books and reading

On a remote tropical island where villages are overrun by rebel fighting, thirteen-year-old Matilda is introduced to the Charles Dickens classic "Great Expectations" by her white school teacher and becomes enthralled with the story's main character, with whom she feels a connection.

Chooses one hundred books that can be read quickly and for pleasure, presenting essays that describe their plots--without giving away surprises--and explain what makes the books distinctive. Texts included fit into the categories of fantasy and saga, fiction, humor, memoirs, mystery and suspense, science, travel, and history, public affairs, and the environment.

Tells the story of a group of mothers and their daughters who changed and enhanced their relationships by starting a monthly reading club, and includes advice on how to start a similar group, reading lists, and discussion guides.

Provides descriptions of one hundred books that have influenced world history, arranged chronologically from the "Epic of Gilgamesh," c. 2700-1500 B.C., to "A Brief History of Time," revised in 1998.

Five women and one man in California's Central Valley begin a six-month series of romantic entanglements after forming a Jane Austen book discussion club.

Presents essays by more than thirty writers on books that have shaped their perspectives on reading, from Dr. Seuss's "The Cat in the Hat" to Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents," presented in categories such as "The Loneliest Book I Read" and "The Most Fearless Book I Read.".

When Sean, a devoted bookworm, buys a strange-looking fantasy novel from Sebastian Cream's Junk Shop, he ignores the book's warning and reads it after midnight and is drawn into a world of terrifying trolls.

Animals drawn by an illustrator for a book try to figure out where they really belong.

Fascinated children look on as Miss Divine dines on a table, savors a shelf, and chomps down on a chair, all to chase down a single word, and that word is READ.