Monday, February 18, 2019
Questions for I'll Be Gone in the Dark
I will be using these questions for this week's book club discussion!
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Feb Book Is
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.... I'm aiming for around the middle of Feb so I'll send a poll in a few weeks. I think I'm going to have it at my house for a change of pace.
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Feb Book Selection
Happy
New Year! I am late getting this out but what can I say, the holidays
kept me busy. Anyhow, if you can vote by Sat Jan 5th, I would be so
grateful. I emailed the link to the poll and posted on our FB group.
Here are the books:
The Witch Elm by Tana French
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
Educated by Tara Westover
My
goal was to give a wide selection of books... I hope you can find
something you like. Vote for up to 2 books! No more than that!
Thanks!
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Fall Book Club Selection
Sounds like The Weekenders discussion was enjoyable (sorry I missed it - kids). The book was a light entertaining read. Kim C volunteered to select our next book. We will be reading All the Ever Afters by Danielle Teller. Next meeting date will be some time in October or possible early Nov depending on Kim's availability.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
The Weekenders Meeting and Discussion Questions
We are meeting on Aug 29th at Wings Etc to discuss The Weekenders. I hope you all can make it. Book Club Discussion questions were a little light for this whodunit but I found a few:
- Which character surprised you the most?
- The Southern society was evident in this story. How did the social traditions help the story and how did it hinder?
- Compare the mother daughter relationship between Riley and her mother and Maggy and Riley.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
What to say when you run out of stuff to talk about....
From BookRiot:
It takes a lot to get yourself to book club: you have to acquire a book, read that book, and then, most problematic of all: show up to spend time with other people. Other people you probably know only in the context of the hour you spend together once a month sipping rosé around a folding table.
So when you do get yourself to that folding table, it feels really satisfying to wax poetic on your favorite parts of a good book, and even better to question the author’s narrative choices in the bad ones. There’s nothing more gratifying than being the only person in the group who picked up on the protagonist’s latent sexual feelings towards his sister’s cocker spaniel. But sometimes fifteen minutes go by, everyone dutifully says whether they loved or loathed, and then silence settles over the room. Maybe everyone secretly only read the first chapter, or maybe half the people who showed up misinterpreted the ‘Giovanni’s Room Discussion’ Facebook event as an author appearance. Sometimes discussion just isn’t flowing.
Book Club Discussion Questions
But still, you’ve gotten yourself there, there’s half a bottle of rosé left, and everyone’s looking into their Dixie cups of wine praying for someone to break the silence. Here are a couple things you can say to be the book club conversational hero and to eke out enough of a discussion that people feel intellectually sustained until the next month’s meeting.
“I wonder how much of this is autobiographical?”
It’s really fun, and easy book club fodder, to conflate the characters with the author. Turn to her author bio and wonder aloud whether that cat she lives with is a stand-in for a certain cocker spaniel.
“Did you guys find the protagonist to be likable? Do you think, as readers, we need to like him?”
There’s this big divide between readers who have a serious problem with a book when they don’t find the characters likable and readers who are sort of turned on by hating the protagonist. Say something about how limited literature would be if it existed just to please the casual reader, sit back, and watch the world burn.
“Do we need another book about unfulfilled people who live in Brooklyn?”
You can customize this question appropriately if you’re not reading a book about creatively unhappy people living in Brooklyn, but you probably are, so go ahead and debate how many forms of sadness a brownstone in Williamsburg can take.
“I was really distracted by the author’s choice to include one talking zombie.”
What distracted you, pulled you out of the “vivid and continuous dream,” is a great way to get conversation going. Second person narration, magical realism, the Rorschach coffee stains in someone’s library copy: all topics that people will happily expound upon for a good couple of minutes.
“Did other people notice that sexual deviancy seemed to be a common thread throughout the book?”
Literary people freaking love talking about the ‘threads’ throughout a book. Sometimes we’re bold and call them themes, but for the PG-13 literary crowd it’s all about threads. It’s best if you can point out something really specific that will send people into their books to investigate how they could have missed that Little House on the Prairie was mentioned so many times.
“Should we have snacks next month?”
Dietary restrictions and the relative merits of cheese and crackers versus chocolate chip cookies are evergreen topics.
“So—how is everyone getting home?”
When every possible avenue for book-related discussion has truly been exhausted, commuting is a topic that even strangers can find common ground on for hours. When all else fails, spend the last 45 minutes talking about how everybody is getting home—whose bus is always late, which subway line has been delayed all week, how many streets are closed for construction.
If you’re still having trouble after test driving these foolproof questions, our Book Group Resources might be able to help.
It takes a lot to get yourself to book club: you have to acquire a book, read that book, and then, most problematic of all: show up to spend time with other people. Other people you probably know only in the context of the hour you spend together once a month sipping rosé around a folding table.
So when you do get yourself to that folding table, it feels really satisfying to wax poetic on your favorite parts of a good book, and even better to question the author’s narrative choices in the bad ones. There’s nothing more gratifying than being the only person in the group who picked up on the protagonist’s latent sexual feelings towards his sister’s cocker spaniel. But sometimes fifteen minutes go by, everyone dutifully says whether they loved or loathed, and then silence settles over the room. Maybe everyone secretly only read the first chapter, or maybe half the people who showed up misinterpreted the ‘Giovanni’s Room Discussion’ Facebook event as an author appearance. Sometimes discussion just isn’t flowing.
Book Club Discussion Questions
But still, you’ve gotten yourself there, there’s half a bottle of rosé left, and everyone’s looking into their Dixie cups of wine praying for someone to break the silence. Here are a couple things you can say to be the book club conversational hero and to eke out enough of a discussion that people feel intellectually sustained until the next month’s meeting.
“I wonder how much of this is autobiographical?”
It’s really fun, and easy book club fodder, to conflate the characters with the author. Turn to her author bio and wonder aloud whether that cat she lives with is a stand-in for a certain cocker spaniel.
“Did you guys find the protagonist to be likable? Do you think, as readers, we need to like him?”
There’s this big divide between readers who have a serious problem with a book when they don’t find the characters likable and readers who are sort of turned on by hating the protagonist. Say something about how limited literature would be if it existed just to please the casual reader, sit back, and watch the world burn.
“Do we need another book about unfulfilled people who live in Brooklyn?”
You can customize this question appropriately if you’re not reading a book about creatively unhappy people living in Brooklyn, but you probably are, so go ahead and debate how many forms of sadness a brownstone in Williamsburg can take.
“I was really distracted by the author’s choice to include one talking zombie.”
What distracted you, pulled you out of the “vivid and continuous dream,” is a great way to get conversation going. Second person narration, magical realism, the Rorschach coffee stains in someone’s library copy: all topics that people will happily expound upon for a good couple of minutes.
“Did other people notice that sexual deviancy seemed to be a common thread throughout the book?”
Literary people freaking love talking about the ‘threads’ throughout a book. Sometimes we’re bold and call them themes, but for the PG-13 literary crowd it’s all about threads. It’s best if you can point out something really specific that will send people into their books to investigate how they could have missed that Little House on the Prairie was mentioned so many times.
“Should we have snacks next month?”
Dietary restrictions and the relative merits of cheese and crackers versus chocolate chip cookies are evergreen topics.
“So—how is everyone getting home?”
When every possible avenue for book-related discussion has truly been exhausted, commuting is a topic that even strangers can find common ground on for hours. When all else fails, spend the last 45 minutes talking about how everybody is getting home—whose bus is always late, which subway line has been delayed all week, how many streets are closed for construction.
If you’re still having trouble after test driving these foolproof questions, our Book Group Resources might be able to help.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Summer Book Selection
We all enjoyed The Changeling (thank you Kelly!). Bridget picked out our next book for August: The Weekenders by Mary Kay Andrews. I will email out the poll for the next meeting time but we're aiming for before Labor Day - end of August.
Hope you are enjoying the [finally] glorious weather!
Hope you are enjoying the [finally] glorious weather!
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