Non-Financial Book Club *UPDATE IN OP*

[zibazinski]

The one I am reading now is called THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED by Jeff Greenfield. Amazing book. IMHO, it starts out slow but then I had to stay up all night to read about Kennedy and LBJ. I think you need to be old enough to know about these presidents, though, and some of the history and current events that were happening when they were president.

[Firebird]

Ahhh I just started Part III of Catching Fire. WTF'ingF?!?!?!??!?!?!?! These books are eating my brain, I swear.

I do not see how they can escape an R rating if they show certain parts of this book in the next movie.

[movingforward]

Firebird - you have got me all fired up about starting the 1st book this weekend - ha

[Firebird]

[wvugurl26]

I have the book now. A different coworker finished it today and loaned it to me.

We also have a bag of those army guys with parachutes to distribute to coworkers at opportune moments. We thought we were the fringes of the Capitol but now it appears we are District 13

[Firebird]

[wvugurl26]

Seriously there's this website that is under DC's control and now we can only access bits and pieces of it so we changed our mind.

Apparently they had great fun doing this with Harry Potter so we are trying it lol.

[pammy831]

I so want to join! I was going to join a book club in my hometown recently, but they meet on Friday nights and I enjoy spending Friday nights with my hubby too much to give them up lol. I'd probably go if they had the meeting on a week night.

I've read the first Hunger Games book and I loved it! DH and I are going to see the movie tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it.

I read The Help and thought it was absolutely fabulous. The book way way outdid the movie.

I've also read The Glass Castle which was mentioned earlier. It's my second favorite book of all time.

[Happy prose]

Pammy831...me too. Did you read her second book Half Broke Horses? Also good. Hard to imagine that Glass Castle was her first book.

[Deleted]

It was her first book, but not her first writing. She wrote for magazines for years.

(ETA: apparently she did write a gossip book earlier, but not a memior... she has a great voice, able to make sense of and give balance to those things which it is hard in a straight telling of the facts to make sense of or give balance to... )

[pammy831]

happyprose - Yes, I also read Half Broke Horses. I was really happy when I heard that she came out with a second book. I don't think it topped The Glass Castle for me, but it was also an excellent book.

oped - I agree with your assessment. She seems to be able to give me vivid images of what is going on, even though I'm not that imaginative of a person.

General suggestion for the book club:
Some may disagree, but I think a whole month seems so far away to start talking about The Hunger Games lol. I know that a lot of people are strapped for time, but this book in particular is such a quick read. Maybe we could do 3 weeks from now instead of a month?

[Happy prose]

My problem is getting a copy of the book in time. I have a few hopefuls in about 2 weeks. I thought I'd get a jump and order the other two from the library, but they won't even put me on a list. They said try back in six weeks!

[Deleted]

Would it help if we picked a few more titles for the next 3-6 months ? So that those of us done with the Hunger Games could start on something else ?

[KaraBoo]

I am in the manority here....I've read all of the Hunger Game books and just saw the movie this weekend.

I was not impressed with the movie.

I was not impressed with the books.

I still can't wait until you talk about the books though...I can't wait until we start!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Loved The Glass Castle!

Hunger Games was good also, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to the rest of the trilogy.

I read THe Girl Who Played With fire this week because I had this week off. It's pretty intense and comprehensive. I hope to get to the third book this June/July.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Karaboo, I thought the Hunger Games was good in the sense that it is Young Adult Fiction. Now, I read a lot of YAF because I teach in K12 education. I wouldn't have that it was brilliant had it been written for adults.

[Firebird]

Some may disagree, but I think a whole month seems so far away to start talking about The Hunger Games lol. I know that a lot of people are strapped for time, but this book in particular is such a quick read. Maybe we could do 3 weeks from now instead of a month?

I'm totally fine with this - the reason I suggested a month is because it seems like this book is difficult to come by for those who don't want to buy it and plan to get it from the library. That's the only reason I suggested the extra time, because it IS a fast read once you get going.

[Firebird]

Would it help if we picked a few more titles for the next 3-6 months ? So that those of us done with the Hunger Games could start on something else ?

The problem is that once you read a book you want to start discussing it.

karaboo, I can't wait for your thoughts because I think you're the first person I've heard from who gave the whole thing a thumbs down.

[wvugurl26]

I have it I just need to read it. I read quickly so moving the deadline is fine with me.

[Deleted]

You need to pick a few though. Even if people don't want to read ahead, they can be getting copies of the books... putting their names on the list at the library, etc. You don't want to be waiting around every month for people to get their hands on a copy... I'd say you want to have at least 3 months ahead of time figured out... Maybe you could do a poll and let people vote for what they want to read / read next... take the top 3 ? ... something like that...

[whoisjohngalt]

Oped, you are such an "organizer"

[Firebird]

I agree! Oped, do you want to organize the nominations? (I'll volunteer if you'd rather not

[Deleted]

Do it here? Or start a new thread? I would say, take the first 20 suggestions by people and then put those in a poll, give people so many days to vote and then put the #1 next month #2 the next... for the top 3 and then after #2 book is read, do it again... How does that sound ?

[Firebird]

Sounds like a good way to keep us occupied until it's time to start the HG discussion. You can do it on here.

One small suggestion - instead of capping it at flat 20, I'd say cap it at 1 nomination per poster, and give everyone 3 days to nominate. That way you're not overwhelmed with numbers but if someone doesn't see this until tomorrow they don't miss their chance to nominate a book.

Let me know if you want me to edit the OP so people know about the nominations. (I'd vote for not starting a new thread just because this isn't specifically money-related and I don't want the mods to get frustrated with us.)

[Firebird]

Another way we can occupy ourselves until the discussion starts is by coming up with discussion questions for the roundtable. Anyone have any good ones to start us off?

[Deleted]

Ok. I'm not sure I can change the OP on this thread... so you may have to do it ... Or i can start another one? Can a non-op person add a poll? I think that's a good idea, 1 per person. 3 days to nominate. Thursday to Nominate, Sunday to vote? ...

[Firebird]

Oped, I went ahead and changed the OP. Let me know if it sounds good to you. I'm happy to change any of the dates or details.

I'll keep track of the discussion questions as long as they are labeled.

Everyone, please label nominations and discussion questions to help me and oped sort through all the posts. Thanks

[Firebird]

NOMINATION

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger. Pretty much my absolute all-time favorite book

[pammy831]

I think the nomination and planning sound like great ideas. The nominations will help to make it fair. I just hope everyone doesn't vote for their own book that they nominated or we'll be at a stalemate hahaha.

I thought of a good discussion question, but if I post it now, I think some of us may be too tempted to start talking about it now, which would ruin it for the ones who haven't read it yet lol. So I will keep it in my brain until the time limit is up. So do we wanna make the new deadline April 22nd?

[Firebird]

Pammy I thought of that - but I think it could be good to have a stock of questions to start the discussion off on May 1st... and this way no one will forget their questions. When the discussion grows stale we can pull a new question from the list to revive things.

Do you think we have the self-discipline not to discuss in advance?