ZOOM by Istvan Banyai is a book that takes readers on an interesting and fun journey. It allows readers to zoom in and zoom out of the story and images and try to figure out what they are seeing and once readers think they know what they see, they have to guess again because nothing is as it seems and there’s nothing readers can do but hang on and enjoy the story. This activity is based on the picture books “Zoom” and “Re-Zoom” by Istvan Banyai which consist of 30 sequential “pictures within pictures”. The team is tasked with putting together a story from a set of sequential images. Each person is given an image but is not permitted to show it to anyone else. Together, the team has to figure out the correct sequence. The activity focuses on effective communication and problem-solving skills.

Alternatively, you can create your own set of sequential images that tell a story. Each image should be on one sheet of paper (you can laminate them so that they last more than one session). The number of images should match the number of participants. Oprah’s book club may not be as active as it once was, but you can now rely on the Today Show’s Jenna Bush Hager to recommend a book you won’t be able to put down. In 2019, Jenna brought her love of reading to the Read with Jenna book club, and each month she has chosen books we’ve loved!You can make the activity more competitive and measure team performance by the number of images that are in the wrong sequence. Our Shared Shelf was founded in 2016 by actor Emma Watson as part of her work with UN women. The online book club focused on intersectional feminist literature, including must-read books like The Handmaid’s Tale and powerful memoirs like The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.

Six European publishing houses have teamed up to create this weekly Zoom series in which they take turns presenting a book from their catalogs. (The selected titles are sometimes discounted.) First up on March 26 is The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke, a family drama set before the fall of the Berlin Wall. QuarantiniHand out one image to each participant. Encourage them to study the details of the image so this will help them put together the full story. This is a great activity that allows teams to display communication and problem-solving skills. The activity becomes more complex with a large number of participants as there are more pieces of the story-puzzle that they have to put into sequence. It also works well with smaller groups if you use the variations provided below. The book: You can have a good book club discussion about a bad book, but it’s always more fun when members connect to the material (and in these times, who wants to invest energy in a book that feels like homework?). For your first meeting, start with an accessible novel — one with interesting characters, which are often more fun to debate than plot points. The Literary Hub is virtually hosting the type of programming that would ordinarily take place in bookstores around the country: book tour events, readings and Q&As. The first episode featured Kevin Nguyen talking about his debut novel New Waves—a heist narrative set inside the New York start-up world. Translated Fiction Online Book Club There’s such a thirst from queer women and nonbinary people and trans people to come together,” Pratoussy says. “I’m hoping that this type of virtual book club will break the boundaries, and that any type of physical barrier will be removed so that anyone can join.”

This wordless picture book starts with an image and continues to "zoom" out, showing that what you see could turn into something else completely. Despite this age of isolation, the New York Public Library has been strengthening its community of readers since April 2020, when it teamed up with US radio station WNYC to launch its online book club. Sometimes, the price point of popular new-releases (often the fodder of book clubs) can put off readers who would otherwise love to join. But all the chosen books for this virtual book club can be read for free through NYPL’s e-reader app, which makes it easy to read any eBook in your library’s collection. Ben Keene, the club’s co-founder, says that Rebel will continue hosting these monthly virtual book discussions, as well as a daily video chat called Rebel Book Pub, for the foreseeable future. Keene also says that 150 people have signed up for the club’s 14-day reading challenge, which set a goal for participants to finish a book in two weeks. Lit Hub’s Virtual Book Channel Zoom by Istvan Banyai is a wordless picturebook that is a series of pictures that start very close-up and then zoom out. The first picture starts with an up close red object, which we find out is a rooster on the next picture. It then zooms out to two children looking at the rooster and then the house and town they are in. We then find out that this town is actually a model that a girl is playing with on a magazine cover. This pattern continues for the rest of book playing on the idea. Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich founded this club in 2012 as a potential outlet for introverts. “It provided a place for people to be able to get out of the house and meet up with a group—and not be forced to make awkward happy hour conversation, but to sit quietly for an hour and then chat about books,” de la Mare says. Since then, the club has grown to 260 chapters around the world in 31 countries. These chapters meet, read whatever book they’ve brought for an hour silently, and then share what they’ve learned.If you don’t have a library card, you can still browse thousands of public domain classics, and tune in to the author discussions that are presented as part of Get Lit — the book portion of WNYC's arts-and-culture show, All of It. All of their past shows — including interviews with Brit Bennett and Colson Whitehead — are also available for catch-up. None of these book clubs may be right for you—or maybe you’d like to form your own community. Below, TIME books editor Lucy Feldman has some tips on how to get started and lead your own discussion.