Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
How could I have forgotten
Lamb
? It's one of the salonista'a favorite books.
Steinbeck is the reason for the California theme. When people selected authors of focus, Steinbeck, Greene, and Dickens were the most popular. But I think reading just one author will not work as well with the salon concept. Russian authors was our least succesful topic, mostly because it meant we dissected books like in a book club, rather than discussing the general theme. So I basically chose themes that thos eauthors could fit into fairly easily.
Well, the "book" books are pretty centered on reading or writing.
Oh, for war, "The Things They Carried"? If you also do nonfiction, there's "Achilles in Vietnam", which is good paired with The Iliad.
Are you only looking for fiction?
For war, what about the World War I poets, particularly the ones who died in the war? There are a lot online: [link] [link] Also, Kipling's
Barrack Room Ballads.
There are also Kipling's poems on colonialism, including White Man's Burden; Mandalay; Recessional; and Padgett, MP, which I like mainly for:
The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
The Things They Carried
I saw that one, but for a lot of those, I was just choosing on instinct. I'm trying to keep the lists to 20 or so, but if there are great things I'm missing, I want to add them. Of course, I don't think the war category will be chosen anytime soon, but you never know, we're getting a few more members and I don't know their tastes.
But dystopian novels and classic boys adventure have yet to win a vote.
Are you only looking for fiction?
Not necessarily (I'm reading
Two Years Before the Mast
for this month), but that is mostly what we focus on.
For the War theme, how about
The Forever War
and The Killer Angels?
Also: any of the historical fiction by C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell, or Kenneth Roberts.
In that case, I'l throw in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for California Dreamin'
Also: any of the historical fiction by C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell, or Kenneth Roberts.
I didn't add the first two because they are on the "Water, Water" list, but I'll look into the others.
You could go with with Emily of New Moon instead.
For Colonialism, The Siege of Krishnpur, JG Farrell, The Quiet American or The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. ETA: Sorry, I see you already have those Graham Greene books.
For California, you could include a lot of Didion novels, but I would pick Play it As it Lays. Also, I would include The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon, Day of the Locust, by Nathaniel West.
I find this harder to do with books than movies or music.
