Book Buzz Book Club
The Toronto Public Library has an online book club for adult readers called Book Buzz. Every month a new book is featured. You can read interviews with author and reviews about the book and afterwards join in on discussions in their book forum. If you live, work or go to school in the Metropolitan Toronto area and have a TPL card, you can also place a hold for the book online. But this is the only function of the club not available to everyone.
Book Buzz is run by the Book Buzz Librarian Sheila Dalton or B.B. Buzzword as she’s known online. It is an “active club with over 200 members” and membership is open to anyone anywhere with computer access. They boast having members as far away as England and France. And are always on the lookout for more interested readers.
The group is still experimenting with their genres at the moment having only been online for nine months. They have covered “literary fiction, Canadian fiction, travel/adventurer, mystery, speculative fiction and modern novels”. The main page also features an introduction for the following month’s book.
Deciding on which book to feature may be determined on a vote with the moderator suggesting five books or sometimes the library will choose depending on ideas expressed by members and title availability.
Besides reading and forum discussions they have live author chats and contests for free books. If you join any discussions about books be sure you’ve read the book as there are no spoiler warnings. It’s assumed whoever visits a specific thread has done the required reading.
To become a member all you need to do is create a username (like JaneAusten100) and a password. When joining online groups, privacy is often a concern for people. Sheila insists the group is very private. “Only their screen names show on the club, and we never sell or give out email addresses.”
