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Bookclubs are in for a real holiday treat! Here are FOURTEEN new reading group guides to keep you busy during those long winter nights.

Reading Group Guide: Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill

ISBN 9781594483905| 8/4/2009| Riverhead | Add to Cart

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Reading Group Guide: Rashi’s Daughters: Book III: Rachel by Maggie Anton

ISBN 9780452295681| 8/4/2009| Plume | Add to Cart

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Reading Group Guide: A Question of Freedom by R. Dwayne Betts

ISBN 9781583333488| 8/8/2009| Avery | Add to Cart

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This week's episode of A Cup of Poetry features two short poems by William Wordsworth read by Nicole Erazo.

Listen to A Cup of Poetry now and read the poem below!

Subscribe to the FREE podcast feed in the iTunes store.

The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry, edited and introduced by Jessica Wordsworth and Jonothan Wordsworth

Book: Paperback | 5.07 x 7.79in | 1056 pages | ISBN 9780140435689 | 28 Feb 2006 | Penguin Classic | 18 - AND UP

$22.00 - Add to Cart

"The world is too much with us"

» Novella Carpenter discusses the story of how she became an urban farmer in downtown Oakland and tips for how you can start your own urban farm.

» Read more about Farm City

Farm City Novella Carpetener Urban Farmer Oakland Podcast Audio Author Interview The Penguin Press

Excerpts (3)

Excerpt - Iron River T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)

Excerpt - The Piano Teacher Janice Y.K. Lee (Penguin)

Excerpt - Betrayals Lili St. Crow (Razorbill)

Videos (1)

Video - The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half Stephanie Nelson (Avery)

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In ancient times, Greek and Roman poets invoked of the Muse. She was a goddess, a female figure that 'inspired' their work. That is, she 'breathed upon" or 'into' them their themes and deep creative ideas.  They saw her as something utterly outside of their selves and set apart from ordinary human experience.  Without her first impulse, they could not sing or write their poetry.  Once she had breathed upon them, then their rational, conscious minds could continue the process and finish off the poems.  Welsh poets of the post-Roman and medieval periods invoked a similiar figure, the Awen, the so-called "white goddess" about whom the poet Robert Graves wrote so much nonsense.  Despite Graves, however, there's no doubt that this figure, the Awen, seemed real enough to early bards.

I had alway considered the Awen or Muse a poetic convention, a formal remnant of early pre-literate cultures, until I began to write fiction.  Once I started the short story that grew into a saga, I understood things a fair bit better.  The original short piece itself burst out of the first sentence and began to write itself.  The core material of the entire series presented itself to me as long fragments of stories that began, slowly, to take on an overall if non-rational shape.  For about eighteen months I wrote compulsively, often getting up in the middle of the night to "just make a few notes" that turned into ten pages of fiction by morning.  It was a kind of madness, all right, except it did turn into novels that other people can read, understand, and enjoy.

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The New York Times Bestseller Highlights for the Week of November 22nd 

Penguin Group (USA) has ten debuts on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of November 22nd: Kindred in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam) is #3 on the hardcover fiction list; The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe (Viking) is #6 on the hardcover nonfiction list; and Knit Two by Kate Jacobs (Berkley) hits at #20 on the trade paperback fiction list. On the mass market fiction list, Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh (Berkley) is #8; Me and My Shadow by Katie MacAlister (Signet) is #9; Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction by David Michaels (Berkley) is #13; and Bookplate Special by Lorna Barrett (Berkley) is #20. Why We Suck by Denis Leary (Plume) hits at #17 on the trade paperback nonfiction list; while Million-Dollar Throw by Mike Lupica (Philomel) is #4 on the children’s chapter books list; and The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids by Michael Pollan (Dial) is #8 on the children’s paperback books list.

Here are more New York Times bestseller highlights:

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Tarcher’s 2012 Book Authors in Media Spotlight as 2012 Movie Opens Today

Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the Tarcher titles, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl and Toward 2012, and John Major Jenkins, author of The 2012 Story, which Tarcher just released in hardcover last month, were two of the three experts chosen by Sony Pictures to be part of the Hollywood studio’s press junket to promote the movie 2012, which opens in theaters nationwide today.

In addition to the Sony junket, the authors and their books have generated major media coverage, sharing ideas about 2012 on “ABC Nightline,” “Good Morning America,” “Entertainment Tonight,” CNN and Fox News, while also being featured in a 2012 feature in USA Today this week, plus an Associated Press story and pieces in New York magazine, the Denver Post and Toronto Star, among other publications. In a New York Times review of the film, Manohla Dargis writes, “…the most amusing character, a doomsday prophet and radio broadcaster played by Woody Harrelson, seems in hair, beard and interests to have been drawn along the predictive lines of the real author Daniel Pinchbeck.” Both Pinchbeck and Jenkins have been interviewed extensively about 2012, challenging dramatic apocalyptic theories and presenting opinions about how our planet and consciousness could go through a period of transformation and renewal during or around that year.

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Patricia Cornwell, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sue Grafton, John Sandford, Jan Karon, Kathryn Stockett, Jan Brett and Mike Lupica Are Among the Bestselling and Critically-Acclaimed Authors Sharing the Books that Top Their Personal Holiday "Wish Lists"

New York, New York, November 16, 2009... Penguin Group (USA) has launched the second annual "What to Give & What to Get," an opportunity for readers to find out what books are on their favorite writers' holiday gift lists this year—both to give and to receive. Over forty beloved Penguin Group (USA) authors have shared the books that rank at the top of their lists for the 2009 gift-giving season, ranging from classic to current, fiction to nonfiction, adult to children's, and from any publisher, to help spread the word that books make the perfect gift.

The "What to Give & What to Get" program includes many anecdotes from authors who have shared the books that have personal meaning to them and their loved ones: Elizabeth Gilbert comments that she is planning a "19th-century literature bender" in 2010, with books by George Eliot and Anthony Trollope topping her wish-list. Patricia Cornwell plans to give Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, the book that inspired her visit to Graceland, and thinks Mike Lupica's Million Dollar Throw "would be a great gift for a young person." Sue Grafton will be giving Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and The Outliers. Sue Monk Kidd would like to receive The Help by Kathryn Stockett—who in turn wants to give David Benioff's City of Thieves. Jan Karon will give Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write to the aspiring writers on her gift-list. Jan Brett plans to give Born to Run by Christopher McDougall to family members that share her love for long-distance running. Geraldine Brooks will be sharing Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse with the young children on her list. Robert Crais will channel his "foodie" side and Southern background by giving My New Orleans by John Besh to his friends and loved ones. Mike Lupica hopes to get Spooner by Pete Dexter, who, in his opinion, "is always worth the wait."

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Or, rather, I wish my day had thirty-nine hours. That would, frankly, make life easier. 

Then again, time does seem to expand to fill a vacuum, so maybe it wouldn't be easier, just longer. I'm not sure. All I know is that there never seems to be enough time (I wonder if that could be because so many people sit around killing time? I mean, come on! If you've got too much time on your hands, don't kill it or waste it, send it my way. After all, time flies, right? Somebody, help my now. I'm getting lost in my own puns....)

Ahem.

Anyway, the point is that for a writer, time is something to be cherished and protected, which is why I've installed a lock on my office door. Because even though fifteen minutes with a break and then another fifteen minutes adds up to thirty minutes, the quality of the interrupted thirty isn't the same as one solid block of luxurious writing time. Which means that, yes, mommy does get frustrated when the head pops in during my writing time. (Thus the lock.) And I end up doing whatever it takes to get in my Big Blocks of Unfettered Writing Time. 

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This week's episode of A Cup of Poetry features a beautiful reading of two poems by William Blake, read by Tom Roberge.

Listen to A Cup of Poetry now and read the poem below!

Subscribe to the FREE podcast feed in the iTunes store.

Selected Poems by William Blake, edited by Gerald E. Bentley

Book: Paperback | 5.07 x 7.79in | 304 pages | ISBN 9780140424461 | 28 Mar 2006 | Penguin Classic | 18 - AND UP

$13.00 - Add to Cart

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."