MinnPost.com has just lauched a "Book Club Club." The new page offers book clubs news and suggestions, as well as a list of Minnesota book clubs that are open to the public. Local book clubs can register to receive invitations to events and a monthly email with news, tips, and coupons; clubs will also be entered in drawings for literary event tickets and prizes.

Visit Goodreads to form an online book club. With over 2,200,000 members, they are the self-proclaimed "largest social network for readers in the world." Try searching with the tag "book-club" for books specific to reading groups. And don't forget to bring back some of the good suggestions to the BookSpace Book Club blog, too (you can post a comment here).

The Big Bang Book Club is a science book club open to all that meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month, 7 to 9 p.m. at 
Grumpy's Bar & Grill Downtown
1111 Washington Av. S. 
Minneapolis, (612) 340-9738

Sponsors: Magers & Quinn Booksellers; Secrets of the City; Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy; and Grumpy's.

The American Booksellers Association frequently posts popular Indie Next Lists, drawn from bookseller-recommended favorites. Check out their Fall '08-Winter '09 and Spring-Summer '09 Reading Group suggestions. You may find the "next big thing" or an "undiscovered gem." Recommended titles are arranged by topics, including "Outstanding Debuts," "Visiting Other Worlds," "IntriguingTales," and "Thought Provoking Nonfiction," and more.

New for book clubs: Create a list of your book club's favorite books for discussion or keep track of what you've read. You can share your list and go to the Book Club page to find out what other book clubs are reading!
See all Readers' Lists...

Join a book or movie discussion of Ernest J. Gaines' “A Lesson Before Dying,” which explores life's central question: Knowing we're going to die, how should we live? Discussions will take place at several Hennepin County libraries and are offered in support of the National Endowment for the Arts "The Big Read", presented in collaboration with The Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
• Find the book in a suburban library
• Find the book in a Minneapolis library

No time to attend a book club in person? Participate in blogging about books on the Hennepin County Library BookSpace website and discuss books at your convenience. Create a personalized account and start interacting with other book lovers.

What if you’re leading the book discussion and there’s no reading guide to help? ReadingGroupGuides website includes some general questions to help you lead a discussion when there’s no discussion guide available for your book. The questions are organized into several genres: Biography, Christian Fiction, Classics, Current Events & Politics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, History, Mystery & Thriller, Memoir, and Religion & Spirituality.

Celebrate the joy of shared reading.

Recently the Man Booker longlist was released at the end of July, the RITA romance awards were announced at the beginning of August, and the Hugo awards for best science fiction/fantasy was just released. Consider choosing an award winner to get a book top in its class.

Now available - over 50 teen titles!
Each Book Club Kit contains 8-10 copies of a book, discussion questions, and other resources to help with your book discussion. You can reserve a kit for a specific date and check out the kit for six weeks.
Find out more about Book Club Kits...

Would you like to invite an author to chat with your book club? Random House Readers’ Circle offers opportunities for your group to discuss a book with the author by phone.

Passionate about reading GLBT fiction and non-fiction? Want to share your thoughts and feelings about what you’ve read with others? Quatrefoil Library is starting a new Q Book Club. The book club is open to the public.

The group meets on the last Thursday of every month at 7 pm at
Quatrefoil Library
1619 Dayton Avenue, Suite 105
St. Paul, MN 55104-6206 

The next meeting, on October 25, is a discussion of A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.  November's title will be selected at the October meeting. 
More information

A colleague recently passed along a link to a book club blog, "Book Club Girl" which has some great book club resources and title suggestions, as well as some good posts and comments about being in a book club. You can check it out here: http://www.bookclubgirl.com/.

Do you have a favorite website or blog you use with your book club?

Book Club Kits are one-stop shopping for your book club all in one bag! Each kit contains 8-10 copies of a book, discussion questions, and other resources to help you with your book discussion. HCL currently has over 150 Kits, with more coming later this year. You can check out the list of titles and discussion questions on the Book Clubs Kits page. The Kits are funded by the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.

We hope you like our new Bookspace page! One of the best new features allows you to add your own booklists to the website so other readers can see your favorites. Your book club can share what you've read, and you can see what other clubs are reading. So take a few minutes and post your club's list to the Bookspace page!