Inaugural Goodreads Book Club

Online, May 9, 2011 (Newswire.com) - It's time for a new kind of book club to represent this vastly changing landscape. Goodreads, the largest online reading community in the world, is about to register its 5 millionth user and is launching the first-ever online global book club with Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad on Wednesday, May 25th at 7 PM.

To celebrate this milestone, Goodreads is throwing a party for its online readers in the spirit of A Visit From the Goon Squad. The inaugural book club will launch at Housing Works Bookstore (130 Crosby Street, NYC) with live music by the punk band Care Bears on Fire and a reading from Jennifer Egan.

(To find out more about the book club, please visit: http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/278.Coming_Soon_The_Goodreads_Book_Club)

Otis Chandler, CEO of Goodreads writes, "The Goodreads Book Club is a new kind of book club. We're asking you to read a book with us in June and July-along with hundreds of thousands of Goodreads members worldwide. Instead of getting together in a living room with a glass of wine, we've created an on-line total book immersion extravaganza. Take the challenge, ask the author questions via live chat, join chapter by chapter discussions, hear from experts, post your favorite quotes, share creative writing, take polls, trivia, and quizzes-all about one book. There is no minimum or maximum involvement; you can be as active as you wish."

Jenny Egan and Goodreads founder and CEO Otis Chandler are available for select interview and media appearances. See full bios below and please let me know if you would like any additional information.

ABOUT:
Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 5,000,000 members who have added more than 150,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006. Goodreads' mission is to get people excited about reading. Along the way, we plan to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world. www.goodreads.com.

Goodreads CEO/Founder Otis Chandler is a software engineer at heart and loves tinkering on the site to make it the best product possible. Before founding Goodreads, Otis was a Software Engineer and Product Manager at Tickle.com. Monster Worldwide, the leading purveyor of online jobs, purchased the company in 2004. Otis graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. Along with a passion for building websites, he's also a voracious reader.

Goodreads Bookclub Pick and Pulitzer Prize winner A Visit from the Goon Squad has received accolades of press from coast to coast. It is a book about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both-and escape the merciless progress of time-in the transporting realms of art and music. This is sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers. Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

Jennifer Egan is the author of The Keep, Look at Me, The Invisible Circus, and the story collection Emerald City. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope, All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn. Visit the Jennifer Egan's official website: www.jenniferegan.com
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49625.Jennifer_Egan

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe is one of downtown New York's most vital cultural institutions, presenting an eclectic mix of events -- from readings and concerts to comedy nights and storytelling competitions - featuring many of today's most exciting artists. The bookstore is staffed almost entirely by volunteers and 100% of its profits go to Housing Works, Inc., which provides housing, healthcare, job training, and advocacy for New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. As an independent cultural center, it offers patrons a unique opportunity to join the fight against AIDS and homelessness simply by buying or donating books; eating at our cafe; coming to concerts, readings, and special events; or volunteering on our staff.
http://www.housingworks.org/events/detail/goodreads-book-club-presents-jennifer-egan-and-punk-band-care-bears-on/