Book Club: season whatever-this-is

6 Comments
Previously on Book Club, we saw our faithful readers devouring works of science fiction, memoirs, and classics.
In recent days, the randomness has continued, with the only trends being:
– Books
that satisfied various Book Bingo requirements (two of us are Bingo-ing fanatics)
– This
Western genre thing we’ve been doing recently
Here’s our list since the last update:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak  
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt   
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury   
Shopgirl
by Steve Martin
White
Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Songbook
by Nick Hornby
Riders
of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Shane by
Jack Schaeffer

Some of them I loved, loved, loved. (The Book Thief, The Sisters Brothers, and Shane… I’m looking at you.)

Some of them I liked quite well. (Songbook and Fahrenheit 451)

Some of them… I made it through. (Shopgirl [I wanted to like it, really, I did] and White Tiger [the narrator just wouldn’t shut up!] and Riders of the Purple Sage [which I liked better when I read it back in library school])

On our next episode… the group discusses Hondo by Louis
L’Amour. 

The suspense builds… How will L’Amour’s writing stand up against Grey’s prose? How will his plot compare with the perfect tension of Shane?

Tune in next time…

6 thoughts on “Book Club: season whatever-this-is”

  1. Lark

    At least you like your book club. Mine's currently on hiatus for the summer, and I'm thinking I won't be going back when it starts up in the fall. (I mean, half the people in it don't even read the books! How can you have a book club with people who don't read?) Anyway, your post made me smile. I've been working on reading bingo, too. What did you choose for your Banned Book? I'm struggling a bit with that one. Anyway, I'll be interested to hear what you think of Louis L'Amour. He was one of my guilty pleasures back in college when I had some time between classes and used to duck into the library's reading room. 🙂 Happy Reading!

  2. unrulyreader20

    It's a bummer about your book club. If you lived nearby, I'd invite you to join ours!

    For my Banned Book on Book Bingo, I chose "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer — and I really liked it. It's great on audio — the voice of the young narrator really comes to life.

    I'm halfway through "Hondo" and loving it. L'Amour — what a great guilty pleasure.

    Hope your summer brings you lots of great reading!

  3. Lark

    Thanks! I wish I did live closer. 🙂 It'd be nice to be in a book club with people who actually read book. And you're right, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a great book. I really admired how the author was able to stick with that challenging narrative voice throughout the book and make it work…and I loved the ending! (P.S. Glad you're enjoying the L'Amour.)

  4. unrulyreader20

    I had a thought — I wonder if there's a library near you that has a book discussion group?

    You're so right about the appeal of "Extremely Loud" — the voice is perfect.

  5. Lark

    That's a really good idea; the closest library to me is currently closed for renovations, but there are two others that might do a book discussion group. I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the suggestion! 🙂

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