Latino Poetry and Hispanic Heritage Month

Today marks the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month and as we are working on putting together a program on Latino Poetry -- details coming soon -- we hope you will join us in celebrating the many languages and cultures that Hispanic Heritage includes. Check out our calendar of readings and resources.

Looking for a Book Group?

 If you would like to join a book group this year there are discussion groups of all sorts hosted by New Hampshire's public libraries. There are also several ongoing book groups hosted by independent booksellers in the state. Here is a selection:

• Main Street Book Ends of Warner hosts a book group on the last Sunday of each month at 3pm. Their upcoming discussion books include Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (January), Drizzled with Death by Jessie Crockett (February), and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (March). 
• Bayswater Book Company hosts the Bayswater Book Group on the first Monday of each month (twice a month during the summer). Their upcoming books include Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar (January), Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (February), The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (March).  
• Gibson's Book Club meets starting at 7pm on the first Monday of each month. In January they will be reading a selection of stories from Best American Short Stories 2013; in February there will be a discussion and a dramatic reading from Shakespeare's Richard III.
• Toadstool Bookshops have a variety of book discussion groups including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Discussion Group, The Classics Crowd, Book Buzz for Kids, and the Teen Galley Group.
• Water Street Books hosts Liz Whaley's Book Group on the third Sunday of each month from 2-3:15pm. In January they will discuss Midnight in Peking by Paul French followed by The Round House by Louise Erdrich (February); Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwen (March); and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (April).

Reader's Resources: GalleyCat

If you are interested in the world of book publishing--who got a book deal, which books are going to be movies, what publishing companies are up to--you should be reading GalleyCat. In addition to all the publishing news stuff there are also a ton of posts here about bookselling, writing, the zeitgeist of the book world, and other random bookish info. There are also reviews and coming attractions.

Jason Boog is the editor of the blog, and there are several regular contributors. GalleyCat is part of MediaBistro and includes info from them about jobs in publishing.

If you can only find time to read one book blog it should definitely be Book Notes NH. But if you had time for 2, GalleyCat is the one to add to your reading list.

Reader's Resources: Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes

Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes: A blog by Mark Athitakis on (mostly) U.S. novelists and short-story writers features, as one might guess from the lenght of its title, long-form writting about American fiction. What you can't tell from the title though is what good long-form writing it is. Posts are often insightful, have lots of links to other stuff you might have missed, and make it clear how thoroughly Athitakis knows his books. I often find his writing to be quite funny, but that is a really subjective thing and might just be me.

Athitakis has been publishing this blog since 2008 and it includes discussions about specific books; comments on what others have said about books; collections of interesting bits of book talk; and interviews with authors. It doesn't generally include actual book reviews, but it does have an explanation of why they aren't included. Specific authors who are mentioned in posts are linked from the side panel, so it is easy to see everything Athitakis has said about a specific writer (Mark Twain and Joyce Carol Oates both seem to come up a lot.) A listing of upcoming D.C. area author events is also maintained on the site.

Reader's Resources: NewPages

The NewPages Blog has been publishing since 2006 and it covers "Literary Magazines & Publishing, Alternative Media, Links to Good Reading."  If you are trying to keep up with the comings and goings of literary magazines this is a blog for you. It also includes, among other things, contest announcements and "what I'm reading" posts.

This is a well-written, informative blog. What makes it a standout though, is the website behind it.

NewPages.com bills itself as "the Portal of Independents" and it includes reviews of books and magazines; a magazine stand with recent issues; directories of independent publishers (they are missing the NH ones though), independent booksellers (a good NH list for stores selling new books, a visit to the NHABA site would flesh out their used books listings), book review sources,  literary magazines;  and a tremendous list of internet resources for readers and writers (which didn't include this blog, but seemed otherwise very comprehensive).

If you are interested in books or writing, NewPages has a lot to offer.

Reader's Resources



Photo by W00kie via Flikr



There are a LOT of blogs, websites, podcasts, etc. about books. Some of them are very comprehensive and speak with authority about the book world. Some of them are one reader's thoughts about books (not that that can't make for a great blog). Some of them are a little bit of both.


In writing book-of-the-week posts I often come across these sites--the good, the bad, and the bizarre--and I have decided to start posting information about some of them as part of Book Notes. Reader's Resources (RR) will not be a regular feature (I learned my lesson with book-of-the-week). It will be occasional reviews of book-related internet sites that I find useful, or interesting, or just too quirky not to share.  I have added a blog-roll to this site to which I will add the blogs as I write about them.

If you have a book site you love, send me an email about it and it might turn up in a future Reader's Resources post.