As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!)

Our December Book a Month selection (and the final title in our 2016 series) is The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain, a sweet romantic comedy rolled up in a mystery, with a protagonist who would be creepy if he wasn’t so self-aware, and a wonderfully fun cast of supporting characters. Yes, this novel is brief, straightforward, and (some might say) predictable, but that doesn’t take away from the humor and simple pleasure the story brings. Plus, you can’t go wrong with a love story set in Paris! Continue reading →

As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!)

October’s Book a Month selection, A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine, was printed as an exclusive edition for Bas Bleu! Editor AG explains how this happened:  Continue reading →

As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!)

September’s Book a Month selection, A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor (the esteemed British novelist, not the actress!), is a graceful and amusing portrait of a British seaside town in the 1940s. Like Jane Austen, to whom she is often compared, Taylor writes about the English upper middle class with both evident sympathy and sharp satire. Her beautiful, elegant prose doesn’t shy away from the darker themes of the human experience. Continue reading →

As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!) 

Our August Book a Month selection, The Witches by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff, is a sprawling, eminently readable plunge into the Salem witch trials that ravaged colonial Massachusetts and continue to haunt American culture today. In this ambitious account, Schiff’s vivid prose and in-depth research combine to create “a cautionary tale of how fear, panic and anxiety can transform a civilized society into a barbaric one.” The author herself, in an interview with BookPage, admitted, “At some point I thought the first line should have been, ‘This is a book about anxiety.’” All that to say: Your book club is going to have a field day with this one. Continue reading →

As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!)

Bas Bleu’s July Book a Month selection, Cassandra at the Wedding, is a profoundly insightful and somewhat disturbing coming-of-age narrative couched in a frantic comedy of manners. Editor AG writes, Continue reading →

As part of Bas Bleu’s 2016 Book a Month program, each month we’re offering discussion questions, author interviews, or other bonus material about our Bluestocking BAM selection to enrich your reading experience—for book clubs as well as thoughtful individuals. (We’ll do our best to avoid plot spoilers, but you should proceed with caution!)

In life we have two families: the one we’re born into and the one we build through friendships. This month’s Book a Month selection—And Then Came Paulette by Barbara Constantine—is a novel about that second kind of family, one that grows around a widower battling loneliness and old age in a small French village. The tale is funny and tender and sometimes sad, but most of all it’s about the importance of human connection, of those we choose to love in spite of (or in some instances, because of) their foibles and eccentricities. We’re warning you now: This novel will make your heart warm along with the June weather!

Continue reading →