Groucho Marx once said that he would never want to belong to any club that would admit him as a member, but my guess is that he was never in a book club.

I love book clubs. I’ve visited an absolute ton of them over the years to talk about A GOOD AMERICAN. Some I’ve attended in person, and many more I’ve attended either by telephone or Skype. (I think the most remote book club I spoke to was in Abu Dhabi.) It’s always a good time. If you would like me to join your book club to discuss SETTING FREE THE KITES, I’d be happy to do so. Just drop me a line here giving me the details. If I can fit it on my schedule, I’ll do my best to make it happen.

“And to think we started as a book group.”

Anyway, three interesting pieces of news on this subject:

• My lovely publishers have put together a Book Club Guide for SETTING FREE THE KITES. It includes some questions about the book to get the conversation going, and an interview with yours truly. You can download a free copy by clicking on this link. There’s also a playlist of some of the songs included in the book. If you’re on Spotify you can also go here to listen. (Fair warning: it’s not quite as easy on the ear as the soundtrack for A GOOD AMERICAN.)
• Next: Penguin have also announced that they are giving away 10 spanking brand-new hardcover copies of SETTING FREE THE KITES in a book club sweepstake. If you’d like to enter and win those copies for your book club, you can enter the contest by entering here. The closing date is February 28.
• And finally, there’s a new kind of book club where people just gather in one place and read quietly to themselves. It’s called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Silent Book Club. Penguin have put together a “starter pack” of six great titles, including KITES. You can enter to win this rather excellent prize by going here.

In other news I’ve begun to pack for the book tour, which means I’ve begun to pick out the books I’m taking with me. And I’m already in a heap of trouble.