Thursday, June 12, 2008
BTT: Clubbing
Gotta love this week's Booking Through Thursday:
Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?
Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?
Nope, never been a book club member. Sorry. I OWN my book club.
No, I didn't buy them. I don't run roughshod over them. They just like me so much that the job of leader is mine until I don't want it any more. We've been together for almost eight years now. I love my group.
As to the reading experience, we all try harder to finish something we don't like. There was one that the whole group hated. They won't let me live down the fact that they managed to finish it and I couldn't. Believe me, I tried. It just wasn't meant to be.
Our most recent book was so poorly written that it made me gag. I've got another whole post about that, so stay tuned. One of the women described it as "Susan versus everyone else" and while I can't say that's not entirely true, it's not entirely false, either. I doubt I would have finished it if it weren't a book club choice, but the story was ... well-intentioned. The bones of it were there, and that part was ... okay. It was supposed to be about a woman, the title character. Instead, it was the story of her husband and his struggle to be a good husband. Okay, fine. I can deal. Just call it something else, will you? Of course, that ruins the theme of the series...
And yes, I'll shut up and smile when we read the third in this particular series. Hopefully, the author has taken more time and gotten the writing up to where it was in the first book. We'll see...
One note that the BTT question didn't address: Yes, I feel terrible when something I brought to the group is a total dog. But when I suggest something like Disobedience or A Day of Small Beginnings or A Thread of Grace (okay, a non-member suggested that one and I pushed for it), it's that much sweeter.
Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?
Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?
Nope, never been a book club member. Sorry. I OWN my book club.
No, I didn't buy them. I don't run roughshod over them. They just like me so much that the job of leader is mine until I don't want it any more. We've been together for almost eight years now. I love my group.
As to the reading experience, we all try harder to finish something we don't like. There was one that the whole group hated. They won't let me live down the fact that they managed to finish it and I couldn't. Believe me, I tried. It just wasn't meant to be.
Our most recent book was so poorly written that it made me gag. I've got another whole post about that, so stay tuned. One of the women described it as "Susan versus everyone else" and while I can't say that's not entirely true, it's not entirely false, either. I doubt I would have finished it if it weren't a book club choice, but the story was ... well-intentioned. The bones of it were there, and that part was ... okay. It was supposed to be about a woman, the title character. Instead, it was the story of her husband and his struggle to be a good husband. Okay, fine. I can deal. Just call it something else, will you? Of course, that ruins the theme of the series...
And yes, I'll shut up and smile when we read the third in this particular series. Hopefully, the author has taken more time and gotten the writing up to where it was in the first book. We'll see...
One note that the BTT question didn't address: Yes, I feel terrible when something I brought to the group is a total dog. But when I suggest something like Disobedience or A Day of Small Beginnings or A Thread of Grace (okay, a non-member suggested that one and I pushed for it), it's that much sweeter.
Labels: A Day of Small Beginnings, A Thread of Grace, Booking Through Thursday, books
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Booking Through Thursday -- Huh?
Once again, this week's Booking Through Thursday made me laugh. Ready?
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”
Here's what's so giggle-worthy about this question: most of the books I plug are books you've never heard of. Not all; a number of you had read A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell's brilliant novel of Italy during the Holocaust.
But the rest?
Oh, my goodness.
Check out my Library Thing widget over there on the left; it lists only the books I rave about. Go back into my archives and look around at the books I've read and loved.
And stay tuned. I've got more to come -- reading the books no one's heard of is one of my missions in life.
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”
Here's what's so giggle-worthy about this question: most of the books I plug are books you've never heard of. Not all; a number of you had read A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell's brilliant novel of Italy during the Holocaust.
But the rest?
Oh, my goodness.
Check out my Library Thing widget over there on the left; it lists only the books I rave about. Go back into my archives and look around at the books I've read and loved.
And stay tuned. I've got more to come -- reading the books no one's heard of is one of my missions in life.
Labels: A Thread of Grace, Booking Through Thursday, books, Mary Doria Russell
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Susan's Book Talk: A Thread of Grace
My book club this month is reading Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace. (Click on the first link to see Ms. Russell's website, and on the second to buy the book)
I'm not quite halfway through it, but I need to rave about it -- with a caveat. The book is brilliant, it's absorbing, beautifully written, it's haunting, it scares me silly, it's so vivid. This book wraps itself around your emotions and doesn't let go. It's a definite don't miss.
Now, for the caveat. It's a book about people who lived during the Holocaust, people in Italy who helped hide the Jews from the Nazis. It's an important book because this is something that's not spoken of particularly often; one of those hidden parts of our past. While I've noticed more Holocaust list focusing on the people who helped save the lives of Jews, not even Thomas Moran's Man in the Box had this much power to it.
That's exactly what concerns me about it. Not for me, but for the members of my book club. For a Jewish book club, we read a scarily (to some) scant amount of Holocaust Literature. There's a reason for that: most of the women in my book club were young girls during World War II. One is married to a man who lost his brother to the Nazis.
Over the years, as I've led them through choices good (Noah Gordon) and bad (nope, not gonna name the bad), one thing they've always asked me to avoid bringing them was books that are heavy about the Holocaust.
To be fair, I wouldn't have suggested this one except that I'd heard from another woman what a wonderful book it is. She's not in our book club, but I know her both from the gym and the temple. If she suggests something, I'm going to do her the honor of listening and presenting a synopsis of the book to my group. In this case, I'd tracked down a copy through PaperBackSwap and showed it to the group. You can argue that we knew what we were getting into when we agreed to read this. And it was a democratic choice.
Yet I worry. This is the sort of powerful book that can rip open wounds. If I've learned anything about the Holocaust during my lifetime, it's that merely being a Jew gives you wounds from that event. To be much closer to it than I am and then to be faced with a book like this, which describes the cattle cars so vividly...
Maybe there is a balm yet to come in the remaining pages of my copy of A Thread of Grace, and I am worrying for nothing. Given my history of wasting time and energy on worry, this is entirely probable. I won't know until I read the rest of the book.
I won't know until November 1, the next time my book club meets, how everyone reacted to this. So until then, I'll worry that I've unwittingly suggested a book that's opening raw wounds on these women I consider my friends. Because I know I've ripped open a few of my own.
I'm not quite halfway through it, but I need to rave about it -- with a caveat. The book is brilliant, it's absorbing, beautifully written, it's haunting, it scares me silly, it's so vivid. This book wraps itself around your emotions and doesn't let go. It's a definite don't miss.
Now, for the caveat. It's a book about people who lived during the Holocaust, people in Italy who helped hide the Jews from the Nazis. It's an important book because this is something that's not spoken of particularly often; one of those hidden parts of our past. While I've noticed more Holocaust list focusing on the people who helped save the lives of Jews, not even Thomas Moran's Man in the Box had this much power to it.
That's exactly what concerns me about it. Not for me, but for the members of my book club. For a Jewish book club, we read a scarily (to some) scant amount of Holocaust Literature. There's a reason for that: most of the women in my book club were young girls during World War II. One is married to a man who lost his brother to the Nazis.
Over the years, as I've led them through choices good (Noah Gordon) and bad (nope, not gonna name the bad), one thing they've always asked me to avoid bringing them was books that are heavy about the Holocaust.
To be fair, I wouldn't have suggested this one except that I'd heard from another woman what a wonderful book it is. She's not in our book club, but I know her both from the gym and the temple. If she suggests something, I'm going to do her the honor of listening and presenting a synopsis of the book to my group. In this case, I'd tracked down a copy through PaperBackSwap and showed it to the group. You can argue that we knew what we were getting into when we agreed to read this. And it was a democratic choice.
Yet I worry. This is the sort of powerful book that can rip open wounds. If I've learned anything about the Holocaust during my lifetime, it's that merely being a Jew gives you wounds from that event. To be much closer to it than I am and then to be faced with a book like this, which describes the cattle cars so vividly...
Maybe there is a balm yet to come in the remaining pages of my copy of A Thread of Grace, and I am worrying for nothing. Given my history of wasting time and energy on worry, this is entirely probable. I won't know until I read the rest of the book.
I won't know until November 1, the next time my book club meets, how everyone reacted to this. So until then, I'll worry that I've unwittingly suggested a book that's opening raw wounds on these women I consider my friends. Because I know I've ripped open a few of my own.
Labels: A Thread of Grace, books, Mary Doria Russell, Susan's Book Talk
