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What are you reading?; Because we were strangely lacking this.
Topic Started: Mar 5 2012, 11:23 PM (4,040 Views)
Granskjegg
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Eg e husfar.
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I read "The Kite Runner" in high school for an English assignment, and I found it quite enjoyable, I even shed a tear. I can't really comment on the story since I've kind of forgotten most everything about it.
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Snowman
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Finished One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest for English class a couple days ago. It's really good. Scary in a "wow, these people can be quite awful" kind of way. There were some funny scenes to lighten the mood temporarily though so that's good.
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Snowman
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I read volume one of Runaways yesterday. It's written by Brian K. Vaughan, who also wrote two other comics I really like (Y: The Last Man and Saga). Unsurprisingly, I really like Runaways too. It's set in the Marvel universe and follows this group of teens who just found out their parents are supervillains. All of the characters are original, though. I doubt any Marvel heroes/villains will make an appearance, but I guess I don't know yet, having only read the first six issues. Anyway, the teens decide to band together to try to stop their parents. Obviously, they need powers, and they soon acquire them. One got hers from blood magic (I think?), another found out her parents were repressing her powers, one inherited a genetically-engineered velociraptor that only responds to her commands... Nice variety. Looking forward to finishing it after I finish Y: The Last Man.
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Romanticide
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So we have a book club here. I was supposed to pick July's book but I passed on that for now because I have little idea of what to recommend. I get to pick August's instead.

I'm tempted just to pick The Ocean at the End of the Lane and call it a day (it's short and character-driven, which should go over well with this group), but I figure I should read some other books first.

So I outsource this dilemma to you guys. I want your best 2-3 books; I probably won't be able to read more than ten.

Some guidelines:
-Obviously nothing too long. My soft limit would be 400 pages, but if a great book goes to 450 or so I wouldn't be against it.
-Nothing too mainstream. So, no Dean Koontz, John Grisham, James Patterson, etc. I assume everyone in a book club knows of these authors and some of them probably read these authors.
-I'd prefer books that aren't part of a series you have to read every book in to understand. Maybe the first book of a series could work, but it's probably for the best if it's a stand-alone novel.
-Not too gory. At least one member dislikes gore, and I'm not a fan of excessive gore either.
-The discussions I've been a part of have been about character-oriented books. If the book has characters you give a damn about, I could see it working with this group. Idk what genres they'd appreciate, but both of the books have been grounded in the real world.
Edited by Romanticide, May 10 2014, 10:01 AM.
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Granskjegg
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I've got two great Scandinavian books to recommend (I've only read one of them, though).

The first one is probably one of the funniest and weirdest books I've read, and it's called "Doppler" which is written by Erlend Loe, this is the first of two books in a series. Both books are pretty short (maybe 400 pages in total for both books).

Amazon link

The second book has a really long title (this is the one I haven't read, however my lady has), it's "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" written by the Swede Jonas Jonasson.
There was also a movie about this book released late last year, and it is easily the funniest movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

Amazon link for book.
imdb link for the movie


Both of these books are character driven (however not as deep as say Game of Thrones, but the main character in Doppler is definitely a very interesting person...well both main characters in both books are very interesting) and very funny, so if you're into funny books that aren't necessarily serious, these should do nicely. Do however note that "Doppler" is perhaps the more social critical one of the two, not sure if that is relevant, but it's worth noting any way.
Edited by Granskjegg, May 10 2014, 03:44 PM.
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Romanticide
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I like the suggestions (so I'll probably check one/both out myself at some point), but I think these are a little *too* obscure. The entire library system only has one copy of either book. We have around ten members, so I think the book has to be somewhat known in order to ensure we aren't sharing one copy. That shit would take forever.

Still, I love the thought behind these picks.

I'd prefer to avoid anything too politically/religiously charged for fairly obvious reasons. I don't think Doppler would be divisive, but I think this is worth noting.
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Granskjegg
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Also, Doppler is literally about a man that moves into the woods outside the city and lives with an elk.

Yeah, you should check it out some time.
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BigMac
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Might I suggest Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens? It's a fun little apocalypse romp, and though it just hits that 400 page mark, it doesn't take that long to read.

Also, I feel like I shouldn't have to say this based on the authors, but it's hilarious. Very Douglas Adams-y.
Edited by BigMac, May 10 2014, 06:05 PM.
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Romanticide
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That's a really good book. I get the feeling these people are a bit religious (our last book had religious themes that were well-received), but I wouldn't say this book is sacrilegious or anything. It's obviously meant to be humorous and it reminds me a lot of the Hitchhiker's series, which is always good.

But if I'm going Gaiman, I'm going with his best works, which are IMO American Gods (too long) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Still, that one is a possibility.
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Romanticide
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Here's my list, because I'll certainly be asked to pick a book (or suggest one for a vote, perhaps, idk) again in the future, but I've narrowed it down to four. I post this mostly as an example of the types of books I'd be looking for, if I were to ask for a future book club novel. Each of these is short enough and isn't so stupidly obscure that it has one copy in the system, if that.

Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
Emma Donoghue - Room

I've already read the first two, so I'll just read them again to refresh my memory. I have not read The Awakening, but I've wanted to since a certain event in Treme's first season, which is most likely a direct reference to this novel. It's also a classic that I doubt everyone has read, unlike something like Of Mice and Men. Room sounded good based on its description and I really couldn't be assed to look much harder for another potential book at this time.
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paige5999
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I've read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Room. I liked both, but Room was a bit disturbing. Might be some good book club discussions on that one, especially given the eerily similar situation that happened with those girls in Ohio.

If you are still looking for suggestions, whether for the club or just for you to read, I would highly recommend The Martain by Andy Weir. It's about an astronaut that gets stranded on Mars. Really entertaining, easy to read, and suspenseful. Although it is filled with profanity, in case that's an issue.
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MilkAndCookies
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I personally found The Awakening dull as all hell, as much as I appreciate all the feminist connotations and whatnot. Granted, I was forced to read it in class, so there's that. I don't really have a whole lot else to recommend that's not "everyone's read it," "too long," or "too political/obscene/violent," though. I am just taking everyone else's recommendations because I need some more lesser-known books.
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Romanticide
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Yeah, I enjoyed The Awakening and obviously appreciated the feminist side of the novel, but as I was reading tonight's book club novel, I realized most of the books we've been reading have had lies at the heart of the narrative and that's something I'd like to avoid us reading about/discussing once again. The lie in The Awakening is pretty obvious, no need to belabor that point.

This also rules out The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. While I like that book too, I'm not sure how well it'd work and I'm not sure where the discussion would go. It doesn't pick up until the second half of the book, either.

I guess while I'm here, Room was gripping throughout. It reminded me of The Road in that it was mostly about the relationship between a parent and their child (in this case, a mother and her son), but unlike that novel, I came to care about both of these characters. Other than that, it's one of the darker and more disturbing novels I've read in quite some time. There were points where I had to put it down and just stop reading to digest what had just happened. It was great and I'll keep it in mind for my next suggestion.

But I think at the end of the day, I'll go with my original idea. I just re-read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and while some people might find it a bit weird because it's not exactly "realistic" (I actually don't know if anyone will, but it wouldn't be a surprise), at its heart it's a story about friendship and the loss of innocence. The ending still hits like a ton of bricks even if you know what's coming.


Paige
 
If you are still looking for suggestions, whether for the club or just for you to read, I would highly recommend The Martain by Andy Weir. It's about an astronaut that gets stranded on Mars. Really entertaining, easy to read, and suspenseful. Although it is filled with profanity, in case that's an issue.

Always looking for suggestions, for my own readings or otherwise. Profanity doesn't bother me in the least, though it probably rules a novel out for book club.

I'm just happiest that I can read the books I want to read again instead of worrying about tailoring my readings to fit criteria for the book club. There are a lot of books I'd like to get to, but I think very few of them would *work* for one reason or another. So yeah, I'll get around to some of these suggestions because they sound pretty cool.
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BigMac
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I just finished both books of Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles. The first one, The Name of the Wind, was phenomenal. Wonderfully written and every character feels very fleshed out, plus he manages to incorporate science (sorta) with the magic. The only complaints I had were the Kvothe (the main character) is just a bit of a Mary Sue, though I attribute this to unreliable narrator since most of the tale is told in flashback by Kvothe, and that Denna, the "main love interest" is just so flippant and boring. The second book, A Wise Man's Fear, is less good, but only just so. It starts and ends wonderfully, but somewhere in the middle the plot just kinda stops and Rothfuss spends so much time on these sorta side quests that don't really seem to add anything, which is really an issue of the genre really. I really recommend this series to fans of fantasy, and I can't wait for the third (and hopefully) final installment.
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Snowman
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Finished Y: The Last Man, a 60-issue comic by Brian K. Vaughan about what might happen to the last man on Earth (and his male Capuchin monkey!) after the rest of the men died. I'm probably biased because this is only the second comic I've read with a definite beginning and end (the other being Watchmen), but I thought this was a very good series. It's also a unique form of apocalypse, compared to the usual zombies/aliens/disaster scenarios. Anyway, the series begins with all the men dying. Eventually, Agent 355 of the Culper Ring is assigned to protect Yorick Brown -- the last man -- from people who want him dead. They also meet Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist trying to discover the reason for the "gendercide" and how Yorick and his monkey, Ampersand, survived. Yorick wants to get to his girlfriend/fiance, Beth, in Australia. So those are the main characters throughout the entire series, though they meet many others.

As with other things I really like, the characters make this series great. They're funny and sad and motivated and hopeless and watching them change throughout the series is just really enjoyable. I know people don't talk about comics a lot in this thread, but if any of you have ever wanted to try a good comic series that's not about superheroes, this would be a great place to start.
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