BIC book club!

[prettyinpa]

Some of us here have expressed an interest in a book club, myself, @mermadelove, @LCResz, @ZombieMetroAnt, @Mcakes. If you'd be interested in joining, reply below. My initial thought was to mail the books around but if it means that some people can't participate, then I'm all for dropping that requirement. I'd love this to be a place where we nominate our favorite book and others can read it and comment. Something fun for the new year!  ETA: the booklist:

1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (16)
1. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (16)
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (13)
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (11)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (11)
4. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (11)
7. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (10)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (10)
7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (10) Discussion begins 8-13.
7. The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck (10) Discussion begin 9-2.
11. The Fault in our Stars by John Green (9) Time to discuss 9-26
11. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (9) Now discussing below.
11. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (9)
11. What Happened by Hilary Clinton (9) Now discussing below.
11. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (9) Start reading now.
11. The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Ashford (9)
11. milk and honey by Rupi Kaur (9)
18. A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (8)
18. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (8)
18. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (8)
18. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (8)
18. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (8)
18. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (8)
18. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (8)
18. The Paper Magician by Charlie Holmberg (8)
18. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (8)
18. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (8)
18. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (8)
18. The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory (8)

Participants in spoiler

Spoiler

Participants:

PrettyinPA

AlexaSteph

Beadshopgirl

LCResz

Kim888

SoBeautiful

Fatimamummy

ZombieMetroAnt

PalomaFoster

k617

bakeamuffin
Susubee
Skcfan
Lazybeautybeast
SpaceLlama
greeneyedgirl107

Mermadelove
Mcakes
Aaliaa
Serenely
Myinsidevoice
MissPuff
juliehnguyen
lmi82
Knowledgebeauty
Titian06
quspork
darlyndar
KellW
misscg
EuniceO
Elles117
ClassicallyFab
ShiraBT
melanito
Heylady14
ChicagoEngineer
Imightneedthis
PrettyPaint
rachface2921

[Justjamey]

YES!!!!  They are absoulety one of the best series out there. I think 25 comes out in November., and I can't WAIT!!!  I think more people should be aware of them. Sometimes life gets stressful or crazy it's always great to have books like these around!!! And it's so funny, because you really get attached to the people in the series and they are sooo relatable . You can totally imagine you know somebody just like them, and the laughs are just icing on the cake. Grandma mazur is so funny. And Lula the "ex ho" with her love for doughnuts, and everything else that's yummy, and Rex the hamster....this series is really something everybody should read at least once, or at the very least check out the first couple books at the library for free just to see what we are talking about!!!! I SWEAR YOU WILL BE hooked. The great thing is, for people whom haven't started reading them there are so many, they can have a great time reading on and going onto the next one right away. The year wait for the new ones kill me because it seems like it takes so long!! Haha. But these are books you won't want to put down once you start , and they will have you laughing out loud and speed reading through them.  They are a light easy read...but I SWEAR people won't regret reading these!!  Haha, I've bought all of them so far and reread them often.

So glad that someone else here has heard of them and loves them as well!!!  By chance, do you know of anymore series that are fun and amusing like these are?! I read so much I'm always open and love suggestions.  💟💕❣💞

[prettyinpa]

Janet Evanovich also does the Diesel and Lizzy series, which is nearly as funny as the Stephanie series. I always save up a Stephanie Plum one for when I'm traveling on an airplane, it's nice to have something hilarious to offset the annoyance of airports, security and other delays.

[fatimamummy]

Girls I’m intrigued by all the discussion of Janet Evanovich books. I haven’t read her before but I can definitely use a good funny reads on days when I need a little mood boost. I am going to start her plum series , reading it in parallel to our book club listing. Thank you @prettyinpa @Justjamey !

[greeneyedgirl107]

I finally read "The Glass Castle."  What an interesting and thought-provoking memoir!  I could talk about it endlessly.  I read it in two days.  I remember hearing about it when it was first published and being interested - now here it is over a decade later and it's still popular.  I wish I hadn't waited to so long to read it, but I'm so happy to have experienced it.  It had so many ups and downs, and so much to reflect on!

[fatimamummy]

Sorry for being MIA for long. I wasn’t having luck to login to the BIC and then just got lazy to come and join in the discussion when the log in problem solved.

My take on Great Gatsby is that it was an interesting short book in a way as human behaviour and nature won’t change much over the time we can see all the characters of book around us today and will probably see them around hundreds af years from today. I felt the style of writing biographical ?

Pride and the Prejudice isn’t a book than can capture me enough to keep reading  it until it finishes. I have read it before with the same feelings. I did take two breaks And read two others books [ Dark in death ( latest in the In Death series) and Before I go to sleep] that became available on my holds. I did watch Pride and Prejudice and Zombies after with to lighten up the feel of book LOL

What I find most interesting in these classics is how the values and cultures evolve over time and how the story telling is effected by it.

Over the next few weeks I have to deviate from the agreed upon sequence of reading. “EXIT WEST” and “THE HATE YOU GIVE” had very long wait times in my library so I had holds on them ever since the club started. They both simultaneously become available and are auto signed out to my account. I’m going to read them before getting back to the list. I promise not to utter a word about them until others have read them and it is time for official discussion 🙂

[heylady14]

@fatimamummy, I travel a lot with work and just finished the audiobook of ‘The Hate You Give’-it is so good, maybe one of the Really Important Books of Our Time. If you like audiobooks at all, it is excellent. The story is thoughtful and profound without ever losing its sense of authenticity. I hope you love it and that you’ll share some thoughts after you’re done.

[fatimamummy]

@heylady14 I completely agree with your opinion of “The hate you give” .Whenever possible my first preference is an actual paper book but lately I’m reading mostly e-books. My brain wanders away very easily so I’m highly doubtful I can stay facused if on audiobook. It is undoubtedly one of the best books I have read lately.  I’ll save the discussion till the time othersr ead it too and @prettyinpa officially opens the discussion on this book. For now all I will say is , it is a GREAT read.

[makeitup305]

I tried reading Pride and Prejudice in high school but it wasn't "romantic" enough for my high school self. I actually didn't read it again until after I saw the remake of the movie with Kiera Knightley. I really liked it and it drove me to reread the book. When I reread it, I could hear their delivery in my head and grasp the subtle nuances of tone that are the best part of the book. When it comes down to it, P&P is just about misinterpreting others’ actions and acting based on assumptions and I find that very relatable.

[RachFace2921]

Hmm.... Now you're making it sound way more interesting @makeitup305!  Maybe I should check out the movie.  It might give me better appreciation.

[RachFace2921]

@fatimamummy, I think I may follow your lead.  I've had a hard time getting excited about the classics that I read when I was younger, and really crave something more contemporary. I was intrigued by the titles you mention during the voting, and think I'll pick them up as well.  I'll keep tabs on the thread to see when those discussion start.  I'm really looking forward to it - I loved the response around 'Little Fires.'

[prettyinpa]

If anyone wants to start the discussion of Pride and Prejudice, please feel free to start. I am ashamed to say I couldn't finish it, it kept putting me to sleep. I like to read for an hour or so before bed and I never got more than 15 minutes into it before I nodded off. I don't know whether it's the odd weather, lack of spring or what but I've been sleepier than usual lately and P&P just wasn't thrilling enough to make me keep at it.

[heylady14]

@prettyinpa, I have to agree it’s kind of a slog. A lot of books during this time period were first published in serialized segments in newspapers. Almost all of Dickens came out this way, and I know quite a few Jane Austen books did, though I don’t specifically recall about P&P. As a result, there’s a lot of filler chapters that don’t always advance the story fast enough for me. I do like the BBC miniseries, but that’s all I have patience for. I even tried Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and still found that to be a bit much for my taste. I know it is a beloved book and it’s a favorite of some of my best friends, but I’ve never tried to read it at the time where I had the patience to get it done. On to Dragon Tattoo!

[prettyinpa]

@heylady14- I'm almost finished Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, what a great read. I have a feeling the ending is going to be amazing, I haven't cheated and peeked yet, but the suspense is killing me. I have the next 2 books in the series waiting for when I finish this one, I hope they are as good.

[Beadshopgirl]

P & P is one of my all time favourite books. I think it’s so funny! Other than Anne Shirley, Elizabeth Bennett is my favourite literary heroine. If you couldn’t get into the book, I would at least highly recommend the BBC version with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. It was so good, and much better than the more recent movie with Kiera Knightly. 

[greeneyedgirl107]

@prettyinpa I read this in high school, and found it to be boring - so much so that I knew I couldn't pick it up again and hope for a better outcome.  I think this does bring up an interesting point, though: how do you think storytelling has changed over time?  For example, compare Pride and Prejudice with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is next on the list.

This also makes me wonder what was on everyone else's reading lists from high school.  I will try to post the ones I remember:

Spoiler

Alice in Wonderland (Carroll)

Night (Weisel)

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)

MacBeth (Shakespeare)

A Separate Peace (Knowles)

I Heard the Owl Call My Name

Growing Up (Baker)

The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)

The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)

The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare)

The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)

The Crucible (Miller)

Murder in the Cathedral (Elliott)

Siddhartha (Hesse)

Pygmalion (Shaw)

Hamlet (Shakespeare)

The Odyssey (Homer)

Notes from Underground (Dostoyevsky)

The Power and the Glory (Greene)

Amadeus (Schaffer)

Waiting for Godot (Beckett)

The Inferno (Dante)

Narcissus and Goldmund (Hesse)

And of course various shorter works like Antigone, Madea; history books like deToqueville, The American Political Tradition; theology, etc.  Then there were the books other sections read (some I ended up reading, some I didn't), like Shoeless Joe, Native Son, Deliverance, Romeo & Juliet, Helter Skelter, Sister Carrie, Look Homeward, Angel.

My sister went to a more contemporary high school, so her list was often ligher, and included To Tell the Truth, and Chinese Cinderella.

[makeitup305]

@greeneyedgirl107 I hated A Separate Peace. My teacher analyzed that book to death. I found both of the characters annoying (I was in 8th grade so I think I found almost everything annoying though).  I think of the ones that I read my favorite was Night, sad as it may be.

[greeneyedgirl107]

@makeitup305 I actually really liked "A Separate Peace" which is a good thing since I had to read it in eighth grade and high school.  I can see how it wouldn't hold everyone's attention, though.  I remember reading "Summer of my German Solider" in eighth grade as well as "The Pigman" and they were much more enjoyed by the class.

"Night" was very good, too!

[prettyinpa]

Is this coming Friday, April 6th good to start the discussion of Pride and Prejudice?  I'm slogging along, these classics are killing me. Looking forward to the coming book, I've heard Dragon Tatoo is great.

[Titian06]

@prettyinpa - I'm having virtually no luck in getting on BIC!  Today is one of my lucky days.  I did not read Pride & Prejudice.  I am not a fan of Jane Austin or that literary genre.  I need to get the Girl w/the Dragon Tattoo (or whatever the name is).  I thought Death on the Nile was next, which I have.  Anyway, I've been curious about the next book, but never got it.

[prettyinpa]

@Titian06-  I hope you have better luck logging into BIC than you've had, we miss you. I haven't had much success and I think the lack of regular logging in is making me not even try.  It's working today, so yipee. So far, I'm liking Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.

[heylady14]

I’m excited for a re-read of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo! Fun fact: The last book in the series came out while I was studying abroad in Sweden. My mom thought she was so cool that she was the first one in her book club to know how the series ended 😉