The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
--Mark Twain.

It's only April, barely even spring, but we'd like to start gathering your suggestions for the popular BookMuse summer reading list. Click here to send us the titles and authors of great books you've read, with or without comments, and we'll publish the whole list in the June issue of Amusements.



What's New?
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem tops our home page features. Don't miss the book or the Muse Notes Plus, where you'll get a new perspective on hard-boiled detective novels and see how Lethem has stretched the boundary of the genre into delightful new shapes and characters. And if you haven't already read Possession by A.S. Byatt, do so soon, so your pleasure from the reading isn't affected by the movie's hype.

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is the kids' feature. About a mouse and her unusual name, Henkes' book is not only a charming picture book for young readers, but also one that brings up big issues of difference and acceptance.

Read the new interview with The Book Nuts Reading Club, a dedicated group of third-grade readers from Memphis, Tennessee. You will be inspired by their enthusiasm and their good ideas.

Our new banner advertiser, Arc-Vision, has been thrilled with the number of readers who have ordered its premium-quality reading glasses. This is a great way to support BookMuse, too. Thank you and please keep it up!



Coming Up
Our next feature is timely even though it's set in the 16th century. My Name is Red by Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is largely a tale of palace intrigue, and its pages are steeped in deceit, jealousy, ambition, betrayal, and murder. Oh, and it's also a love story. All these elements are wrapped around questions over the divide between Islamic culture and Western culture. Pamuk's novel is a stellar book group choice, connecting wonderful fiction with some of the issues most current in our news today.

Later in April, we'll offer you Muse Notes Plus on Iris Murdoch's classic The Sea, The Sea. This 1978 Booker Prize winner follows theater impresario Charles Arrowby's retirement to the English seaside. Instead of the tranquility he seeks to write his memoirs, he finds enough present-day drama, in the form of myriad uninvited guests and the chance appearance of his first love, to fill hundreds of pages.

Coming soon to the Kids' Corner are Gary Paulsen's Soldier's Heart, the powerful story of a 15-year old boy who lies about his age to join the army during the Civil War, and Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, the story of a woman's legacy to "make the world more beautiful." This is one of our favorite picture books, with plenty of material for discussion.

In the next couple of weeks, we'll be revamping the Buy Books section of the site. We've chosen Powell's bookstore, the largest bookstore in the U.S. and one of the first online booksellers, even pre-Amazon.com, as the exclusive BookMuse bookseller. We'll tell you more about Powell's in the next newsletter.



Book Group Tip by Kristine
I've just been hired to lead a book group that met a couple of times without a facilitator before deciding to hire me. Their problem seemed to be that they couldn't get a discussion going from the books they read. So naturally I asked which books they'd tried: one nonfiction historical book and one book of short stories. Though we feature both kinds of books on BookMuse, they are not the easiest choices for stimulating book discussions. Nonfiction books, with a few exceptions, just address their subject without the rich complexity added by the imagination of an author, and so discussions of these books often hit dead ends. As for short stories, choosing to discuss a whole collection of short stories chops up the discussion so much that it's difficult to get a flow of conversation going. The solution is to choose just one short story to focus on instead of trying to discuss the whole book. You can easily spend your whole time on one excellent short story.



Readers' Queries
Q--Great site, but I can barely read the text. The type is too small! for people my age (60+). Please up it a bit. Thanks, Gordon

A--The size of the print of any web site is something you have control over. In Internet Explorer, click on View, then Text Size, then Large (or whatever size you prefer). In Netscape, click on View and Increase Font.

Q--My name is Mike and I'm a film student in college. I'm looking for great books or stories that I might be able to adapt into a screenplay for my thesis project. My favorite genre is the thriller (i.e. Silence of the Lambs, Messiah, etc...). If you or someone you know has a favorite book that you always thought should have been made into a movie but wasn't, then I want to know about it! Any recommendations you have would be sincerely appreciated. Please email me at mikekaz@hotmail.com. Thank you!

Q--This is a great site for avid readers. I want to find a work of fiction that is based on/has something to do with Mormonism. . . historical fiction, a memoir. I do not want a book about the Mormon faith. Do you have any ideas?? Thank you. -- Lynn (Email ideas to: dlgrmarion@worldnet.att.net)



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