GMA's 'Read This!' Selects The Secret Life of Bees

Book Sense's literary streak of seven straight network morning show picks ended last Monday when The Today Show's book club chose a book that was not a Book Sense 76 title. However, Book Sense's Good Morning America book club streak is still alive -- the morning show's "Read This!" book club has chosen five books since the club began last June, and all five titles have been Book Sense 76 picks.

On Thursday, October 10, ABC's Good Morning America announced that The Secret Life of Bees (Viking Press) by Sue Monk Kidd was the latest book chosen by the show's "Read This!" book club. Kidd's book, which tells the story of a 14-year-old runaway girl who is haunted by the death of her mother, and is set against the backdrop of the turbulent '60s, was a March/April 2002 Book Sense 76 pick. In nominating the book for the 76, Kathy Westover of Bookworm in Edwards, Colorado, said The Secret Life of Bees is "beautifully written, this is a page turner."

GMA's "Read This!" segment features one book club recommending a book of its choice to another book club and GMA viewers. This month, the "Jane Does" book club from Raleigh, North Carolina, assigned Kidd's book to the "Wine, Women, and Jeffrey" book club in Columbus, Ohio.

Since GMA and Today began their network reading groups in June, nine titles have been chosen, and all but one, Riverhead Books' Raising Fences by Michael Datcher (Today Show), have been Book Sense 76 picks. The other titles selected were Little, Brown's The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (GMA), William Morrow's Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles (GMA), Knopf's The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer (GMA), Doubleday's You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett (Today), and Knopf's The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter (Today).