Saturday, February 13, 2021

Book Club Kit: Miss Benson’s Beetle

 

Book Club Kit: Miss Benson’s Beetle is one of a new series of supporting brochures and materials available for fiction and nonfiction titles from Penguin Random House Librarian Resources.  Released 11th Feb 2021 by Penguin Random House, this entry is filled with interesting background history to enhance the personal or book-club reading experience for Rachel Joyce's profound and engaging story about the transformative power of friendship from 2020. This brochure is 13 pages long and includes discussion questions, some beetle facts, a map, some coordinated period appropriate food and drink recommendations, an "interview" with the two main characters, a short Q&A interview with the author, and a recommended film list. 

I enjoy the extra resources and enhancements the larger publishing houses are able  to employ to support their publications. I also appreciate that most library systems can provide quite a lot of extra support and guidance to their patrons and groups. These materials would be appropriate for online/remote discussion groups, formal education (gender & race studies, sociology , modern history, and allied subjects), and for enhancing personal reading. I found a number of good ideas for further reading including authors with whom I was previously unfamiliar. 

Five stars. Compact, succinct, beautiful typesetting and graphics. It does -not- include the original book, just the discussion and support materials. Available free from the publisher's website.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

No comments:

Post a Comment