Normally, authors' websites are a bit less robust than say, the usual blog of celebrity ascent and decline about which we are all obsessed.  But Charles J. Shields's site is actually quite good.  And not just because he recommends The Book Club Companion.  (Well, a little bit of log rolling is permitted on the Internot, yes?)   The site captures the dreamy colors of his book Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, the art direction is crisp and elegant and it is easy to navigate.  Best of all, there are discussion questions for Mockingbird that are a parallel reading experience.  They recall, however unironically, the Final Exam in Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl.  (Your club has put this wonderful new novel on the schedule, hasn't it?)  Don't miss the superb photo of Mary Badham as Scout in the just-right excerpt from Mockingbird.

Charles J. Shields website

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

You have read Sister Carrie, the classic novel by Theodore Dreiser and before you get to the club, you realize you have brought zero research. You haven't even read the introduction by that learned professor in your edition. You turn to Wikipedia. But is this correct? Does Wikipedia help illuminate and inform? The answer, it seems, is positively mixed. The Wikipedia posting on Sister Carrie offers a succinct summary, written by a member of the former British Empire: "Drouet installs (Carrie) in a much larger apartment in return for her favours." The biography of Theodore Dreiser is relatively scant. There is no detail about the checkered publishing history of Sister Carrie or the different endings that turn up in clubs when everyone brings a different edition. And there is certainly no discussion of the rise and fall of Carrie and Hurstwood shaped like the letter X as I read in one scholarly edition. But here's something you can count on: a fascinating history of Wikipedia -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- in the article "Know It All," by Stacy Schiff in The New Yorker.

KNOW IT ALL (The New Yorker)

Sister Carrie (Wikipedia)

Theodore Dreiser (Wikipedia)

If you start now, your club might make some headway in All the King's Men before the movie opens on September 22. Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about political corruption in Depression-era Louisiana gets the full Hollywood treatment when Sean Penn stars as the Huey Long-type governor Willie Stark and Jude Law plays newspaper reporter and fixer Jack Burden. The trailer might just be the most effective sales pitch you ever had to sell a long, classic book to your club. As a warm-up, don't miss Elizabeth Kolbert's New Yorker piece on the life and times of Huey Long.

The Big Sleazy: How Huey Long took Louisiana

All the King's Men Trailer

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Blackberry Vinaigrette

Blackberries -- and everything else -- will soon be out of season. Before they leave, say goodbye to summer at your end of season book club with this salad or a bowl of blackberries. Cross your fingers for a cloudless day or a perfect evening.

• 2 cups of fresh blackberries or frozen blackberries, drained
• ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• Salt, pepper, and fresh herbs to taste
• Assorted baby greens including mesclun, Bibb lettuce or curly endive, rinsed well and dried
• 1 ½ cups walnuts, toasted
• Small package (about 6 ounces) of goat cheese, sliced or crumbled

Blend 1 cup of the blackberries in a blender until smooth. Add the apple cider vinegar and honey and blend. Add the oil in a thin stream. Strain out the mixture into a medium bowl and refrigerate.

When ready to serve, toss the vinaigrette with the greens. Add toasted walnuts and goat cheese. Garnish with remaining fresh blackberries.

The new Mr. Bond is also the new Lord Asriel in The Golden Compass, the first movie of Philip Pullman's classic trilogy, His Dark Materials. Cast is generally approved by Internet commentators, and it includes Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter and -- this is the absolute best part -- Ian McShane as the voice of armored bear Iorek Byrnison. Don't wait to read the trilogy, described as John Milton's Paradise Lost for teens. Fantastical worlds filled with bitter struggles are negotiated by plucky heroine Lyra Belacqua accompanied by her daemon, Pantalaimon. The trilogy is a children's classic and something else entirely.

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass

His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass (Amazon)