The Restricted Section

Check out this blog with book reviews called, The Restricted Section, by Flourish and Blotts.

We met at Holiday Inn as planned to discuss Blind Obedience and to support the Kiwanis Club of Waycross with their Friday Night Out event. We enjoyed fried chicken, pork chops and roast beef with all the southern style stuff: okras, cornbread stuffing, squash casserole, greens and apple cobbler. All proceeds from the event will go towards activities catering to children in the community.

We all agreed that Rawlins and Carter, the main characters in this true story Blind Obedience, were so filled with rage, spite, and hate towards each other that their relationship had to end with tragedy. In the book, Mr. Rawlins, a former Baptist preacher, moved his family away from the Carter family to Lowndes County. What did Mr. Carter, the former Methodist minister, do? He moved to the area as well, right next door to the Rawlins family. Mr. Rawlins failed to kill Mr. Carter so he got himself an alibi while he hired some men and got his three teenaged boys to attack the Carter household.

Book Club Meeting Today

Today we will change our venue to the Holiday Inn. Our discussion will focus on Blind Obedience, a real life story about the murder of some children in Valdosta, Ga. in 1905.

Next month we will discuss The Thing About Jane Spring by Sharon Krum. The paperback should be out now. Read the review Silly and implausible but totally engaging on amazon.

What books are we going to read and discuss for the next few months?

Should we try Steve Berry's new book for July? What about Teacher Man by Frank McCourt?

Bestselling Book Watch

According to the free book review magazine, Book Page dated April 2006, these books are destined to be blockbusters:

Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark. Release Date: April 4

Chasing Destiny by Eric Jerome Dickey. Release Date: April 11

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith. Release Date: April 18.

I think we can also watch out for new novel The Debutante Divorcée reaching bestselling status judging from the comments in USA TODAY. This is the second book by Plum Sykes.

Lucky Kaavya

Did you read about Kaavya Viswanathan, a Harvard student, who received a two-book contract from a major publisher while still in high school? Most first time writers get advances less than $10,000 but Viswanathan got a whopping $500,000.00 contract from Little, Brown and Company, part of the Time Warner group.

Apparently when Viswanathan was a senior, her college advisor found out that she was writing a novel. The advisor read it, recognised her potential, and sent the novel to her own agent at William Morris Agency.

The name of Viswanathan's first novel? How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. READ MORE

We have read their books

Steve Berry has hit the big times. He has begun to get hate mail from some of his readers. Apparently there are some people who can't tell the difference between fact and fiction. Berry gave a very interesting presentation at the public library. About 30 to 40 persons turned up to the book signing and discussion.

Dan Brown, as I am sure we all expected, won his case. He was cleared of plagiarism in London's High Court. I had been wondering who was next in line to sue him over The Da Vinci Code. Lo and behold when I checked Google News today I saw yet another threat of a lawsuit.

Jodi Picoult has a new novel out called The Tenth Circle. It entered the USA Today's Best selling Books list at number 3 and the New York Times list at number 2. She usually writes about controversial family issues. Remember My Sister's Keeper? This latest novel examines teen sexuality.

Interesting fact: Picoult is pronounced PEA-co. Link to her interview on her site with New Hampshire Public Radio's Shay Zeller http://www.jodipicoult.com/

Meet Steve Berry Today

Remember Steve Berry? He visited our book club meeeting after publishing his first novel, The Amber Room. Well, Steve Berry will be at the public library on Lee Avenue today at 6:30PM signing his books. He will speak at 7:00PM.

Come out and meet him today or renew acquaintance. Since The Amber Room, he has published The Romanov Prophecy, The Third Secret, and Templar Legacy.

The Templar Legacy debuted at number 4 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. The book has gone back to press 6 times since February.

See also post dated March 9 titled, Knights Templar.

Have you heard of the Blook?

Blook: a book based on a blog.

That was a new word for me. I found it in the March 25-26 Wall Street Journal. Ian Mount's article in the Journal was titled, A new genre - books based on blogs - gains ground.

Here are some bloggers who have transformed their blogs into blooks. Do we now call a blogger who has written a blook a blooker?

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Blog = What Could Happen?

Egg Bacon Chips and Beans: 50 Great Cafes and the Stuff that Makes Them Great by Russell Davies

Blog=Eggs Bacon Chips and Beans

All the President's Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth by Ben Fritz.

Blog = Spinsanity

Top Five Bestsellers

From the USA Today Snapshots, I saw the following on their top five best sellers list:

No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark

Marley & Me by John Grogan (Marley is a dog; this is not about Bob Marley the reggae singer.)

American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips

Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams, investigative reporters of San Francisco Chronicle

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

This was interesting

This link to Beliefnet.com was sent to me today. The Most Segregated Hour: three new books examine the racial divide in our worship by Michael Fuquay

Did you know that...

If you don't have time to read a whole book about political matters, did you know that you can pay a subscription fee of $99.95/year and get highlights of dozens of books? I found this out in the March 25-26 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Eight to twelve page summaries of political books can be emailed to you by web based reader services such as Capitol Reader.

They call it the perfect storm

Five million copies of The Da Vinci Code in paperback, plus other Code type books, will be available for purchase on Tuesday just weeks before the release of the Da Vinci movie in May. That is what the publishers refer to as the perfect storm.

Also, available on Tuesday are 150,000 copies of The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History . In the meantime the writers of both books, Brown and Baigent respectively, carry on their battle in court. READ ON