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December 1, 2023 - December 15, 2023

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of December 1 - December 15.

The 2023 Booker Prize

The 2023 Booker Prize has been awarded to Paul Lynch for his fifth novel, PROPHET SONG, an exhilarating and propulsive portrait of a nation sliding into tyranny --- and one woman's attempts to hold her family together. Heralded in one review as "a crucial book for our current times," it captures some of the biggest social and political anxieties of our age, from the rise of political extremism to the global plight of refugees. Lynch is the fifth Irish writer to win the Booker Prize, after Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright. Click here to read more about Lynch and PROPHET SONG.

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November 30, 2023

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this holiday season. Read more about it, and enter our Holiday Cheer Contest by Friday, December 1st at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of MOTHER-DAUGHTER MURDER NIGHT by Nina Simon, a New York Times bestseller and a Reese's Book Club pick. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

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December 2023

December's Books on Screen roundup includes the season two premiere of "Reacher" on Amazon Prime Video; the films The Boys in the Boat, The Color Purple, Wonka, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever, Eileen, Ferrari and the Netflix premiere of Leave the World Behind; the season finales of "Black Cake" on Hulu, "Slow Horses" on Apple TV+ and "Sullivan's Crossing" on The CW; the conclusion of Showtime's "Fellow Travelers"; the premieres of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+ and the HBO docuseries "Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage and Reckoning"; and the DVD releases of Dumb Money, Rumble Through the Dark, Butcher's Crossing and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

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November 28, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of November 27th and December 4th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our VERY special contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com, where we are giving readers the opportunity to share their favorite book that they read with their group and their favorite book that they read outside their group this year.

One Grand Prize winner will receive SIX outstanding book group titles releasing in early 2024: FINDING MARGARET FULLER by Allison Pataki, FIRST LIE WINS by Ashley Elston, SLOW NOODLES: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon with Kim Green, THE STORM WE MADE by Vanessa Chan, WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA? by Dervla McTiernan, and THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah. Be sure to enter by Wednesday, January 10th at noon ET.

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November 28, 2023

Get ready! We have so much to share in this update. I think there is something for every book group here.

Announcing Our Special End-of-the-Year Contest!
For all of us at ReadingGroupGuides.com, the official start of the holiday season signals the launch of our year-end contest. Once again, we are asking you and your book group to help us compile our own “Best Books of the Year” list.

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November 22, 2023

Before I head to the kitchen to create (not cook, create) Thanksgiving dinner, I wanted to thank all of you for being a part of Bookreporter. Your reading our newsletters and reviews, sharing thoughts on Word of Mouth, entering our contests, following our virtual programs, watching our videos and writing us emails are so appreciated. To our reviewers, we are grateful to you as members of the extended Bookreporter team. Your writing and sharing of your work has made us the site that people turn to for informed review coverage without bias. We would love it if you could share what we do with your friends, family and colleagues as you embrace celebrating this holiday season.

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Claire Keegan, author of So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Claire Keegan gifts us three exquisite stories that together forms a brilliant examination of gender dynamics. In "So Late in the Day," Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently; in "The Long and Painful Death," a writer's arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Bèoll for a two-week writing residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his criticisms and opinions; and in "Antarctica," a married woman travels out of town to see what it's like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger. Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and men: a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence.

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Nora Roberts, author of Inheritance: The Lost Bride Trilogy, Book 1

Graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is stunned to learn that her late father had a twin he never knew about --- and that her newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has left her almost everything he owned, including a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast, which the will stipulates she must live in it for at least three years. Trey, the young lawyer who greets her at the sprawling clifftop manor, acknowledges that the place is haunted…but just a little. Sonya sees a painting by her father inexplicably hanging in her deceased uncle’s office, and a portrait of a woman named Astrid, whom the lawyer refers to as “the first lost bride.” It’s becoming clear that Sonya has inherited far more than a house. She has inherited a centuries-old curse and a puzzle to be solved if there is any hope of breaking it.

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Mitch Albom, author of The Little Liar

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazis invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to “new homes” where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved --- and all the others --- to their doom at Auschwitz. Nico never tells the truth again.

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