Hosteling International is where it's at!

I have heard that the Covent Garden Travelodge is not bad, and it's very central. Travelodge is a basic budget hotel chain, but probably better than a B&B you would have to leave at 10am every morning.

I live in Manchester and it's not much cheaper than London. Plus it's 2 hours away by train.
There's so much free stuff to do in London that it's worth the accommodation prices. There's a Aussie run hostel in Shepherd's Bush that's pretty good. There's a huge hostel in Shaftesbury Road in Central London. I've stayed in…

Instead of staying in the rather expensive London you could also stay for a bit in another city, like Manchester or even find a cheap ticket (check easy jet for example) to fly (or go by bus) to another, cheaper, European city.

Smart, Catholic dude—what about Flannery O'Connors A Prayer Journal? It just came out and might appeal to him as a fellow Catholic and/or academic?

Gift card!!!! Seriously, gift card. That always does the trick.

Really good advice from the other posters - I would add that if you're going to have a whole-group discussion situation, you may want to announce the question first (Who was your favourite character and why, etc) and have them discuss the question in twos or threes first. Then you can ask the little groups what they…

I am a teacher so I will try to help. Not sure what the book was about but to begin the discussion you could write on the board (or on a sheet of paper if no board avail) a question about the main theme of the novel. You will go around the room questioning random students about their thoughts. For instance, if it was…

Bring cookies. Teens like food.

I think you should prepare questions and talking points, and then be prepared not to use them. Allow the kids to take the lead, if they want, and only be there to guide the discussion, or present the stuff you prepped if the conversation needs a little push.

Best to go overly prepared. Prep a ton of varied questions, discussion points, etc. Plan it out by minutes, full lesson plan style. Make sure you know what you want them to get out of the book and tailor your questions to reflect that. Try to relate the book to their own lives, kids do better with talking when it's…

I love my girlfriends so much. My favorite female centered culture is an oldie but goodie - Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables books. Anne has such wonderful relationships with her girl friends, and the last book that is from the POV of her youngest daughter as a teenager shows the girl's transformation from…

I need help from any Jezzies who read YA! I work at a bookstore and I volunteered to organize and lead a book club for teens. The premise of the book club is that we discuss books that haven't been released yet, sooo are there any fall/ late summer YA releases that you are particularly excited about (well-known or…