National Read a Book Day Activity Page

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We have curated some fun additions for your National Read a Book Day!

Book lovers indulgence day!  Silence the noise and turn the pages for a while.  Do you have residents that you would like to encourage to read?  Do you have voracious readers already?  Well, here are some great activities for you to encourage either way.

Snacks for Reading

Make sure the snacks are ones that won’t mess up the pages of a good book. Some suggestions are:

  • Hard pretzels- bite sized and not messy
  • Cheese plate – goes good with a glass of wine and maybe a sliced pear
  • Something sweet? Gummy bears or twizzlers would work just fine.

Things to Do

  • Make a Bookmark, we have several to color and make always available on our site here.
  • Invite someone in to read to your residents. Or if you are still social distancing, have a young family member read a book to their loved one (recorded , over the phone, or online).

Virtual Book Clubs

Here is a list of book clubs that are all free! Of course there are literally hundreds of book clubs. Oprah’s book club is going strong, Jenna Bush Hager has one as well as most public libraries, but check some of these out. Let us know what you think!

Goodreads, the long-standing community for readers, is home to thousands of book clubs from the casual (The Perks of Being a Book Addict) to the conceptual (Around the World in 80 Books) to the ambitious (Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die) to the Keanu Reeves (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Book Club). Peruse the shelves of The Next Best Book Club, a virtual stand-in for the staff-picks shelf of your favorite independent bookstore. If you missed out on commonly read titles, read along with the members of Everyone Has Read This But Me – The Catch-Up Book Club. Goodreads is free to join and any member can set up their own club. The old-school forum format keeps things lean and snappy. Why mess with a good thing? Throw your pithiest thoughts into the mix with the brutally honest Goodreads community.

Instagram hosts book clubs headed by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, Emma Roberts, Florence Welch, and Noname with live-streamed author Q&As and multimedia content. Discussions take place in the comment sections.

Independent bookstores have taken their clubs virtual, including Seattle’s Third Place Books and Queen Anne Book Company, and Baltimore’s Greedy Reads, which hosts four different book clubs on Zoom.

Mocha Girls Read, a book club created by and for Black women who love to read, holds weekly Zoom meetings and maintains communities on Goodreads, Facebook, and Instagram. Those who haven’t read the books are still invited to hang!

AARP Recommended:

The Girlfriend Book Club, a private Facebook-only book club with 5,000 members and counting — but anyone can join. It’s fun and lively and packed with mostly female bibliophiles. Each month, the club focuses on a different book that was chosen through a Facebook poll, and authors participate in a live Facebook chat (which occurs on the third Tuesday of each month).

Podcasts

Tons, tons and tons of podcasts are out there aimed at avid readers. But here are just a few of the ones AARP recommends. Listen through whichever podcast app you use, such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or go directly to the websites linked below.

What Should I read Next?
Anne Bogel has a podcast she launched in 2019, called One Great Book where she spends 10 minutes discussing a novel she plucks from her shelves. With more than 220 evergreen episodes in the bank, almost every reader can find inspiration, whether her focus is on books that make you cry, bookish gifts, adventure books, or you-name-it. She also has an exceptionally soothing voice.

Overdue
Andrew Cunningham and Craig Getting have a podcast that’s great for catching up on some classics or books you’ve been meaning to read.

Bookable
A new podcast from Amanda Stern. She explores books through author interviews and cleverly incorporated sounds. She weaves clips from songs, quotes from the author.

Apps

Libby is a new mobile app that gives patrons access to their local library’s collection of audio- and ebooks on their device (just enter library card information after downloading), but Libby’s sleek design has mobile users in mind. The app can support multiple library cards, keep track of active loans and holds, and lets you sample books before checking them out.

Goodreads Keep track of recent reads (or find new ones) on Goodreads, a hybrid social network and review site where bookworms rate millions of titles, plus share custom reading lists, participate in discussion groups and receive personalized recommendations based on past favorites. Frequent publisher giveaways mean there’s also a chance to score free copies of new releases.

LibraryThing is home to active groups, forums and giveaways in all genres. But the site takes a bird’s-eye approach to managing your home library, allowing users to catalog, tag and sort the titles in their book, movie and music collections. LibraryThing also maintains an index of local pages for information about bookstores and literary events in your area.

Some of our favorite Book-to-Movie Recommendations:

See if your residents have read these books before seeing the movie. These discuss any differences. Which did they like best?

  • To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962)
  • The Godfather (1972, 1974)
  • Little Women (2019)
  • The Color Purple (1985)
  • The Wizard of Oz (1939)
  • The Remains of the Day (1993)
  • Sense and Sensibility (1995)
  • Forrest Gump (1994)
  • Doctor Zhivago (1965)
  • The Princess Bride (1987)
  • Hidden Figures (2016)
  • Schnindler’s List (1993)
  • Harry Potter (2002 – 2011)
  • Great Expectations (1946)
  • The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
  • The Lord of the Rings (2001 – 2003)
  • No Country for Old Men (2007)
  • Goodfellas (1990)
  • The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957)
  • Wonder Boys (2000)
  • L.A. Confidential (1997)
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
  • Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Our Printable Products for National Read a Book Day