by Kathleen Baldwin, the second book of the Stranje House series, in which a girl's gruesome dreams become her darkest reality; QUEEN OF HEARTS, Colleen Oakes's imaginative retelling of Alice's classic fall where a princess is pulled down the rabbit hole of an Wonderland she cannot escape; and INVISIBLE FAULT LINES by Kristen-Paige Madonia, in which a teen girl investigates the mysterious disappearance of her beloved father.

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Ernest Greenwood

Accidents, and particularly street and highway accidents, do not happen --- they are caused.

Attribution

Ernest Greenwood

Win 12 Copies of BEACH TOWN by Mary Kay Andrews for Your Group

Each month, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away.
 

May 5, 2016

Martha Hall Kelly on a True Friend and a Good Writer

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Martha Hall Kelly’s debut novel, LILAC GIRLS --- the remarkable story of unsung women and their quest for love, freedom and second chances ---was inspired by a real-life World War II heroine. Turns out, it’s not only her writing that was inspired by a strong woman; her reading was, as well. Here, Martha talks about her late mother, who prioritized reading in her own life, and passed on to her children and grandchildren a great love for all books --- although none so much as E. B. White’s classic CHARLOTTE’S WEB.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick

Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater vest, waters his fern, Frederica, and heads out to his garden.

But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam’s death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam’s possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he’s never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife’s secret life before they met --- a journey that leads him to find hope, healing and self-discovery in the most unexpected places.

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Interview: Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us

May 5, 2016

Laura Barnett is a writer, journalist and theater critic, whose first novel, THE VERSIONS OF US, is now available in the US. It’s a story of how lives intersect, of possibilities and consequences that ring across the shifting decades, of how even the smallest choices can define the course of our lives. In this interview with Carol Fitzgerald, the president and co-founder of The Book Report Network, Barnett discusses the challenges and delights of writing three versions of the same story and which story she likes best. She also opens up about her own feelings regarding fate and why she may not be as much of a romantic as she’d thought.