whichwaydidshego?'s comments
(member since Sep 05, 2007)
whichwaydidshego?'s comments from the The Rory Gilmore Book Club group.
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**THIS IS A REPEAT POST: PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS POST IN THE RORY BOOK DISCUSSIONS SECTION.**
Hey Rory Club members!
We moderators have noticed how the monthly book discussions have seriously fallen off in the last few months. We thought, therefore, that starting in January we would cease to have monthly books. Instead, any one can start a thread to discuss a book on Rory’s list. Further, if you want to invite others to read a book from Rory’s list with you, we will post a thread at the top of the Rory Book Discussions folder where you can let everyone know what you are reading and when you’d like to start the discussions.
Also, this is not to say that at some point in the future we mightn’t pick up the monthly selections again. But for now and in the minds of the moderators, this seems to be a good choice. Please feel free to let us know your feelings on this topic. This has always been a group where everyone has a voice – and is heard.
Thank you and keep reading!
Michele, Alison, & Dini
Hey Rory Club members!
We moderators have noticed how the monthly book discussions have seriously fallen off in the last few months. We thought, therefore, that starting in January we would cease to have monthly books. Instead, any one can start a thread to discuss a book on Rory’s list. Further, if you want to invite others to read a book from Rory’s list with you, we will post a thread at the top of the Rory Book Discussions folder where you can let everyone know what you are reading and when you’d like to start the discussions.
Also, this is not to say that at some point in the future we mightn’t pick up the monthly selections again. But for now and in the minds of the moderators, this seems to be a good choice. Please feel free to let us know your feelings on this topic. This has always been a group where everyone has a voice – and is heard.
Thank you and keep reading!
Michele, Alison, & Dini
SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERSAlison wrote: "Shirley Jackson had this amazing, albeit negative, perspective of people. Throughout all of these stories, I think she shows an underlying lack of trust and disregard for other people..."
Hmm. I just see Jackson as a really good observer of humanity. And someone who adeptly tells a story to point out societal pitfalls - way before it was vogue to do so - with a wry and slightly twisted sense of humor. Like the story "After You My Dear Alphonse," where the mother assumes the black kid's family is poor, needy, uneducated, and laborers. This was written long before the civil rights movement! Or in "The Renegade" where the unappreciated lady recently moved to the country has all these crazy expectations on her and she's falling apart. Worse, all her decisions are being made for her. This is pre-1950's wifely expectations, yet she's already showing how insane that is. It's like she uses her stories to say, "Tisk-tisk!"
I did think "Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors" was hilarious! My favorite so far has been "The Witch" because while the guy that tells the kid about creatively killing and then cutting his own sister's head off and feeding it to a caged bear is proprietorially way out of line, he recognized exactly what the kid wanted and loved and reveled in the telling of it. It was at once a disturbing story and completely fantastic because the kid's imagination just devoured it delightedly and then dismissed it. Maybe I'm just a bit twisted, too... :D
Look forward to finishing it soon!
It'd be a fun challenge, though...
Meghan wrote: "Anna wrote: "Everyone can make their own 1001 books you must read before you die list."That would be an interesting thing to do some rainy day. I wonder if I've even read 1001 books worth recommending?"
I think the key would be "worth recommending," for sure!
Well, I gave a bunch of the looming library books back without reading them (which I hate), but I feel much less pressure now, so am actively reading again! I'm speeding through The Lottery, then it's back to finish The Colour of Magic as I interrupted it with American on Purpose and to finish an annoying book. What's great is I have not been in the right frame of mind for short stories for like a year, so every time I start a collection I get annoyed and toss it back. But I'm flying through The Lottery! Such a nice change to be up for them again!
Lori, Public Enemies sounds really interesting.I found a book I am most definitely absorbed with, but time is my problem! I think I might skiff off tomorrow just to read American on Purpose. I was crushing on Craig Ferguson before the book, but now I'm really interested!
I expected a bawdy tale filled book about his exploits, humorous and otherwise, but this is quite another thing. I mean, I'm sure I'll get to some of those, but this is a real autobiography... very personal. And I really love his writing style.
All day I've been pining to read it and haven't gotten more than a few paragraphs in - it's horrible and wonderful, this wanting!
I want to be absorbed in a book again! Gah! Must-read-soon.
Katri, I really liked what you had to say... and I agree with that last statement about the critics. While I'm a list person, I'm also that "rebel" you talk about. I have found a couple great books on the list I'd never have read, though none from the 2000's - LOL.El, you said: "I don't know anyone who reads from the list as if they are being "told" they have to read from it." I believe that Katri was saying that's what it felt like to her. And in fact, it does to me too. That's part of the reason I really have to work at not seeing that as one of my lists. I have a selected group of books from it that I want to read. That's my list. I like to check things off, but 1001 is crazy excessive - and I don't agree with some of it that I have read, so I'm pretty sure I'd not agree with many I haven't yet read.
I totally get what you mean about books you have to read a half dozen times or more for different classes. That's why I hate The Great Gatsby so intensely. I didn't think it was all that in the first place, and HATED that it is continually called "The Great American Novel." Bollocks. There are far better American novels, and far better American novels that sum up the American dream and the American experience. Stop force-feeding that slop!
To all of you who adore it, be glad you didn't study literature at several different schools. Even if you loved it, I think you'd hate it after 9 scouring readings! Yuck. Oh, and I'm sorry for berating a favorite of yours!
Have you read her latest, Carrie? I haven't found a copy yet, since I'm a used bookstore junkie... but I keep looking!
Wow, DJ, you pulled this thread up from the archives!! Rebecca is still one of my top books & I still have a couple more of du Maurier's titles on my shelves I'm YEARNING to get to. Soon for at least one of them. Actually, someone in this group recommended The Scapegoat, so that's the one for which I'm really pining! I'm really interested in The Rebecca Notebook, but I'd rather see what you think of it first... especially as I have a closet full of unread books I'm itching to get to as it is! Keep us informed & happy reading!
Misty, agreed! Well, so long as it's the kind of sick that you can do that with (I'm remembering migraines and such things).I think at the end of last month when I realized I'd hit such a huge milestone in my reading numbers, I flipped out and haven't read much since. Okay, two other factors: I started playing Mafia War on Facebook and am mildly addicted (my addictions are always shortlived). Also - and this is the biggest one - I got too many books from the library in my list mania and got overwhelmed with the looming deadlines. Deer in headlight syndrome - I froze.
Anyway, all that to say I'm still in the midst of The Colour of Magic.
Dottie, here's the link for the BBC list: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100...I believe that the reason the 1001 list has so many books by the same authors is because the list was made to show the evolution of the formation of the novel. So often one author through the course of their works elevated and refined this process greatly. At least, that's the explanation I remember reading... somewhere.
Like less than five pages in on The Colour of Magic I was sitting in the doctors office and some guy doctor I didn't know walks by and I burst out laughing at the "Big Bang" theory of the universe in the book. He said something to me about it being a funny book. I TRIED to say something about a world on the back of a turtle... he thought I was utterly insane. No really, he honestly looked worried... also, he never responded, but just pretended he'd never said anything to me at all. Did I mention this was the gynecologist's office? Sadly I've not gotten too far in because I'm all over the place with projects. It's kind of ticking me off.
This is one of the lists I work from, but I do not nor did I ever intend on reading the entire thing through. For one thing, a lot of the modern books are not my taste. I sort of have a "list within the list" I'm working from, and own a TON of them that I've yet to read - like hundreds. But of the ones I intend to read, it's fun having that list from which to check them off! My other two lists are Rory's original list, of course, and the BBC The Big Read Top 100. I'm kind of focused on the latter one currently, mostly because I have a load of them I'd requested that all came up at my library at once.
Oh, oops. I didn't see they were both already nominated. Was just looking for and concentrating on "scary."
I wish this was ending now, because I REALLY want to know! I want to dive in straightaway before I have a chance to get involved in too many other things, or more specifically other books!
I caved to one of the demanding library books that was from a list I'm working my way through... and perhaps it's good I did because honestly it really wasn't all that fun and so I pushed really hard through it so that I could get to more enjoyable things... I mean, I couldn't leave it languishing because it had to go back to the library! One more ticked off of that list! I just picked up two that I'm excited to read, but have one more that is due quite soon... so not sure which order I'll read them. I think I'm going to go straight for the Pratchett first, then jump back to the other, just for a bit of whimsy.
I'm pretty excited, though, because if I finish 3 more books by Monday, I'll have read 60 books so far this year! Woohoo! That's crazy when I think how I read only two books one month. But this month I've read 16 SO FAR - and that's with 10 days of no reading earlier in the month!!
Anyway, so almost sure now I'll be biting into The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Almost. Maybe Good Night, Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian will wield it's way back to the top, though, before I go to the bookshelf.
Finished Artemis... I liked it. And Elizabeth, the fairies for the most part aren't evil, just like with humans there are some that are too enterprising for their own good and some are criminals or drunks, but it's the fairies you hope win the struggle, NOT Artemis! I liked it. I'll likely read more of them down the road. Just now I want to continue on one or the other of my lists... or perhaps just a book I actually own (but that isn't on any list) as I have several hundred sitting but a few feet away, unread, and begging for my attention. Which is why I'm so often distracted - they call to me, and I am daily tempted. I wish I could quite literally devour the lot of them. What's worse is now I've got these library books leering at me because of their deadline. So irritating, them. I mean I obviously want to read them, but I truly hate demanding books. The cheek of them!
I'm sipping my tea and vacillating between caving to their demands and picking one of them up or throwing out the rule book for a few days and reading something ridiculous and entirely unrelated to any list - or even any series I'm in the middle of. I'm being entirely too efficient and organized about my reading all of the sudden!
What to do... what to do?
The Rory Gilmore Book Club
