I’d love to read more classic literature. I love to read, I feel like I’d get so much more out of so many pop culture references and the classics are classics for a reason, right? But unlike the newest Stephen King release or NYT best seller I don’t know anyone I would be able to discuss the books with in my day to day life. I would get responses ranging from, “Oh yeah, I read that in high school/college” to “What? Never heard of it.” So I’m thinking we should pick a book from the list and all come back in the middle of December so we can talk about it.
Who wants to join me in the SDMB Book Club? We can even have a motto!
SDMB Book Club - Because you can’t go to a normal book club meeting in your underwear!
Excellent! I was afraid no one would want to participate. I guess I should have known better around here.
Both of those would work for me. We’ll probably end up squooshing the definition of classic around a bit before we find the limits we are comfortable with for our purposes.
I’m totally in, but wouldn’t read Tess again unless a loved one’s life depended on it. The only book on the list I haven’t read is The Scarlet Pimpernel, but I’m still a bit lukewarm.
I don’t suppose I could generate any interest in No Name, by Wilkie Collins?
I’m interested but I’m only a maybe on if I actually do it or not so I won’t vote.
I was thinking I’d like to read the Scarlet Pimpernel, for you know, Batman reasons. I thought it was a play though.
I loved the movie of The Picture of Dorian Gray and expect the book to be better.
I looked up The Woman in White and it’s from an interesting time for this kind of story sounds and gets good reviews so I wouldn’t mind reading that.
I voted for Woman, but I’d throw in Dracula or Frankenstein as alternatives. In particular it might be interesting to compare Frankenstein to the typical movie versions of the story.
Sounds fun! I’ll read anything - I voted for Dorian Gray, but I definitely like the above suggestion of Frankenstein. It’s honestly one of my all time favorite books, powerful on so many levels. The movie versions don’t do it any justice whatsoever.
Probably not old enough to be considered a classic, but given that it’s required reading in schools across the nation, what about Lord of the Flies? Violent as hell, but beyond the gore and rather heavy-handed symbolism is quite a good book. Also great for lively discussions.
Anyway, whatever’s chosen, I’m in. Well, except if we choose Moby Dick. Even I have limits.
ETA: Oh, and if you’re willing to consider short stories (it might make it more popular, as it would be less of a commitment), I’ve got a bit of a Chekhov obsession. Gooseberries, anyone?
I love the idea of a sdmb book club. I don’t think Dorian Gray is a great book for this though, its fairly straightforward, not enough meat for discussion. I like something like notes from the underground. I actually think Frankenstein would be good too. Checkov would be really good also I think. I think Catcher in the Rye might be good - I think as an adult it has a whoe different meaning, so that’s what makes it interesting to me.
Again, they’re not really classics by most definitions, but in terms of meat for discussion, would anyone be game for Cat’s Cradle or Slaughterhouse-Five?
So, how is this going to work? Do we get some time to actually read the book? Or does one just start a thread discussing it, waiting for people to read (and perhaps give their reactions as they’re reading?)
We do a movie discussion group here in San Antonio and we have three rules for nominating:
The movie must be worth discussing - we’re not going to talk about favorite scenes or quotes. This avoids conversations like:
“I thought it was funny, when…”
“Yeah! And how about that scene where…”
You must have seen the movie prior to nominating it.
The third rule (it must be available via streaming) doesn’t apply here, so I won’t mention it.
I also ran a sci-fi book club on another forum and, while it was a chore, it went pretty well. I had three threads:
A nominations thread, for books that people wanted to discuss the next month.
A voting thread, so people could vote on the books. Timed poll, of course.
A month after the voting thread ended, the actual discussion thread (giving people time to read the book.)
Like I said, that might be a bit of work, but if the OP/moderator/whatever wants to do it this way, it makes for quality discussions.
My thought was that we would use this thread to pick a book that everyone reads by sometime in the middle of December, probably the 15th but we can be flexible with the date. Then on that date myself or someone else would start a discussion thread about the book and attach a poll with some additional book choices so we could choose the next book at the same time as we discuss our current book. Many of the options mentioned here could be used to make up the next poll.
As for the streaming movie thing, part of the reason I selected those 4 choices is because I know they are all available for free to download on the kindle which would make it cheap and easy for most everyone to participate.
I’m in. I voted for Tess, but have no opposition to the others. I mainly picked it because I remember disliking it less than other things in my HS reading - but I also never had to read any of the others on the list.
