Anyone have a recommendation for our first book? @therealjrn suggested “Lord of the Flies” as he never really appreciated it in high school. Then we could see the movie!
I’m not sure I could stand watching the movie again, but re-reading Lord of the Flies is a great idea - it’s an important one from long ago and I haven’t read it in 40 years. Has a certain modern relevance too.
@aetris You’re not helping.
A “certain modern relevance” you say?
How so?
Like how, much like a certain modern Olympic doctor was able to rape young girls because of no oversight, much like a group of shipwrecked boys?
Or did you mean to imply something political? Because if you did, who is that poor butt-raped kid Piggy supposed to represent? (Don’t answer that, that one is way too political)
The MBC-U (mediocre book club - unofficial) is founded in a tradition a being apolitical.
Or, we could compare it to modern day high school football, where one of our local minors was recently butt-rapedAT THE SUPERINTENDANT’S HOME. Despite the cover-up, facts are coming out, slowly.
OK, I’m in. One vote for that, ugly, awful book “Lord of the Flies.”
@f00l I don’t hate the comment, I hate that fucking book. I had to read it twice in two different grades in Jr. and High school. Have you ever read it? My comments were certainly right along with the story’s narrative.
I have been following the horrible gymnastics situation and trial.
Now - OMG that rape that’s local to you
Horrifying.
I have known parents who reported vicious bullying to the schools and were told it wasn’t real or there was nothing the school could do.
Nothing happened until either someone went to the police, or until a reporter went after it, or until the victim either fought back or started self-harming, or until the parents of the victim sued the school system and sued the parents of the offenders.
Being a parent of a troubled or an arrogant teenager is a scary job.
@therealjrn - First off, the certain modern relevance is a reference to a variety of things, from social-media bullying to, well, political things we’re apparently not to discuss? But I figure we can discuss them - unless you seriously don’t want to? I have to add though, from what I recall, the book is not about abuse by authority figures but abuse by a social group defining itself in relation to a change in conditions. Something worth discussing?
However @f001 I like the idea of The Left Hand of Darkness too - I loved Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea series a LONG time ago, but never read Left despite hearing a lot of good things about it. While watching The Jane Austen Book Club, anyway!
She and I talked about avoiding politics a few days back.
I don’t mind light political and philosophically stuff. But when it gets lost into partisan back-and-forth, stuck-in-a-rut, or self-righteous or arrogant or hot-headed, I wanna flee.
And no one ever learns anything or changes their mind over such conversations anyway. It just turns into “cheering one’s side” and venting.
@f00l Well sure that is easy. Y’all just need to realize I’m always right.
Kidding aside, we’re a fairly homogenous, respectful, group around here. I’ll do my upmost to keep my thoughts societal rather than political (yeah, it’s a fine line) when trying to appear erudite.
@f00l - I was TOTALLY taken in by this prank - but I still think a book club is a great idea!
Not to sound TOO dense, but was part of the prank the idea that @therealjrn objected to an old book warning that unsupervised boys could turn savage because of a recent incident in which unsupervised boys turned savage?
@therealjrn - I would LOVE to do a thread on books we’ve totally detested - and why. There are a number of books I’ve detested, including The Great Gatsby, The Chocolate War, Of Mice and Men, and many others. I believe that visceral reactions to certain… ideas? Phrasings? Emphases? - are important.
@f00l I’m down with this. I suppose we need to agree on a book, of course. I’ve never used slack, but I have extensive experience with being a slacker, so I think I have transferable skills.
I don’t really see any reason to keep our club away from here, but if folks want slack, I’m your slacker.
As people have different tastes, and some people are fast and dedicated readers or have free time, should we choose two books per month instead of one?
What do people want?
I I suggest we avoid recent bestsellers and books that are hard to get at the library or from a used bookstore.
If it’s school reading being rehashed, I vote for the classics like To Kill a Mokingbird, the usual Steinbeck suspects, or that tripe from Ray Bradbury.
But I’m after having a more adult oriented story. Something like The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle or The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville, or something less fluffy. Or scifi with humor like The Android’s Dream by Scalzi.
To Kill A Mockingbird is wonderful. And it has it flaws.
Some of these flaws are unarticulated within the book, but become more apparant to someone who reads her far less strong, but still quite illuminating Go Set A Watchman follow-up.
The only think I have against Mockingbird is that I recently read it a few years back when Watchman was published.
Btw, the kid neighbor in Mockingbird is based to a camera level of detail upon Truman Capote, Lee’s real-life sometime next door neighbor when they were both children.
They were friends for life, and she worked with him on some of the research for In Cold Blood.
Having read both Mockingbird and Watchman recently, I wish I could have a long summer afternoon’s conversation with Lee. There are some things I’d like to ask her.
It took me a while to get some idea why she may have done what she did in the second book. There is one telling scene from that book, that hit me hard during the reading, and is what stays with me now.
. If you’ve ever seen the movie with Gregory Peck… the book is substantially better.
The movie is damned good tho.
But in its service to the main story, the film cuts out many of the childhood mini-tales showing Lee’s amazing humor and her eye for local customs and characters.
But in its service to the main story, the film cuts out many of the childhood mini-tales showing Lee’s amazing humor and her eye for local customs and characters.
This, exactly. This is what causes many books to be superior to their motion picture counterparts, innit.
@OldCatLady if it isn’t Stephen King, chances are that I don’t own it. Luckily there is a library less than five minutes away. They also do library transfers from the bigger libraries so I can usually get almost anything.
@PlacidPenguin Then we can do The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Never read it, but apparently it was way more popular than Dracula! Of course, I’m one of those people who think Dracula is kind of terrible.
Things I’m reading but haven’t finished:
Patricia Highsmith — The Price of Salt, a.k.a. Carol
Frank Herbert — Dune
Mervyn Peake — Titus Groan
Virginia Woolf — To the Lighthouse
Kate Chopin —The Awakening
These are all amazing. Please do me a favor and pick one so I’ll finish a damn book for a change.
@UncleVinny - The Gormenghast series was one of those stories I didn’t get into the first time I tried it, but loved it on a second approach. However it’s a longish trilogy - Titus Groan alone is over 400 pages.
If we’re rereading high school classics, I vote for The Great Gatsby. It is a beautifully written examination of the vapidity of rich people, and I assume that’s something we can all get behind.
If we’re reading public domain stuff, I have many unpopular suggestions, mostly by Anthony Trollope, mostly The Way We Live Now because it was inspired by a huge English stock market crash and is essentially about junk bonds. But it’s also a romance! And incredibly long.
My true love and most earnest suggestion is Victorian/Edwardian supernatural fiction. Let’s just read a bunch of short stories! Let’s all read The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen and talk about how the impact of the short stories is changed by the linking vignettes! Let’s read Saki and talk about how funny he was!
@mossygreen - I love H.H. Munro but can’t STAND The Great Gatsby, which although clever always struck me as Fitzgerald’s petty revenge against two girls who shot him down. Machen is also an interesting choice!
@aetris Fair enough, but I think he hated ALL the rich people who wouldn’t marry him, or give him their daughters to marry or their money to live on so he wouldn’t have to work and could simply drink himself to death surrounded by beautiful women.
@mossygreen - Hmmm, if we were going to do the two-contrasting-books approach, I think it would be interesting to compare Fitzgerald’s novel Tender Is the Night with Tomkins’ nonfiction Living Well Is the Best Revenge, both based on real-life Jazz-Agers Gerald and Sara Murphy, who actually lived the lifestyle that obsessed Fitzgerald.
Wow- you guys suggested a lot of books! I’m going to list the ones I came across in the thread- like any books you would be open to read. I’ll pick the top two in different genres for the first month. If this thing seems popular maybe a different person could pick the books every month so we get a variety. I’m excited!
As for format, I realized that my suggestion the we set a date to start discussions was stupid. I’ll start a thread for each of the books we pick and everyone can stop by to chat whenever. When it seems played out we can choose another book. I’ll try to bump the threads as needed. I’m a slow reader myself.
This is probably a dumb question but is there a way to attach a document to a thread like this? I was thinking if that was possible, maybe we could each submit some books we’d like to read and each month vote for whatever we would read the next month.
/giphy dumb questions do exist
@sammydog01 I want to go back. I definitely didn’t hit everything I wanted to do. Did the hanging bridges and did some zip lining but there are other areas I would like to see, activities I would like to do.
I didn’t mention a time to close out voting on the book- how does Saturday morning sound? Then I’ll post two threads for the books with the highest number of stars.
Hey, I know a list has already been made, but (maybe in the future) what about William Gibson? It’s been about 30 years since I read Neuromancer, don’t think I’ve read, well, anything else beyond Burning Chrome. Did he predict the future? Does he still love Steely Dan?
Ok Android’s Dream was the big winner. The Left Hand of Darkness and Ghosts of Belfast tied for second but I’m going with Ghosts of Belfast since it’s less similar to Android’s Dream.
@sammydog01 I commend you on your selection. I love sci-fi as much as anyone, so Scalzi is easy. But The Ghosts Of Belfast is a step outside most genre. It’s a psychological thriller, a touch of horror, historical, and a love story all wrapped around 300 pages of Irish colour.
@sammydog01 I’ve got Ghosts coming from another library… android’s was not available. I put in a request to borrow it from another county library. Let’s see how that works.
So my “fulfilled by Amazon” Woot refurb Kindle is out for delivery today! We’ll see if the USPS doesn’t punk out on my Sunday delivery–like they have before.
@sammydog01 It’s here! It’s here! It looks brand new! I got it registered, and it updated already. But the battery was pretty low. So I’m letting it charge. Hurry, hurry, little battery!
Got lucky and found 5 books worth reading at the thrift store yesterday, 4 paperbacks and 1 big trade paperback anthologizing a complete trilogy. Over 4,500 pages for $4.77, not bad. The four paperbacks are actually sitting in my ABE shopping cart, I need to go take them out.
@f00l Yes, but I rarely find anything of interest. I’ve been lucky at Savers, though. Evidently someone who donates to them has similar tastes to mine.
@sammydog01 One of the people in my meet up sci fi book club loaned me the Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. The stories aren’t exceptionally original, but I love the characters and the setting. Turns out Carrey has written quite a lot of books set in this world, so I had stuck all I could find in my ABE shopping cart pending me cross checking against her bibliography for order and completeness. The four paperbacks are among these. They are supposedly working on making a tv series out of these books.
I hadn’t heard of the trade paperback, The Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman. The description on the back sounded good. It’s funny, I just remembered that I dreamed last night this book was written in incomprehensible floral prose and I threw it away. Hopefully not.
@moondrake
making a tv series from Carey’s books? Hard to know how they would do it without an “X” rating. Because the sex and sexuality is crucial in it’s way to the stories.
Don’t know if you actually started with 1-3 or one of the other ‘trilogies’ in the set. It’s really an alternative universe set of stories, I read them through the old Science Fiction Book Club (hard backs for paper back prices) back a very long time ago. I found the world she created interesting.
Have you read Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon? Depending on what it is that called you to this series, you might find you like it. Either that or you will say it is sacrilegious even if you haven’t seen the inside of a church in 40 years. I loved it. Met him not long before he passed away, he was a very interesting man.
@Cerridwyn I’m a spiritual omnivore, I’m not going to call anything sacriligeous. I love the religion Carey created, but what I liked best were the characters. I’m not too worried about the high level of sexuality being a barrier to the tv series, you don’t have to go X rated detail to accomplish your narrative purpose with sex scenes, even those in the books. What I think is going to present a challenge is to make the lead character’s choices believable and palatable without access to her internal life. Even with the author’s explaining I had trouble buying her staying in love with a person who summarily murdered her close friends.
I’ve read some of Ted Sturgeon’s stuff but I don’t recall what, it’s been awhile. I’ll have a look.
I thought maybe we could choose a book and come back 3 or 4 weeks later and have a discussion. Thoughts?
@sammydog01 I’m going to let Jesus take the wheel on this venture. Surprise me.
@sammydog01
4 weeks?!?!!?
I’d have read 10 others by then
Anyone have a recommendation for our first book? @therealjrn suggested “Lord of the Flies” as he never really appreciated it in high school. Then we could see the movie!
@sammydog01 Fucker.
I’m not sure I could stand watching the movie again, but re-reading Lord of the Flies is a great idea - it’s an important one from long ago and I haven’t read it in 40 years. Has a certain modern relevance too.
@aetris You’re not helping.
A “certain modern relevance” you say?
How so?
Like how, much like a certain modern Olympic doctor was able to rape young girls because of no oversight, much like a group of shipwrecked boys?
Or did you mean to imply something political? Because if you did, who is that poor butt-raped kid Piggy supposed to represent? (Don’t answer that, that one is way too political)
The MBC-U (mediocre book club - unofficial) is founded in a tradition a being apolitical.
Or, we could compare it to modern day high school football, where one of our local minors was recently butt-raped AT THE SUPERINTENDANT’S HOME. Despite the cover-up, facts are coming out, slowly.
OK, I’m in. One vote for that, ugly, awful book “Lord of the Flies.”
@therealjrn
I didn’t think @aetris was being snarky.
I’m not sure what about his comment you dislike?
@f00l , @therealjrn - Look, we’re discussing it already!
@aetris Lol
@f00l I don’t hate the comment, I hate that fucking book. I had to read it twice in two different grades in Jr. and High school. Have you ever read it? My comments were certainly right along with the story’s narrative.
@therealjrn
I have been following the horrible gymnastics situation and trial.
Now - OMG that rape that’s local to you
Horrifying.
I have known parents who reported vicious bullying to the schools and were told it wasn’t real or there was nothing the school could do.
Nothing happened until either someone went to the police, or until a reporter went after it, or until the victim either fought back or started self-harming, or until the parents of the victim sued the school system and sued the parents of the offenders.
Being a parent of a troubled or an arrogant teenager is a scary job.
@therealjrn
Ok. I didn’t know you hated the book. You prob said something about that in a topic I’m behind on.
The last few days … busy busy here.
Yeah that book is pretty depressing, as I recall. I would read it again tho. To see what the book looks like to my adult mind.
If you don’t want Loud Is The Flies, then suggest something. What do you like?
@therealjrn - First off, the certain modern relevance is a reference to a variety of things, from social-media bullying to, well, political things we’re apparently not to discuss? But I figure we can discuss them - unless you seriously don’t want to? I have to add though, from what I recall, the book is not about abuse by authority figures but abuse by a social group defining itself in relation to a change in conditions. Something worth discussing?
However @f001 I like the idea of The Left Hand of Darkness too - I loved Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea series a LONG time ago, but never read Left despite hearing a lot of good things about it. While watching The Jane Austen Book Club, anyway!
@f00l
I know this was an accident, but damn I if wish I thought of that.
@aetris Yeah, our fearless leader, @sammydog01 said early on, in a different thread we need to keep politics out of it. I totes mcgoats agree.
@therealjrn
My swiping forefinger is a fucking genius. Obviously.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m too impatient to proofread much.
@therealjrn - It’s all fine with me!
@therealjrn
She and I talked about avoiding politics a few days back.
I don’t mind light political and philosophically stuff. But when it gets lost into partisan back-and-forth, stuck-in-a-rut, or self-righteous or arrogant or hot-headed, I wanna flee.
And no one ever learns anything or changes their mind over such conversations anyway. It just turns into “cheering one’s side” and venting.
I hope we can figure out how to avoid all that.
@f00l Well sure that is easy. Y’all just need to realize I’m always right.
Kidding aside, we’re a fairly homogenous, respectful, group around here. I’ll do my upmost to keep my thoughts societal rather than political (yeah, it’s a fine line) when trying to appear erudite.
@therealjrn
Aww, hell. Take all the fun out of it, will you?
@f00l @therealjrn said in the other thread that he would read with us as long as the book wasn’t Lord of the Flies. I was just being a dick.
@sammydog01
I knew you were.
. From your phrasing and his response.
It wasn’t clear to me at that moment that @aetris was also tho.
It’s cool.
@f00l - I was TOTALLY taken in by this prank - but I still think a book club is a great idea!
Not to sound TOO dense, but was part of the prank the idea that @therealjrn objected to an old book warning that unsupervised boys could turn savage because of a recent incident in which unsupervised boys turned savage?
@aetris Good morning. No, that was serendipitous. I’ve detested that book for years…the recent events in Bixby do tell a tale though.
Maybe Bixby Public Schools don’t read? As school administrators, they sure have that “protect my job at all costs” thing down.
@therealjrn - I would LOVE to do a thread on books we’ve totally detested - and why. There are a number of books I’ve detested, including The Great Gatsby, The Chocolate War, Of Mice and Men, and many others. I believe that visceral reactions to certain… ideas? Phrasings? Emphases? - are important.
Thanks @sammydog01!
I nominate The Left Hand if Darkness. Because I wanna re-read it anyway.
How do we do this?
Agree on a book?
Acquire and read said book?
Start discussions when?
Everyone ok with using slack? Or we discuss here?
@f00l I’m down with this. I suppose we need to agree on a book, of course. I’ve never used slack, but I have extensive experience with being a slacker, so I think I have transferable skills.
I don’t really see any reason to keep our club away from here, but if folks want slack, I’m your slacker.
@therealjrn
I’m fine w slack or w here.
Everyone?
Opinions on what when where how why? Please speak up!
@f00l I’d rather keep discussion here.
I have no idea what Slack - ah, “messaging for teams.” This might be an issue - at work…
@f00l I figured we’d use our pre-existing discord server?
@UncleVinny if you guys want to use it, here’s a channel just for the purpose: https://discord.gg/5MkgaN
@f00l I just noticed this is $4 at audible today.
If we are going to re-read a book from high school, can it be 1984 or a Brave New World? Not interested in reading Lord of the Flies again.
@RiotDemon Ooh, I would reread both of those. Might anyway now that you’ve brought them up.
@RiotDemon @therealjrn @SammyDog01@f00l
I never read Lord of the Flies.
But if people vote against it…
@sammydog01 needs to set up a poll. I’ll be club treasurer. Everybody needs to send me their club dues for safekeeping.
@therealjrn in bitcom I presume? Or do we wire the money to your bank in Nigeria?
As people have different tastes, and some people are fast and dedicated readers or have free time, should we choose two books per month instead of one?
What do people want?
I I suggest we avoid recent bestsellers and books that are hard to get at the library or from a used bookstore.
Let’s keep this cheap?
@f00l For a short introduction to UKG,I suggest everyone read ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’. It doesn’t take long, and it’s free.
@OldCatLady
Per your mention in the RIP topic, about to put that one onto the Kindle.
Thx.
@OldCatLady
Ok. Finished.
Woah.
If it’s school reading being rehashed, I vote for the classics like To Kill a Mokingbird, the usual Steinbeck suspects, or that tripe from Ray Bradbury.
But I’m after having a more adult oriented story. Something like The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle or The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville, or something less fluffy. Or scifi with humor like The Android’s Dream by Scalzi.
Ya, sorry, too much Pepsi today. I’m all over the map here.
@ruouttaurmind
Never read To Kill a Mockingbird for school.
@PlacidPenguin I remember enjoying it. If you’ve ever seen the movie with Gregory Peck… the book is substantially better.
@ruouttaurmind A good Steinbeck book would be awesome.
@PlacidPenguin
To Kill A Mockingbird is wonderful. And it has it flaws.
Some of these flaws are unarticulated within the book, but become more apparant to someone who reads her far less strong, but still quite illuminating Go Set A Watchman follow-up.
The only think I have against Mockingbird is that I recently read it a few years back when Watchman was published.
Btw, the kid neighbor in Mockingbird is based to a camera level of detail upon Truman Capote, Lee’s real-life sometime next door neighbor when they were both children.
They were friends for life, and she worked with him on some of the research for In Cold Blood.
Having read both Mockingbird and Watchman recently, I wish I could have a long summer afternoon’s conversation with Lee. There are some things I’d like to ask her.
It took me a while to get some idea why she may have done what she did in the second book. There is one telling scene from that book, that hit me hard during the reading, and is what stays with me now.
@ruouttaurmind
The movie is damned good tho.
But in its service to the main story, the film cuts out many of the childhood mini-tales showing Lee’s amazing humor and her eye for local customs and characters.
@f00l
This, exactly. This is what causes many books to be superior to their motion picture counterparts, innit.
@ruouttaurmind
Never saw the movie which you are referencing.
@PlacidPenguin Good then that you’d be starting fresh.
I vote sci-fi. I don’t read much and sci-fi is usually something I can enjoy.
@RiotDemon If we pick a classic, chances are good that I already have a hard copy.
@OldCatLady if it isn’t Stephen King, chances are that I don’t own it. Luckily there is a library less than five minutes away. They also do library transfers from the bigger libraries so I can usually get almost anything.
@OldCatLady @RiotDemon
How about Varney the Vampire?
English? Check.
Vampires? Check.
Classic? Possibly.
Affordable? Pretty much.
(And yes, there are more recent editions.)
(Imgur embeds have been strange lately. If I open them in a new tab, first permission is denied, but then I can see them when I refresh…)
@PlacidPenguin Then we can do The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Never read it, but apparently it was way more popular than Dracula! Of course, I’m one of those people who think Dracula is kind of terrible.
@PlacidPenguin The kindle edition is free.
Things I’m reading but haven’t finished:
Patricia Highsmith — The Price of Salt, a.k.a. Carol
Frank Herbert — Dune
Mervyn Peake — Titus Groan
Virginia Woolf — To the Lighthouse
Kate Chopin —The Awakening
These are all amazing. Please do me a favor and pick one so I’ll finish a damn book for a change.
@UncleVinny - The Gormenghast series was one of those stories I didn’t get into the first time I tried it, but loved it on a second approach. However it’s a longish trilogy - Titus Groan alone is over 400 pages.
@aetris it’s a crazy book. In a good way! Really want to settle in and keep reading, but I’m a scatterbrain.
If we’re rereading high school classics, I vote for The Great Gatsby. It is a beautifully written examination of the vapidity of rich people, and I assume that’s something we can all get behind.
If we’re reading public domain stuff, I have many unpopular suggestions, mostly by Anthony Trollope, mostly The Way We Live Now because it was inspired by a huge English stock market crash and is essentially about junk bonds. But it’s also a romance! And incredibly long.
My true love and most earnest suggestion is Victorian/Edwardian supernatural fiction. Let’s just read a bunch of short stories! Let’s all read The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen and talk about how the impact of the short stories is changed by the linking vignettes! Let’s read Saki and talk about how funny he was!
@mossygreen - I love H.H. Munro but can’t STAND The Great Gatsby, which although clever always struck me as Fitzgerald’s petty revenge against two girls who shot him down. Machen is also an interesting choice!
@aetris Fair enough, but I think he hated ALL the rich people who wouldn’t marry him, or give him their daughters to marry or their money to live on so he wouldn’t have to work and could simply drink himself to death surrounded by beautiful women.
@mossygreen To anyone reading this: please insert “impressionable, teenage” before “daughters.” Thank you.
@mossygreen
@mossygreen - Hmmm, if we were going to do the two-contrasting-books approach, I think it would be interesting to compare Fitzgerald’s novel Tender Is the Night with Tomkins’ nonfiction Living Well Is the Best Revenge, both based on real-life Jazz-Agers Gerald and Sara Murphy, who actually lived the lifestyle that obsessed Fitzgerald.
I need a reason to read more. I like the idea of 2 books at a time, for those that read faster and for those more picky.
Two books with contrasting or complementary themes would be interesting.
@aetris Cool idea!
How about choose one fiction and one non-fiction book at a time? Something for (almost) everyone.
Wow- you guys suggested a lot of books! I’m going to list the ones I came across in the thread- like any books you would be open to read. I’ll pick the top two in different genres for the first month. If this thing seems popular maybe a different person could pick the books every month so we get a variety. I’m excited!
Left Hand of Darkness- Le Guin
Dead Republic- Doyle
Ghosts of Belfast- Neville
Android’s Dream- Scalzi
Varney the Vampire- Prest
The Beetle- Marsh
Dune- Herbert
Mervyn Peake- Groan
Price of Salt- Highsmith
To the Lighthouse- Woolf
The Awakening- Chopin
The Great Gatsby- Fitzgerald
The Three Imposters- Machen
(cross out the word “month” in the note above- the timing should be more open at least for now)
@sammydog01 you left out a few.
1984
Brave New World
As for format, I realized that my suggestion the we set a date to start discussions was stupid. I’ll start a thread for each of the books we pick and everyone can stop by to chat whenever. When it seems played out we can choose another book. I’ll try to bump the threads as needed. I’m a slow reader myself.
This is probably a dumb question but is there a way to attach a document to a thread like this? I was thinking if that was possible, maybe we could each submit some books we’d like to read and each month vote for whatever we would read the next month.
/giphy dumb questions do exist
@mehbee Nope, but Google offers a few different ways to do that via Google Docs and Google Forms.
@mehbee Maybe the easiest way to do it is the way we do goats?
@sammydog01
@sammydog01 That sounds good.
@mehbee Did you see the two books we’re reading now?
@sammydog01 No, I don’t think so. I was on vacay and then working late each night to catch up from vacay. I’m just now getting to breath a little bit.
@mehbee Did you go anywhere nice?
@sammydog01 Costa Rica, it was wonderful.
@mehbee Then it was definitely worth working late for. I want to go there someday.
@sammydog01 I want to go back. I definitely didn’t hit everything I wanted to do. Did the hanging bridges and did some zip lining but there are other areas I would like to see, activities I would like to do.
Ok the above gif does not really pertain but it was too funny to delete…at least to me.
Book club please. I would like to participate.
@connorbush You got it.
@connorbush You already are! Congratulations!
@connorbush Did you see the two books we’re reading?
I vote for the NPR chart that tells you how to select which science fiction and fantasy books to read.
@OldCatLady Awesome! Figure that out for us, OK?
@sammydog01 I keep getting distracted.
I didn’t mention a time to close out voting on the book- how does Saturday morning sound? Then I’ll post two threads for the books with the highest number of stars.
@sammydog01 Sounds good to me.
@sammydog01 Fair enough.
Hey, I know a list has already been made, but (maybe in the future) what about William Gibson? It’s been about 30 years since I read Neuromancer, don’t think I’ve read, well, anything else beyond Burning Chrome. Did he predict the future? Does he still love Steely Dan?
@sammydog01
Are we ready for the final choice announcement, or is the vote still open?
@f00l I forgot. Oops.
Ok Android’s Dream was the big winner. The Left Hand of Darkness and Ghosts of Belfast tied for second but I’m going with Ghosts of Belfast since it’s less similar to Android’s Dream.
@sammydog01
My refurb kindle should be here soon.
@sammydog01 I commend you on your selection. I love sci-fi as much as anyone, so Scalzi is easy. But The Ghosts Of Belfast is a step outside most genre. It’s a psychological thriller, a touch of horror, historical, and a love story all wrapped around 300 pages of Irish colour.
Strong choice on your part. Well done.
@ruouttaurmind It sounded really good. Thanks for recommending. Wait, you recommended both. Awesome!
@sammydog01 I’ve got Ghosts coming from another library… android’s was not available. I put in a request to borrow it from another county library. Let’s see how that works.
@sammydog01
Yup, so when everyone hates them I’ve got to skulk outta here with my tail between my legs.
@ruouttaurmind
Nope. Be proudly hated and blamed.
So my “fulfilled by Amazon” Woot refurb Kindle is out for delivery today! We’ll see if the USPS doesn’t punk out on my Sunday delivery–like they have before.
@therealjrn You’re gonna love it!
@sammydog01 It’s here! It’s here! It looks brand new! I got it registered, and it updated already. But the battery was pretty low. So I’m letting it charge. Hurry, hurry, little battery!
Someone recommended this to me today. Haven’t read it, but it fascinates me in an odd sort of way. (Note BN link since I do nook, not kindle)
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chinatown-death-cloud-peril-paul-malmont/1100308346?ean=9780743293303
@Cerridwyn
Remind us pls about this book when we start trying to decide on books for March.
Got lucky and found 5 books worth reading at the thrift store yesterday, 4 paperbacks and 1 big trade paperback anthologizing a complete trilogy. Over 4,500 pages for $4.77, not bad. The four paperbacks are actually sitting in my ABE shopping cart, I need to go take them out.
@moondrake
Our local libraries do huge warehouse sales a few times a year. Really cheap books.
Does the library in EP do that?
@moondrake What books?
@f00l Yes, but I rarely find anything of interest. I’ve been lucky at Savers, though. Evidently someone who donates to them has similar tastes to mine.
@sammydog01 One of the people in my meet up sci fi book club loaned me the Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. The stories aren’t exceptionally original, but I love the characters and the setting. Turns out Carrey has written quite a lot of books set in this world, so I had stuck all I could find in my ABE shopping cart pending me cross checking against her bibliography for order and completeness. The four paperbacks are among these. They are supposedly working on making a tv series out of these books.
I hadn’t heard of the trade paperback, The Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman. The description on the back sounded good. It’s funny, I just remembered that I dreamed last night this book was written in incomprehensible floral prose and I threw it away. Hopefully not.
@moondrake
making a tv series from Carey’s books? Hard to know how they would do it without an “X” rating. Because the sex and sexuality is crucial in it’s way to the stories.
Don’t know if you actually started with 1-3 or one of the other ‘trilogies’ in the set. It’s really an alternative universe set of stories, I read them through the old Science Fiction Book Club (hard backs for paper back prices) back a very long time ago. I found the world she created interesting.
Have you read Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon? Depending on what it is that called you to this series, you might find you like it. Either that or you will say it is sacrilegious even if you haven’t seen the inside of a church in 40 years. I loved it. Met him not long before he passed away, he was a very interesting man.
@Cerridwyn I’m a spiritual omnivore, I’m not going to call anything sacriligeous. I love the religion Carey created, but what I liked best were the characters. I’m not too worried about the high level of sexuality being a barrier to the tv series, you don’t have to go X rated detail to accomplish your narrative purpose with sex scenes, even those in the books. What I think is going to present a challenge is to make the lead character’s choices believable and palatable without access to her internal life. Even with the author’s explaining I had trouble buying her staying in love with a person who summarily murdered her close friends.
I’ve read some of Ted Sturgeon’s stuff but I don’t recall what, it’s been awhile. I’ll have a look.