OK, this sounds like fun. Let’s say we reconvene somewhere around May 1. I will make a note in my calendar to start the thread.
Eureka – keep going. I had the same problem at first. Despite knowing better, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Blue Castle was copying my Ladies of Massalonghi. Farther in, the books diverged more.
I’ll see you all back her in about a month, OK? I have to read Atonement before Tuesday (and see the movie) for my IRL book club, then a mystery (can’t remember the name of it) for my other IRL book club the following Tuesday. Plus I had already started Mary Roach’s latest (Bonk, about sex research – very good) and stopped reading 3 chapters in to read Blue Castle. AND, I’ve got the latest Dresden Files book, which I haven’t even looked at the book jacket for, since I know I’d drop all the rest of this stuff and read it if I did.
So a month is just about right!
OK, sounds good. I’ll keep my copies of each book until then.
I lost the thread of the, uh, thread somewhere, but I’m intrigued and would like to subscribe to your…book thread. 
Which two books are we talking about here? The Blue Castle and…
In the new issue of* Beaver*, the Canadian history magazine, there is an interesting article about Lucy Maud Montgomery and the creation of Anne Shirley. I have to go get the gassoons at school, but if I have time later I’ll post a bit about it.
WhyNot, the other book is The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough. Sorry, can’t link to it now, as I’m on my BB. Discussion regards the similarities between the two an whether McCullough ripped Montgomery off.
Oh, and relative merits of each, of course.
Ah, thank you! I’ll try to find them this weekend.
I love a book group with snark!
Maybe I should start a thread announcing the plan…we may find more interested parties. Will do it once I get back to a real computer.
Wow. That’s pretty much the definition of pessimism, isn’t it? :eek:
I heart Margaret Atwood.
I thought it was interesting. And, to be honest, there is a certain amount of sense in her speculation! How did Anne become Anne? Lucy Maud Montgomery had a miserable childhood herself. And she did not grow up to be as happy and contented as Anne did - her married life was a long, dreary battle to maintain a home and family in the face of her husband’s depression. Neither did she end up as Atwood thinks Anne might have “in real life”, though. Luckily for us, who love her books! (Not that Montgomery’s childhood was as awful as the one she created for Anne.)
I like Margaret Atwood, too. But my love and reverence, literararily speaking, is reserved for Alice Munro. Alice Munro is, IMHO, the greatest living writer in English. Nothing less. ( I have definite opinions, obviously. 
Don’t mean to derail the thread, though.)