CFC Book Club

[dot80]

I was wondering if any of you would be interested in forming summer book club. We would all read a book at the same time, discuss its meanings/characters/ect and come to some kind of consensus about it (or not, wherever conversation takes us). I was thinking each member would have their turn at choosing the book to be read, and would lead discussions about the book as we are reading it. While I originally intended for this to be an excuse for me to read and talk about books of 'literary merit' (Hemingway, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Orwell, Morrison, ect), I suppose we could extend it to more popular books as well. I would like the discussion to remain analytical in nature however.

If there isn't any interest for this type of thing here, a link pointing me in the right direction of where to go would also be appreciated.

First book (assuming I would get to choose first and everyone is happy with my selection) would be The Scarlet Letter.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I can't think of a better group of potential conversationalists than here at CFC. I'd be happy to join in.

 

[Hygro]

Am interested in the idea but I'm pretty picky about the book we read

 

[ummmm........]

I imagine the trouble would be agreeing on a book. I'm about to start The Wings of the Dove, if anyone's interested . . .

 

[dot80]

Glad to see some interest! The idea I had to combat pickiness is that everybody gets to choose. So maybe The Wings of the Dove isn't my first choice and The Scarlet Letter isn't yours, but because we know that we will get to read a book of our own choosing, we can keep an open mind about the book others are choosing. That being said, if anyone is vehemently opposed to The Scarlet Letter or Wings of the Dove (in the case that somebody has already read it and hated it) then we can also do them the curtesy in picking another.

 

[Lillefix]

Choosing books would be difficult yes. Personally I would avoid anything a typical 50 year old high school English teacher would suggest.

 

[dot80]

Well also because of the different tastes we can at least be sure to get a variety. Scarlet Letter (and many of my other choices) are something a 50 year old English teacher may have suggested or already have read. However in respecting the book choices of others, and establishing an atmosphere of open-mindedness I think this can be thoroughly enjoyable no matter the book. It is not as though we all have to go out and buy each one, my plan was heavy use of the local library.

Now that we have a few interested, I suppose we could begin talking about realistic reading schedules and how we will make the book choice. A few chapters a week (50-100pgs) seems like a light pace to me, depending on the level of difficulty of the text we are reading. As for how to choose, I think everyone should get a chance to pick a book.

 

[Lillefix]

Okay then. It's not as if I'm going to read the scarlet letter otherwise. I'll amazon it tonight.

 

[dot80]

Oh we definitely don't have to read my book first if someone else would like to go first. Just using books already given as examples. But my point exactly is that I've never heard of Wings of a Dove and don't have the faintest idea of what it's about, but am open to reading it if someone else thinks it could be good enough for discussion and reading. Thank you for the open mindedness!

 

[Antilogic]

While I would have been interested years ago, I'm pretty much an exclusive non-fiction reader now.

I'll subscribe and follow, though.

 

[dot80]

I'm trying myself to get into nonfiction. I'm having a hard time with it. The closest I've gotten is fiction-like nonfiction in the vein of In Cold Blood or Devil in the White City.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'll join in. I've got a book in mind that I think would benefit the folks here if they read it.

 

[Quintillus]

I was just thinking the other day about how I miss my old Russian literature classes. I'll tentatively join. I haven't read The Scarlet Letter, so I'm okay with starting with that. Probably best not to start with Finnegan's Wake. 50 - 100 pages a week sounds reasonable to me. I was thinking a month per book initially, but some books are much longer than others.

 

[Goodfella]

I've read Scarlet Letter, so I'll join in at least for now.

 

[dot80]

Wow! Much more interest than I anticipated! Very encouraging. Since it seems we have a few (myself included) happy with The Scarlet Letter as a choice, I think it's safe to start there.

Everyone up for reading it, I'd say its fair to give until May 19th to get a copy of the book and read the first 70 pages. Looking at my copy, that'll get us up through chapter 4. If anyone needs more time than that, we can push the deadline a bit. If you are officially joining and reading The Scarlet Letter, a confirmation post would be good just to get a gauge.

The only other thing is that any early The Scarlet Letter discussion should be safely hidden in spoilers until the official date so as not to spoil the book for those of us who haven't read it.

 

[Leifmk]

I'm down!

Being in the public domain, thing's available as a free ebook here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33

 

[Antilogic]

You know what us busy CFCers should do? A Cliff's Notes book club. #highdeas

 

[madviking]

or we all can do the thug notes version


Link to video.

 

[dot80]

Wondering how everyone is doing with this. I'm at about page 50 now, have a little bit of reading to do this weekend!

 

[CommonKnowledge]

I read The Scarlet Letter a few years ago but could still talk about it when everyone else is finished. Picked up the Barnes and Noble edition recently as well which always looks great on a bookshelf, if you don't mind spending that bit extra.

Spoiler :