In this collection of essays, Patchett turns her writer's eye on her own experiences and transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew.

Collects the reading suggestions from twenty-five independent booksellers, including Milwaukee's Boswell Book Company, Tampa's Inkwood Books, and Los Angeles' Skylight Books.

The author shares her enthusiasm for more than 100 books: novels and memoirs by some of today's most gifted writers; favorite classics worth reading or rereading; and nonfiction works that illuminate our social and politcal landscape. -- Adapted from back cover. "From "the most powerful book critic in the English-speaking world" (Vanity Fair) comes 100 personal, thought-provoking essays of the life-changing books she wouldn't want you to miss--beautifully...

"It's no secret that millions of American teenagers, caught up in social media, television, movies, and games, don't read seriously-they associate sustained reading with duty or work, not with pleasure. This indifference has become a grievous loss to our standing as a great nation--and a personal loss, too, for millions of teenagers who may turn into adults with limited understanding of themselves and the world. Can teenagers be turned on to serious...

When you hear a riveting story, does it thrill your heart and stir your soul? Clarkson discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage. Here she draws readers into the life-giving journey...

What were my kids born to do? That is the question I hope to help them answer. And because reading is the thing I love most, it's only natural for me to hope it will become something they love, too...The trouble is that reading is a particularly slippery passion to want to pass along because it's a skill most parents would agree their children have to master, to one degree or another. --from Raising a Reader Can passion be passed along from parent...

"The Inner Lives of Book Clubs gets to the heart of what makes book clubs tick. It combines the findings from two surveys of more than 5,000 people with BookBrowse's 15 years of book club experience and research. The result is an essential guide to all things book clubs. Recommended for librarians, booksellers, publishers, authors and, of course, anyone in a book club!"--Description from publisher's website.

"An exhilarating volume that will ratchet up the joy for all reading groups "Wendy Lesser's extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America's most significant cultural critics," writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Why I Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing one of the most distinguished little magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe a life lived in and through...