Video: Author Interview
Learn how a pandemic pivot and a 15th-century book on Ming dynasty midwifery sent Lisa See, bestselling author of the 2005 hit ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,’ on a deep dive into ancient Chinese women’s medicine. Drawing on her Chinese family history and extensive research, See shares fascinating details about life for different women in long-ago China, their afflictions and treatment — from herbal remedies to foot binding — and about her own life while penning The Girlfriend Book Club’s December 2023 book, ‘Lady Tan’s Circle of Women’ (she writes 1,000 words a day!).
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Ann Patchett, bestselling author, book lover and bookstore owner (!), talks about how the play ‘Our Town,’ shaped ‘Tom Lake,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s November 2023 read, and ‘really informed my whole life.’ Patchett, who also wrote ‘The Dutch House,’ discusses love in all life stages and why she’s happiest now. Hear about her writing process (on a treadmill desk), the moving reason why her 60th birthday is so special and how she got Meryl Streep to record the ‘Tom Lake’ audiobook.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
We’re joined by Marie Benedict, who, along with Victoria Christopher Murray, wrote The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2023 book, ‘The First Ladies,’ for a deeper look at First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Theirs was a powerful friendship that went unreported in mainstream media. Benedict explains how she and Murray, whose first book together was ‘The Personal Librarian,’ were able to research and write a story that was hidden in its time, then ‘lost’ over the years, capturing the conversations and causes of the real women behind this historical retelling.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Postcards from her uncle inspired the title of Ann Napolitano’s bestseller, ‘Hello Beautiful,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s August 2023 read. The rest was driven mainly by her ‘obsession’ with basketball history. Written during the pandemic and after the loss of her father, Napolitano crafted ‘the book that I emotionally needed.’ Centering on four sisters and one of their suitors, she hopes readers see ‘it’s never too late to reach out to the person you lost or … to the person you want to be.’ She also tells us about the new obsession starring in her next book — trees.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
We’re going on a road trip! It’s inspired by author Colleen Oakley’s relationship with her grandmother, who had a ‘wicked sense of humor’ and mandatory 5 o’clock cocktail hours. It winds its way through two women’s friendships at very different times in their lives. The movie ‘Thelma & Louise,’ and a hectic cross-country drive with her husband and four children helped Oakley add to the adventure she hopes will help readers ‘escape and have a good time’ and ‘think twice about an elderly neighbor or an aunt or anybody they could start a friendship with.’
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Author TJ Klune wrote ‘The House in the Cerulean Sea’ because he wanted ‘to do something different.’ In his modern fairytale, The Girlfriend Book Club’s May 2023 pick, the right to exist and be loved and accepted triumphs as six magical children find a home and family where none lived. A Lambda Award-winning writer, Klune knew he wanted to focus on bigotry and feeling ‘other,’ much like he did growing up ‘a queer kid with undiagnosed ADHD, coming of age in 1990s rural Oregon.’ The result is a whimsical love story that has impacted fans in beautiful ways, which he shares here.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Inspired by three real-life murders in St. Cloud, Minn., Jess Lourey explores small-town secrets in her bestselling thriller, ‘The Quarry Girls,’ The Girlfriend Book Club’s February 2023 book. After suffering multiple rejections from publishers before this 2022 hit, Lourey almost abandoned writing before tragedy struck her own life — her husband committed suicide after 9/11. She was hospitalized while pregnant with her son. A doctor recommended she resume writing. With several books in several genres to her name, Lourey explains the common thread: secrets. ‘I love the idea of secrets and telling them.’
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan explain how they co-authored The Girlfriend Book Club’s January 2023 selection, ‘Mad Honey’ (Picoult wrote Liv’s chapters, Boylan wrote Olivia’s), how their bestselling collaboration came to be (Boylan Tweeted a dream she had about writing with Picoult, who replied ‘Let’s do it!’) and how Picoult became a honey expert. With stunning twists and turns and a masterclass in beekeeping, this important story is about being loved for who we truly are. ‘Stories,’ says Boylan, ‘can open hearts.’
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
‘I’m someone drawn to big questions that don’t really have answers,’ explains author Nikki Erlick, ‘Why is life so random? How much power do I have over my fate?’ In her bestselling debut novel, ‘The Measure,’ Erlick gives her characters some control — at age 22, everyone gets a string that measures how many years they have left to live, but they don’t have to look. The plot unwinds based on those decisions and the ones Erlick made in her own life, which she candidly shares in her December 2022 chat with The Girlfriend Book Club.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
A supernatural page-turner is hard to resist — now add increasingly twisted doodles from a seemingly deranged young boy. We’re in! Equally hard to resist? The author of The Girlfriend Book Club’s November 2022 book, Jason Rekulak, who gave us the inside scoop on how he brought his characters to life (and death?) and why he chose to include those spooky pics.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
‘It’s either bananas or brilliant,’ is how her publisher’s assistant described The Girlfriend Book Club’s October 2022 pick, ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ by Shelby Van Pelt. The bestseller was brilliant, and Van Pelt explains how her childhood obsession with ‘critters’ and a character study for a creative writing class resulted in this fan favorite.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
‘What if you had one of those terrifying serial killers, but everyone thought it was a woman?’ That was the jumping-off point Simone St. James, the bestselling author of ‘The Book of Cold Cases,’ The Girlfriend Book Club pick for September 2022. Jumping between the current day and a 1970s fictional murder, St. James, who shares a love of crime podcasts with her main character, explains how she brings ghost stories into the light of day.
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
Join our free, private Facebook group, The Girlfriend Book Club, for more author talks, great recommendations and regular giveaways!
