# Belong to a Book Club? Whatcha Readin'?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 3, 2001, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520 "2001-09-03T15:19:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/1 "2001-09-03T15:19:01Z")

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Inspired by jarbaby’s response to my “must reads”

Three of mine, Byatt’s Possession, Atwood’s Robber Bride and Handmaid’s Tale were books my bookclub read and were pretty much universally liked by the club.

Are you in a book club? What have you read that you enjoyed? Hated an no one got through? Also general book club info, format, etc.

My club is a women’s group. We have know each other forever, and sometime after we all got done (pretty much) with college we formed a bookclub. We’ve been meeting for seven years. We talk about the book, we try for at least forty five minutes of our three hour meetings, and sometimes, when the book has been really impactful (hate that word, can’t think of a better one right now, please forgive me), can’t stop talking about it for months. When no one has read the book, we gossip and talk about kids and husbands and the past. We finish with dessert. Generally, there are about five or six people who show up, but about twenty members who rotate through depending on what their lives are like and what we are reading. We tend to read in “cycles”- three related books. So right now its detective fiction, first book: The Continental Op. We don’t limit ourselves to fiction - we read (or tried to read, two of us got all the way through) A Brief History of Time, for instance.

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### Author: ![Sophie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Sophie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophie)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/2 "2001-09-03T15:51:58Z")

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**Zappo** and I are reading _Intruder in the Dust_ by Faulkner. Not a book club, though. I just pressured his yankee-butt to read some Southern lit. I’ve been meaning to read it again for some years now.

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### Author: ![toshirodragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@toshirodragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toshirodragon)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/3 "2001-09-03T17:54:39Z")

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Women and Prostitution: A social History by Vern and Bonnie Bullough  
Feline Felonies edited by Abigaial Brown  
The Day the Universe Changed by James Burke  
The Complete T.Rex By John Horner and Don Lessem  
all more or less simultaneously…  
Oh yeah Justinian’s Sword by James Carroll

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### Author: ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/4 "2001-09-03T19:27:17Z")

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No book club, but \*\* Drachillix \*\* and I have been reading Robert B. Parker and Clive Cussler this summer.

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### Author: ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/5 "2001-09-03T21:58:46Z")

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I love my book club. It’s a children’s literature book club for women, and we’re on a bimonthly schedule. We just read Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series. Emily isn’t as well known, but I think it’s one of Montgomery’s best books, and an especially interesting read for writers. Emily, the main character (duh), is an aspiring author, and much of the book talks about her passion for writing and fiction.

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### Author: ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/6 "2001-09-03T22:00:27Z")

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My book club is reading “The House of Sand & Fog” for its first meeting of the fall after a summer hiatus. I just got started on it so I can’t report on it yet.

The only book we all liked, last year, was “The Saving Graces” by Patricia Gaffney. We’ve got very divergent tastes and it’s rare that everyone likes something. Actually, it bugs me that the only book we all liked was a beach-readingish chick novel, but it _was_ good.

I wanna be in delphica’s book club!

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### Author: ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2001, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/7 "2001-09-03T22:25:24Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan \*  
> **My book club is reading “The House of Sand & Fog” for its first meeting of the fall after a summer hiatus. I just got started on it so I can’t report on it yet.**

I just read this and **loved** it. I gave it to my mom to read and she hated it.  
Let me know how everyone likes it.

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### Author: ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2001, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belong-to-a-book-club-whatcha-readin/79520/8 "2001-09-04T02:12:33Z")

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Delphica,

We did a children’s lit 3 book cycle last fall. We all wanted an excuse to talk about Harry Potter. We also did children’s picturebooks, everyone bring a favorite or two to share. And The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe to compare with Harry Potter. It was a lot of fun.

Love L.M. Montgomery and have read the Emily stuff a couple of times
