What books do YOU wish your book club would read?

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What books do YOU wish your book club would read?

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1mypcjen
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 7, 2006, 10:12 pm

Let's face it - everyone has different tastes.

A few of our book clubs are going the classics route (Middlemarch, Gone With the Wind). But there's also been a demand for contemporary lit (Freaknomics) and "light" lit (He's Just Not That Into You).

What do YOU wish your book club was reading?

3mypcjen
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 9, 2006, 6:16 pm

Paola, have you read anything else by Orhan Pamuk? I know he's really popular now, because he won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.

My friend Jackie is running a book club next month in Los Angeles with a different book he's written, My Name Is Red. Have you read that yet?

-Jen

4aluvalibri
marraskuu 9, 2006, 9:31 pm

Yes Jen, I have read it, and liked it VERY much. I read it a few years ago, as a friend gave me a copy for my birthday. I am also reading The White Castle, which he wrote before My name is Red and I like it too. Well, I am proud to say that I have read Pamuk before he became as famous as he is today...;-)
Kidding aside, I would recommend his books to anybody and everybody.
Istanbul, for example, is one of those books I, personally, have trouble putting down.

5hazelk
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 10, 2006, 1:06 pm

There are only six of us in a newly formed little group in the heart of the English provinces. One is an ex-teacher who never reads fiction. One is nearly 80 whose happiest days seem to have been spent with men in uniform in WW11 and only seems to have read light fiction that includes the war + romance. I could go on. SO I wish they'd read 21st c. fiction like Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro's short stories, Ian McEwan and K Ishiguro. Nothing to frighten the horses too much but good solid stuff. NB:The touchstones have done some lateral thinking

6avaland
marraskuu 10, 2006, 3:11 pm

While, I've read We Need to Talk About Kevin and Rape: A Love Story, I've not read them in a group. They are both horrific, powerful and thought-provoking books (some just won't considered anything that might be described as "horrific"). One cannot read them without wanting to talk to others about them. Thankfully, there is LT to fill the gap:-)

hazelik, those are some great authors! Maybe you need a second book group or maybe one (or more) of the LT groups will fill that need?

7dara85
marraskuu 14, 2006, 8:50 pm

We read We Need to Talk About Kevin in our book group. I should explain that our group is people all over the state who are blind and most are older and female. The group is done in a teleconference call. We Need to Talk About Kevin was a good discussion. I think most people felt like I did, I was glad I had read it, but it was a difficult book to read. Another powerful book that was an excellent discussion was My Sister's Keeper.

8HelloAnnie
marraskuu 16, 2006, 9:32 am

I'm an English major if that expains anything, and I'd like to read more classics! I have no interest in the new fiction that everyone is reading. How boring. I'm also madly in love with YA lit, so it would be great to read more of that. Also, non-fiction. Personally, I don't read a lot of non-fiction, so it would be great to be exposed to it in the book club.

9Randy_Hierodule
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 16, 2006, 3:34 pm

New fiction - there is much of it that stands up to the work of canonized masters such as Robert Musil and Henry James. I'm too cranky, personally, to have a book club - but here are the books, all of relatively recent publication, and none involving tigers on long, improbable sea journeys, I'd inflict:

Javier Marias: All Souls
Javier Marias: The Dark Back of Time
Javier Marias: The Man of Feeling
Javier Marias: Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me
W.G. Sebald: Vertigo
W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn
Javier Garcia Sanchez: The Others
Ian McEwan: Amsterdam
Alexander Theroux- Darconville's Cat
Paul West: Oxford Days
Sandor Marai: Embers
Anton Szerb: The Traveler
Claudio Magris: Danube

10hazelk
marraskuu 20, 2006, 11:31 am

Just returned from our group's first book discussion. (see 5 above). A Booker Prizewinner was cut down to size. The book was The Blind Assassin. Two of the 6 only got to about page 30. Three of us finished it and of those only two enjoyed it. None of us thought the third strand in the book, the narration of the 'pulp fiction' while the lovers were enjoying their secret trysts, added much to the book. Is this heresy?

11dara85
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 25, 2006, 9:32 pm

Two books that I am going to recommend for our discussion groups next year are Me & Emma and The Glass Castle. I just finished the Glass Castle. I think there would be so much to discuss in this book.

12bettyjo
marraskuu 25, 2006, 9:56 pm

Loved The Glass Castle...what a great discussion we could have with it...also Dry by Augusten Burroughs

13shefukul Ensimmäinen viesti
marraskuu 26, 2006, 6:31 am

Somerset Maugham's Cakes and Ale and John Steinback's Pasture of Heaven. Both are wonderfully written. The first is classy and makes you laugh while the second, classy ofcourse, leaves you with a heavy heart. Quite contradictory but worth every second.

14BookAddictUK
joulukuu 3, 2006, 7:58 am

There's a part of me that would really like our little reading group to move away from an almost exclusive concentration on modern (ie very near contemporary fiction). I'd love to read more of the classics and semi-classics, and very often these books can lead to such interesting discussions. But, but... the reading group just read what I wanted to read, I'd lose that opening to discover new authors and broaden my range of reading in terms of both authors and genres. Some of my now favourite authors I have discovered through our little group - Margaret Atwood for instance - and some gems of booksthat doubt I would ever have been tempted to read otherwise - like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. So, the only thing then that I think I would really like to change about our book selections is that I wish there were more of them! I'd love for the reading group to meet twice a month, but some of the ladies there have such busy lives that they just don't have the time. I understand that of course, but it doesn't stop me wishing.

15mypcjen
joulukuu 3, 2006, 6:09 pm

Jessica, that's a good point - most book clubs I've come across are into contemporary fiction. My friend Jackie has started bringing more classic lit into the mix - but we've found that turnouts are not as high, perhaps because the classics are tougher to slog through? Jackie just did Middlemarch and coming up we're getting some more classics on our My People Connection schedule -- including Gone With the Wind, Germinal by Emile Zola, selected Anton Chevkov plays, The Satanic Verses (though that's modern), and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I've been thinking of throwing Absalom, Absalom into the mix because I enjoyed the layers of storytelling in that book - but I'd rather pick an older classic I haven't read (and there's lots of those). Any suggestions?

16aluvalibri
joulukuu 3, 2006, 6:20 pm

How about a good Gothic novel such as Ann Radcliffe's books? I am currently reading The Italian, and having great fun!

17Quinesti
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 18, 2006, 11:52 am

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, or any other fantasy/dark fantasy that makes you think or just gives you chills..
Throw in H.G. Wells 'Call of Cthulu' while you're at it..

18wyvernfriend
joulukuu 19, 2006, 6:01 pm

I wish they'd occasionally TRY some of the books, too many of them wimp out without even getting 20 pages in, never mind 50.

19Quinesti
joulukuu 20, 2006, 1:15 pm

So give them anthologies of a single author's work and say 'Read this and this story and then discuss'.. Some authors have vastly different styles of writing in short fiction, even varying from story to story..

20bridgetZsweet
joulukuu 20, 2006, 9:27 pm

I would love to have a book club center around Little Children by Tom Perrotta! It was such a great read and I would really like to discuss it with someone else who has read it.

21avaland
joulukuu 25, 2006, 6:02 pm

I agree with Quinesti, Wyvernfriend. Short fiction collections or anthologies work really well for something like that or during a particularly busy month, or even just as a break from routine. We have done this and chosen a couple of stories for "required" reading; the rest being optional.

22wyvernfriend
joulukuu 25, 2006, 6:42 pm

We randomly choose a person who then chooses 3 books and people are supposed to vote for the one they want to read, often even the people who vote for particular books don't bother reading them. Often for some very short books. "I don't like mysteries" or "I don't like Science Fiction" has been put forward a few times, I just wish they'd even pick up the book. I've tried stuff I'd never have gone near because of this group.

When I picked my three I went for middle of the road books, reviewed them and then had people say well if I'd know it was about such and such I wouldn't have voted for it!

23avaland
joulukuu 26, 2006, 8:15 pm

Sounds like you all need to have a chat about what you all want out of your book group. Some people are in them more for the social benefit and less for the books...but then, this you may have already discovered. And some people are entirely the opposite and treat the event like English lit class. There are lots of variations one can try but it all starts with talking about what everyone in the group wants.

24quinaquisset
helmikuu 9, 2007, 10:08 am

Our science fiction book club is split on whether fantasy counts or not. Therefore we don't read people like Patricia McKillip as often as I would like. In particular, it's the guys who get intransigent about this. (Our group is usually fifty-fifty genderwise). I'm getting tires of the detective/noir subgenre we've been finding ourselves in often.

We still show up for discussions if we've only read fifty pages of the book...sometimes the discussion why the book isn't that interesting is useful too. Most of us don't have time to waste on books we don't like.

25Jenson_AKA_DL
helmikuu 9, 2007, 10:16 am

Viestin kirjoittaja on poistanut viestin.

26cmbohn
huhtikuu 9, 2007, 7:53 pm

My suggestions I'm trying to get us to read are The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better, and The Color Code. But so far, none of my books have made it onto the reading list.