Thursday, September 6, 2007

Book Club Selection Night update!

I know, my readers (all three of you) have been waiting with baited breath to see what we chose for our book club for the upcoming year. We had a great turnout last night, and man, did these girls come prepared! I'm publishing both the reading list and the list of things that got recommended but didn't make the cut. I've read a lot of the books, and they're good ones!

October- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (because we're all reading it anyway, and we all love us a good vampire romance near Halloween)

November- Life of Pi by Yann Martel (to turn us into amateur philosophers)

December- The Alchemist by Paul Coelho (inspiration for the holidays)

February- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (to make us glad we don't have to have our babies on the side of a field)

March- The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason ("The DaVinci Code without all of that Christ crap")

April- Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (to make us more generous)

May- Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson (to help us feel better about letting our kids watch endless hours of Noggin)

June- The Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (because we all need a good cry every once in a while)

July- Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins (because we missed out on that in our college experience)


August- The Road by Cormac McCarthy (because Jen's family said we have to read it)

September- Selection Night 2008
And the ones that didn't make the cut...
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Last Girls by Lee Smith
Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
Kabul Beauty School by Barbara Rodgriguez
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Spy Wore Red by Aline Romanos
The Girl of the Limberlost by Jean Stratton Porter
Peace Like a River by Leif Engler
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Confessions of a Shopahlolic by Sophie Kinsella
For More One Day by Mitch Albom
Life is So Good by George Dawson
The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Life's Golden Ticket by Brendon Burchard
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

11 comments:

Kelly said...

Wow, that is a really good list. Nothing brings me out of lurkdom more than a good book discussion, hope you don't mind if I throw in my two cents.

I'm reading Good Earth for a book club right now and am absolutely loving it. I was sure I had read it back in H.S. but none of it is familiar. Enthralled!

Greg Mortensen's Three Teas, I loved how the story read like a nice work of fiction. Much enjoyment there.

I definitely felt better about video games after reading Everything is Bad, but now am back to thinking it was written by a man, who probably practices selective hearing because his brain is mush from too many video games. And since that is the path my kids are on too, I have to disagree with Mr. Johnson.

Twilight, ah, teenage love.

Kermit~the~Frog said...

I have read exactly none of those. Maybe I will read along with your club until I find one of my own.

Emily said...

So many great books, so little time! We have read several of those (and others on your didn't make it list too)- all great! Thanks for the other ideas too.

Char @ Crap I've Made said...

My cousin gave me Twilight just last night. She told me not to read the back, LOL!

lyn said...

I really WAS waiting with baited breath!!

And, your comments prove you have more than 3 readers!

Courtney said...

It looks like a good well-rounded list. Your group looks a little more progressive and younger than mine based on your book selections. I bet noone in your group has been offended by Fannie Flagg. Thanks for the book ideas. I've heard good things about Three Teas.

Lucy said...

Three fans...pshaw!

Is that a ward book group???? If so, I'm impressed.

I think the saddest thing about selecting books is having to leave so many out.

TJ said...

i have read beneath a marble sky, angelas ashes, little women, and the scarlett letter. not a fan of hawthorne, but the rest are great books. and angeleas ashes continues in Tis and Teacher Man. i will have to come back to this post once i've read the bag of about 7 books i have waiting for me. i'll post about those too. i wish i could spend the whole day reading sometimes...

Christi said...

I must admit that I get many of the books I read from this blog. I have read a few on your list and loved them and I think I will pick up a couple of the ones on the list (and the did not make it list).

I also want to know if this is a ward book club. We have a ward book club and now we have the all mighty sensor of the ward book club, after we read the memory keepers daughter (they thought it was too depressing and eek she had an affair).

Grr. So I am bailing out of that as soon as I get off the R.S. enrichment committee.

Thanks for all the recommendations, maybe I can sneak a good book in that isn't all about perfecly, happy people with cardboard children.

Queen of the Castle said...

I'm in Shelah's book group, and it is sort of a Relief Society book group. It isn't official because we didn't want to go through the mess of making sure that we don't read books that would offend, which is hard.
I'm glad we have done it this way. That way people no from the get go that we aren't out to offend anyone, and that if you don't like what we are reading, the only people you have to complain to are other book club members, not the ward leadership.

Shelah said...

Yeah, what she said. We had the option of making it an official ward book club, but when the RS President told me that the bishop would have to approve every book, I opted (on behalf of the group as a whole) to keep it as a splinter group. It's open to anyone, though.