Deb­bie Ja­cob

It's a new year. That means it's time for a new start, and a brand new book club. If you haven't yet start­ed or joined a book club, there's no bet­ter time to make this your new year's res­o­lu­tion. Book clubs are a way to get to­geth­er with a pur­pose, and they're al­so an en­joy­able way to dis­cov­er new books.

This year the Sun­day Arts Sec­tion (SAS) Book Club mem­bers will con­tin­ue their quest to read books that have been turned in­to movies.

Check out your favourite book­store-on­line or here in Trinidad and To­ba­go-for the books we'll be fea­tur­ing in our Book Club. Then check us out on our SAS Book Club group on Face­book and in­clude your thoughts on the books we're fea­tur­ing. Go to your Face­book page and type in SAS Book Club. It's that easy.

If you're a sea­soned vet­er­an of the SAS Book Club-or any oth­er book club for that mat­ter-check out the SAS Book Club for some new ideas to con­sid­er for your book club read­ing. That in­cludes un­usu­al pub­lish­ers that you might not be aware of who are pub­lish­ing lit­er­a­ture that is among the most pop­u­lar in the world in a for­eign lan­guage. There is one par­tic­u­lar pub­lish­er that spe­cialis­es in trans­lat­ing mod­ern French lit­er­a­ture. We'll be check­ing out some books by that pub­lish­er this year.

We'll al­so ex­plore some of the best and most pop­u­lar Caribbean chil­dren's lit­er­a­ture so that you can start a book club in your child's school or be more aware of lit­er­a­ture for your own chil­dren. Good chil­dren's lit­er­a­ture can be en­joyed by adults as well as chil­dren.

Our first book to kick off the new year will be World War Z: An Oral His­to­ry of the Zom­bie War by Max Brooks. Look for it in lo­cal book­stores and be ready for this tense and grip­ping read next week.

If your book club is in­ter­est­ed in a soft read to kick off the year, con­sid­er Safe Haven, a Nicholas Sparks nov­el which is due to be re­leased as a movie this year. Sparks' ro­mance nov­els are a pop­u­lar, easy read, per­fect for eas­ing in­to a new book club.

The SAS Book Club will al­so fea­ture a mo­men­tous mod­ern clas­sic: The Great Gats­by by F Scott Fitzger­ald.

Robert Red­ford and Mia Far­row starred in the last movie ver­sion of this clas­sic. This round, The Great Gats­by is di­rect­ed by Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonar­do Di­Caprio as Jay Gats­by, Is­la Fish­er as Myr­tle Wil­son, Ja­son Clarke as George Wil­son, Carey Mul­li­gan as Daisy Buchanan and To­bey Maguire as Nick Car­raway, the nar­ra­tor of the sto­ry.

The SAS Book Club will al­so fea­ture yet an­oth­er nov­el-turned-movie in Gang­ster Squad: Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Bat­tle for Los An­ge­les by Paul Lieber­man. This will be our first non­fic­tion book fea­tured in the SAS Book Club. We'll be ex­plor­ing more non­fic­tion this year.

Al­so get ready for The Guernsey Lit­er­ary and Pota­to Peel Pie So­ci­ety by Mary Ann Shaf­fer and An­nie Bar­rows, which will be re­leased as a movie star­ring Kate Winslet lat­er this year. Let us know what you're read­ing on the SAS Book Club Face­book page. Cheers! Here's to an ex­cit­ing year of read­ing.