Stop that right now! I can hear the smacking!

Giles ,'Never Leave Me'


The Buffista Book Club: the Harry Potter iteration  

This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.

By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.

***SPOILER ALERT***

  • **Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lie here. Read at your own risk***


DavidS - Jul 13, 2004 7:17:20 pm PDT #119 of 3301
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Woo, glad I caught up before the lists were entirely set.

I'll have to mull over some suggestions for the list.

I wonder if we could do a Select the Selector every fourth book or so. It intrigues me as an idea. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. We can build our own traditions. I think it might be a good way to keep people involved, enthusiastic and add some wildcard elements.


JenP - Jul 13, 2004 7:20:57 pm PDT #120 of 3301

I wonder if we could do a Select the Selector every fourth book or so. It intrigues me as an idea. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. We can build our own traditions. I think it might be a good way to keep people involved, enthusiastic and add some wildcard elements.

Agreeing muchly.


DavidS - Jul 13, 2004 7:26:48 pm PDT #121 of 3301
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

It'll be fun - after we finish a three book cycle, we'll spin a large virtual wheel and somebody gets to be The Boss Of Us that month (at least as far as reading matter).

"Bwahahahhaha! You'll all read Ethan Frome and you'll LIKE IT!"

Okay, it goes without saying MM is right out.


Kathy A - Jul 13, 2004 7:27:39 pm PDT #122 of 3301
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil

Very cool idea!! Also, I love the suggestion upthread of pairing up books. A suggestion for two relatively recent selections, one fiction and one non-fiction (the non-fiction author got the idea of the book from reading the fiction one)--The Alienist by Caleb Carr and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. The first is a wonderfully creepy serial killer book set in 1890s NYC, with real people fictionalized and intermingling with the original characters. The second has parallel storylines, one dealing with Daniel Burnham, architect and organizer of the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the other with a serial killer who actually did transform his hotel on the outskirts of the fair into a death factory, where he killed an unknown number of women.


Amy - Jul 13, 2004 7:35:44 pm PDT #123 of 3301
Because books.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I love this pairing. I've been wanting to read The Alienist again, and a friend just finished The Devil in the White City and said it was fascinating.

Maybe pairings should be stretched over two months, though? I'm usually a fast reader, but with a baby under eight months, not so much at the moment. And I hate the idea of skimming to keep up.


Connie Neil - Jul 13, 2004 7:44:35 pm PDT #124 of 3301
brillig

Hopefully everything we come up with will be available at the library, because my book buying budget is pretty nill.

And the anarchist in my head wants me to rec "Roget's Pocket Thesaurus." Yes, the reference book. Could be worse, the anarchist could be looking up the recipes for nitroglycerin.


Kathy A - Jul 13, 2004 7:57:20 pm PDT #125 of 3301
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil

Some other non-novel suggestions--a Bill Bryson book, perhaps A Walk in the Woods? A collection of essays/columns, perhaps by Mike Royko or Molly Ivins? A biography/memoir or two?

Just tossing out ideas.


Susan W. - Jul 13, 2004 8:05:27 pm PDT #126 of 3301
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

OK. I think I'm going to at least try this book club thing and see how it goes.

I'd hoped to offer a romance or two for my suggestions, but all the ones I wanted to recommend are out of print. So, instead I'm going to recommend some romance-ish books:

Jaran, by Kate Elliott. Described by the author as "Jane Austen meets Genghis Khan on the set of Lawrence of Arabia," it's a science fiction novel that feels more like fantasy or historical fiction in many ways, since it's mostly set on a low-tech planet among nomads on horseback. And it's a romance, and a coming-of-age story about finding yourself, and your family, and escaping and failing to escape your past. And, IMO, a damn good read all around.

Persuasion, by Jane Austen. Not my favorite Austen--that's P&P. But IMO it's her richest, most mature, and most satisfying work.


Strega - Jul 13, 2004 9:49:45 pm PDT #127 of 3301

I'm just throwing this out because DavidS (I think) mentioned Ford Madox Ford a while back.... but if you ever do the "unreliable narrator" theme, you should include The Good Soldier. I don't want to be impose-y Buffista X about suggesting it unless someone seconds interest (at which point I can go on and on about it with little provocation) but that theme caught my eye.

Vonnie K -- I loved House of Leaves, but it might not be a good selection because it's very much a love-it-or-hate-it book. It starts very slowly with an irritating narrator, and there's a ton of postmodern funkyness in the text (flip through it and just look at the page layouts). I think people would either devour it or throw it across the room after 20 minutes.


Gris - Jul 13, 2004 9:54:34 pm PDT #128 of 3301
Hey. New board.

If we can do plays, my brother HIGHLY recommends "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard. I'd like to do some, but we might need to do them in pairs...