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

[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 😉

[Kim888]

I'm excited for girl with the dragon tattoo next as well! I've already read it, and the sequels, but I'm super excited for the discussion on it! Also, just wanted to say don't give up on it - imo and from talking to others it seems like a common opinion, you really need to get through the first like 100 pages before it gets really good!

[Tamara76]

I am skipping Pride and Prejudice - Not my cup of tea - So, I plan to move on to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for more than 5 years!!!   I just never got around to reading it!  So happy to finally take it off the shelf!!!❤️❤️❤️

[greeneyedgirl107]

@prettyinpa That date is fine with me, as I read "Pride and Prejudice" in high school.  Let's just say I remember reading it and didn't feel the need to re-visit it 😕

[prettyinpa]

Well, I was finally able to log in, so what did you all think of the Great Gatsby?  This one I had a hard time keeping my interest up to finish it even though it was a short book, anyone else have that problem?

[makeitup305]

I never read Gatsby in high school but did read it for an English Lit class in college. I did not enjoy it at all. All the characters seemed self absorbed and shallow to me and I found it hard to empathize with them. I never really understood what the fuss was about or why it became a classic.

[greeneyedgirl107]

@prettyinpa I was wondering if anyone has read any particularly good books recently that weren't on the BIC Book Club list.  I just watched the movie version of "The Beguiled" and while the movie was mediocre, I thought the book might be better.  IDK if I should read it or not, though.

What books are everyone else's "to read" list?  I've been wanting to read "The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane" by Lisa See.

[mermadelove]

@greeneyedgirl107 If you like urban fantasy and/or mysteries I just found a new author that is AMAZING! It’s actually a husband/wife team that write under the pen name Ilona Andrews. Unoutdownable stuff!!!!!!!!! I’ve read five of their books in the past two weeks and am now very short on sleep. That good! 

[greeneyedgirl107]

@mermadelove Thanks for the rec!  I'm not familiar with that genre, but it sure looks interesting when I researched it on amazon and wikipedia.  🙂

[mermadelove]

@greeneyedgirl107 any time! This writer duo is especially good! I started with the “Sweep” series !

[Kim888]

I also read this book in high school and again now. I do find the themes timeless and the detail of the time overall is what makes it such a great book but I do find that it is definitely one of the books I have a different perspective on now that I am older.

I think when I was younger the whole "love will conquer all" mindset was much stronger. Now that I am a older it's much easier for me to see Daisy for who she is where as when I read the book the first time her not standing by Gatsby came as a big shock. I also found myself less able to empathize with Gatsby overall. While the romanticism of the book is part of what makes it great, it's also hard to escape the fact that this seems much more like  infatuation than true love. 

I still think it's classic and an important book to read but I think perhaps I got out of it now what our English teachers hoped we would see when we were 15. 

[Titian06]

@Kim888 - My book from high school has all my notations in it.  You hit the nail on the head!  At the time, although it's always been one of my favorite books, I didn't necessarily "understand" the meaning.  Reading the book as an adult along with the notations, brings a different meaning to the story now than it did then.