Book Chat

Wicked

2005-05-02T19:33:19Z

Were we going to discuss the book? Or pick a new one? I'm confused.

biblio_chat @ 2005-03-10T14:47:00

2005-03-10T19:51:23Z

I finished Wicked last night and I couldn't have loved the book any more than I did. What a fantastic character. Truly one of my favorites of all time.

I don't want to give anything away without knowing where everyone is in reading the book. What I'd like to do is use a few reading group discussion questions to talk about the book.

So, could you leave a comment here and let me know how far away you are from finishing the book? Already done? Within the next week? Within the next two weeks?

Thanks :)

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-11T10:38:00

2005-02-11T15:40:22Z

Hello all! I started Wicked earlier in the week and I'm really enjoying it! What an imaginative mind he has to be able to craft the story of what happened before. Has anyone else started? What do you think.

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-06T15:02:00

2005-02-06T20:05:41Z

Thanks to everyone for using the poll for our next book. Looks like we're doing Wicked.

Happy reading. :)

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-04T23:17:00

2005-02-05T04:24:07Z

Time to choose a book! I've listed the suggestions received here. Hopefully I didn't miss any. If you want to go back and read what the books are about, you can find them here, here, here, and here.

View Poll: #431481

Let's get everyone's input by Sunday night and I'll announce the next book then. :)

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-04T11:55:00

2005-02-04T16:56:32Z

Just a reminder, all new book suggestions are due today. I'll post a poll later this evening so we can pick. :)

Here's my suggestion for this time: Wicked

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-02T09:36:00

2005-02-02T14:40:45Z

Suggestions

Hazards of Good Breeding

The Amateur Marriage

biblio_chat @ 2005-02-02T09:14:00

2005-02-02T14:18:49Z

Good morning! :) I think we've come to a consensus that we need to move on to a second book. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell got mixed reviews from our group - some loved, some had a hard time getting into it. So, let's make suggestions for book #2. On Friday I'll post a poll to vote on the book we'll read next.

As a reminder, any of the previous suggestions are valid and include:
Hidden
Da Vinci Code
Egyptologist

and, theferret has made some more suggestions here.

New Possible Books

2005-02-02T13:52:02Z

Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

The Fourth Queen by Debbie Taylor

I found this while looking at some stuff on Barnes and Noble. Both seem to have mixed reviews, but are recommended by B&N. Any thoughts?

sigh

2005-02-01T13:48:53Z

Ok, I really tried with this book. I just can't get into it. I don't know what is wrong with me and my attention span.

Am I missing a really good thing by giving up?

biblio_chat @ 2005-01-22T13:33:00

2005-01-22T19:34:37Z

So, how goes it with everyone? Are we all finished or are we going to find another book? (I think reading, so I think it makes me excitable sometimes)

biblio_chat @ 2005-01-02T00:00:00

2005-01-02T06:02:24Z

Okay, so I just finished Jonathon and Mr. Norrell. Dying to talk about it! What did everyone think of the plot and the characters? I'm actually a little teary eyed after reading the last page.

biblio_chat @ 2004-12-04T22:23:00

2004-12-05T03:31:45Z

Votes are in and it looks like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is the winner. :)

PIck it up and let's get started. :) Feel free to use this community to make comments, ask questions ... just make sure to put any revealing information under an LJ cut out of courtesy for the other readers. :)

Time to Choose!

2004-12-03T17:18:52Z

Choose one of the books below. Voting closes Saturday night.

View Poll: #396600

Edit: Just because we don't choose one of these books for this month doesn't mean it can't be on a list for next month. :)

Last call for book suggestions for December!

2004-12-03T13:05:18Z

I'll be posting the vote later this morning, so if you have any more suggestions, post them here.

Another Recommendation

2004-12-01T15:21:01Z

Thought I'd add a recommendation as well, not because I didn't like the others, but because I think it would be good to have a variety to choose from this month. Let's shoot for having everyone's recommendations in by Friday and we'll vote. That will give everyone the weekend to get the book and get started reading. :)

Hidden : A Novel
by Paul Jaskunas

From Publishers Weekly
An Indiana woman whose world was shattered in one fateful night spends the entirety of this meditative literary debut/sleepy thriller unraveling its events. Twenty-two-year-old Maggie's crumbling marriage takes its final blow when she is beaten nearly to death in her idyllic farmhouse, and Nate, her domineering and abusive husband, is put in prison for the crime. Cross-cutting between the mid-1990s, before the assault, and the novel's present in 2002, Jaskunas weaves a complex mystery: though everything Maggie remembers about that night suggests that Nate was the perpetrator, a convict about to be released claims responsibility for the six-year-old crime. When Nate is exonerated, Maggie is thrown into a lonely spiral of self-doubt and confusion. At the heart of this insightful, atmospheric novel are the complexities of truth—how much can Maggie trust her own version of events? Jaskunas gracefully evokes the beauty of his rural Indiana setting and the town of New Harmony, where epileptic, solitary Maggie is now the "local eccentric.... the village freak," who must dig into her former life, unearthing denials she had been living all along: "I can see the spot where hung the painting of our perfect home," she says, "the lie that started all the lies."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description:

As unnerving as it is mesmerizing, Hidden is an evocative, emotionally charged domestic drama -- a willful and traumatized woman's painful search for the truth about the man who assaulted her one summer night.

Six years after the attack, Maggie Wilson receives a call from the prosecutor who helped put her husband in jail after Maggie identified him as the man who nearly killed her. Told that another inmate has confessed to the crime and that her ex-husband will be freed, the shock plunges Maggie into memories of her stormy marriage to Nate Duke, the ambitious heir to a real estate company. Secluded in an old farmhouse that was her marital home, Maggie relives her marriage to Nate and his abusive treatment of her. But in her present, a very different man is haunting her -- the born-again convict who has confessed to the crime. As his story competes with hers, Maggie pores through trial transcripts, old journals, and photo albums, trying fruitlessly to remember exactly what happened.

Written in spare, elegant prose, Paul Jaskunas's novel reads like a waking dream as Maggie is torn by the question -- was it Nate? Or was it this stranger who seems to know intimate details? And what will it cost her to discover the truth? A work of searing suspense written in the heroine's brave voice, Hidden is ultimately about a woman confronting the betrayal of her body and the ambiguity of her mind.

Another book suggestion

2004-12-01T01:52:21Z

Amazon.com
With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown (Angels and Demons) has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh

Product Description:
While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

THE DA VINCI CODE heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller…utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.

Book Suggestion #2

2004-12-01T01:04:05Z

The Egyptologist: A Novel
by Arthur Phillips

From Amazon:
In 1922 Howard Carter made arguably the most exciting archeological discovery of all time: the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, with its fabulous grave goods relatively undisturbed. The objects from the tomb have traveled from continent to continent and been endlessly photographed, discussed and reproduced.

The Egyptologist who is the title character in Arthur Phillips's second novel isn't Howard Carter, though Carter does appear in the book. Ralph Trilipush is an anti-Carter, a caricature, a Carter from another planet. Like Carter, he is in search of the tomb of an ephemeral pharaoh. Trilipush's missing pharaoh is named Atum-hadu, which he translates as "Atum is aroused." ("Hadu" is derived from a perfectly good Egyptian word; the reference is to one of the many creation myths the Egyptians came up with. In this particular myth, the sole, original god Atum, rising from the primeval waters, created the first pair of male and female gods by masturbating. The fact that no Egyptian pharaoh would have such a name is just the first of many little jokes.)

We meet Trilipush in the very first pages of the book, in a letter he writes from Cairo to his fiancée back in Boston, and it doesn't take more than three pages to alert the reader to Trilipush's character -- egotistical, hypocritical, more than a little paranoid (like many other Egyptologists?). His letters and diary form part of the narrative. His scholarly reputation, such as it is, rests primarily on his translation of Atum-hadu's erotic poetry. (These translations, quoted in extenso, constitute another of the author's little jokes; Trilipush's ribald versions contrast entertainingly with the prim Victorian euphemisms employed by earlier translations of the material.) Using his academic background as leverage, Trilipush has gotten engaged to a Boston beauty named Margaret Finneran, whose daddy is a millionaire snob. With daddy's help, Trilipush forms a company (The Hand of Atum Inc. -- get it?) to finance his search for the lost tomb. It's left to the reader to decide to what extent Trilipush is motivated by chicanery rather than self-delusion.

A soured, retired Australian P.I., Harold Ferrell, writes a second, parallel narrative, reporting on a case he investigated 30 years earlier. Ferrell doesn't suffer from false modesty either; in fact, it would be difficult to find a single character in the book who isn't self-serving or cynical or miserable. The case Ferrell investigated was on behalf of a millionaire brewer, Barnabas Davies, who, having learned he had only a few months to live, decided to leave part of his estate to offspring he might have produced in temporary liaisons during his busy youth (38 and still counting, according to Ferrell). Ferrell's assignment is to trace one of the potential mothers, who is living in Sydney. He finds her, broken-down and repulsive, and learns that she did indeed produce a Davies son, Paul Caldwell. Ferrell's search for the boy leads him from circus to library to prison, and finally to the Australian Expeditionary Force in Egypt, in which Caldwell served during World War I. Unfortunately for Ferrell, who is making a killing on expense accounts, Caldwell disappeared in 1918 and is presumed dead.

Well, mystery readers can spot clues like that a mile away. I won't spoil the fun by further exposition, since the mystery is not so much about what happened as how and especially why it happened. The Egyptologist can be viewed as a penetrating study of human frustration and obsession, and, since we're talking about ancient Egypt here, man's quest for immortality. However, Trilipush's quest takes him so far beyond the bounds of normal lunacy that it becomes black comedy rather than tragedy. The reader who is uninformed about Egyptology may miss some of the humor, but there is plenty of it; the most entertaining arises from the unwitting self-exposure of Ferrell and Trilipush -- one of the challenges of a first-person narrative, which Phillips pulls off triumphantly.

The book is a tour de force of plotting and narrative technique; the intertwining storylines lead with mounting inevitability to one of the most horrendously, hideously humorous endings in modern fiction. It isn't an ending for the faint of heart, but if you appreciated Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief, this one will knock you out.

Reviewed by Barbara Mertz

Book Suggestion #1

2004-12-01T01:00:29Z

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
by Susanna Clarke

From Amazon:
It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler

Product Description:
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.

Community Rules

2004-11-30T02:19:29Z

Here's how it works:

1. Each month we'll take book nominations and then everyone will vote on the book we read.

2. You have a month to read the book.

3. At the end of the month, each person will write an entry on what they thought about the book. We'll post a few questions about the book to get you started.

4. Everyone will have a week to post their thoughts and respond to each others posts, then we'll start over again.

5. If you have a question about the book before the month is up, feel free to ask, but either put your question behind an LJ cut so as not to reveal details to the others who haven't finished the book yet.

6. All other rules of common courtesy apply -- don't be rude. All opinions and ideas are valid.

Right now we won't limit this club to any one genre. Contemporary or classic.... fiction or non-fiction. It's completely up to the group.