Fellowship in a Ring: A Guide for Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Groups

by Neil Hollands

This comprehensive, spirited, and often laugh-out-loud funny handbook will help you start, maintain, or enhance a science fiction and fantasy book group.

Bring fantasy and science fiction readers together for scintillating discussions with Fellowship in a A Guide for Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Groups . Providing everything you need to get started, the book offers detailed guidelines for some 50 fantasy and science fiction titles, plus guides for some 40 popular speculative fiction themes.

For each of the featured titles, the book provides bibliographic information, author background, a plot summary, notes on appeal points, discussion questions, other resources to consult, and suggested read-alikes. You'll find instructions on how to get a group started, tips for helping fantasy and sci-fi readers get along, hints for understanding the genres and subgenres, and more. The book also offers materials useful to collection development, display building, and programming. Featuring books that run the gamut from literary genre novels to classic pulp stories, Fellowship in a Ring can help you avoid common pitfalls and build a flourishing community of satisfied book group adherents.

316 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

I'm a librarian in Williamsburg, Virginia, where I specialize in readers' advisory and collection development. Lately, I've come to think of myself simply as a "bookman." It's a way of life.

I also write about books. My first book, Read On... Fantasy Fiction, came out in 2007, and my second, Fellowship in a Ring, a handbook for science fiction and fantasy book groups arrived in late 2009. I briefly had a monthly column, "Every Book Its Reader," for Booklist magazine.

I read a variety of fantasy and science fiction, nonfiction (especially history), historical fiction, mysteries, and literary fiction. I like theater, travel, movies, and puzzles in my spare time.

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent resource for starting, maintaining, and growing a sci-fi/fantasy book group. I had the pleasure of being a part of Neil's SF/F book group near Williamsburg, Virginia for a few months, and it's a robust and dynamic group, so you're getting advice from a veteran.

[Debye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great book for tips to leading book discussions of science fiction and fantasy---a subject near and dear to my heart. I actually intend to buy the book because I found it so useful--personally and professionaly.