Reading Agatha Christie: the Theme Book Group

At September's meeting, the library's Tuesday night book group decided to become a themed book group, which means that instead of choosing one book per month for everyone to read together, the group will decide on a topic or author each month and each reader can choose her own title within those parameters. The idea is to maintain the structure and social aspects of a book group, but to allow more freedom in the selection of materials read. Theme book groups also rely on each member to talk about their reading that month, with a moderator sometimes giving an overview of the topic. In principle, this format enables the group to be more balanced in terms of participation and less reliant on a moderator to lead the discussion. It also addresses the problem of finding a popular title which everyone agrees on, but which no one in the group has read and which is old and currently unpopular enough to be available in multiple copies by interlibrary loan. No mean feat, as any librarian/book groupie can attest.


Tomorrow night at 7:30 pm the book group will be discussing Agatha Christie, the best-selling author of all time. Each book group participant will talk about the book she has read and the librarian will give a brief presentation about Agatha Christie and the development of the mystery novel. We'll let you know how the new format worked for us. Meanwhile, here are some links to past posts on Dame Agatha :

Best Agatha Christie Mysteries to Read

If You Like Agatha Christie, Try These Authors

Best Mysteries



Related websites:

http://www.agathachristie.com/

http://www.christie.mysterynet.com/

http://www.cozy-mystery.com/