The Rory Gilmore Book Club discussion
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What else are you currently reading?
Erin -- so glad you discovered this little gem of a story. I thought that I'd read Hanff had met with some of the people who had benefitted from the care packages she sent to the bookseller's establishment over the years but may be mistaken. At any rate I'd ecommend reading further about the author and the stories behind this book. And the love affair was definitely related to the mutual love affair with books.
I am reading A Room With a View. I like it a lot more than I expected to, unlike The Golden Notebook. I'm about a 100 pages into that. I don't know why, but I had such high expectations, and I'm not really interested in it.
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And: "I'm generally reading 3 or 4 books at once. I just take days and weeks off."
Lori, I think you and I have similar reading styles... between the genre jumping, the book selecting, reading several at once, and taking time off we're very similar.
But I don't think I could do such a scheduled thing as you are doing right now with a different book for the days of the week. Also, there are books that I pick up and that's it - it becomes my world for the days it takes to read. Similarly, there are times that I will put a book down and be instantly drawn to the perfect next book (and be serenely, almost disgustingly, happy all the while).
Few people "get" our commonalities, though!
I just finished "Room with a View" about a month ago and loved it! I'll be curious for your thoughts Kristi - and Dini when you get the chance to read it:)I just finished The Tales of Beedle the Bard and was very happy with it! I think HP fans will find delightful tidbits in it as I did. It's different in style than the HP books, but, I suppose it should be since it's supposed to be wizarding child fairy tales. :)
whichwaydidshego?, I actually had to drop the schedule because I'd still jump around. And my goal is to read 60 books this year (with a couple of stipulations) and so I need to be rapidly reading my books, not taking it one week at a time.I'm back to reading 3 books--10 chapters of Anna Karenina on Sundays (I can't read anything else until this is done, even if it doesn't happen until Monday), a nonfiction, and a fiction.
wow... Lori I am incredible impressed with your goal of 60 books a year. I wish I could aspire to such... perhaps one day when I'm out of school. Anna Karenina is on my 2009 books to read list, so when I get to it (probably this summer), I would love to hear your opinion. I'm not sure if we've discussed it in the book club yet, but you guys also bring such insight into the books that I love all of your opinions.I am currently reading Brideshead Revisited. I finished Atonement (had to read it for a class) and loved it. I wanted something in a similar style and period and so I picked up Brideshead, which has been on my list for a while (since the movie was advertised). Has anyone read it?
I am amazed at several of your ability to read several books at once. I used to be able to when I was in high school, but I have to say that I really enjoy being stuck on one book at a time. But I always draw into each book and (if it's a good one) ignore the rest of the world for a while during my reading time.
Hannah - I'm going to look forward to your assessment of Brideshead. I also really liked Atonement, and nearly picked up Brideshead when the movie was out. If you like it, maybe that will inspire me to give it a go!
Hannah, I will probably do most of my reading over the summer break because of school. But I just have to be reading something for me or else I'd go insane (and I refuse to let that school get to me).I haven't read Brideshead, but it's definitely on my list. Let me know what you think.
I read Atonement last spring. Briony drove me insane. It was funny because the girl I signed a lease with really liked Briony and said she was like her when she was a kid and I related to Cecilia. Needless to say the living arrangement did not work out.
Lori - I cracked up at your living arrangement story. Seems like something I would do. I will definitely share on Brideshead Revisited. My goal is to read it before I go back to school on the 7th, so we'll see if I meet that. :)
It's kind of funny now, but after she moved out and I had problems finding a new roommate, it got really ugly. Good luck with Brideshead. Let me know how it goes.
I accidentally started The Human Stain today. I didn't want to, but I had to wait for my boyfriend and it was lying around on the table and I thought, why shouldn't I read a couple of pages... And then it happened and I am now 50 pages into the book and have to think about it constantly.
I decided to put it down for good, though, and finish my senior thesis first, the way I intended it.
I decided to put it down for good, though, and finish my senior thesis first, the way I intended it.
I decided to start reading The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath because it got delivered yesterday. I'm slightly worried by the number of times I've already thought, "You said it, Sylvia!" But it's really good so far and is a Rory Gilmore book, which meets one of the criterion of my read 60 books goal.I'll also probably start reading Part 1 of War & Peace, since I need to have it read by Feb. 1.
I am looking forward very much to reading The Bell Jar, Lori. I got it for Christmas.
Hopefully I'll be able to start it as soon as I finished up my thesis.
Hopefully I'll be able to start it as soon as I finished up my thesis.
just finished Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time...i really loved it!now on to Breaking Dawn.
I just finished A Dirty Job: A Novel. It's a great read if you are looking for something REALLY different and that's absolutely hilarious.
Marion, I really liked The Bell Jar. It took a left turn from where I thought it was headed about halfway or two-thirds of the way through, but it was a good left turn and not like, "And space monkeys attacked NYC" the way some left turns take you. Let me know what you think. I think I read it in a couple of days.
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Me, too, Dini, which is reason enough to watch the film, IMO.
I didn't know the human stain was turned into a movie. I definitely like the book. The writing style is probably not for everyone, I guess, because Roth employs especially at the beginning very long, twisted sentences, a bit like Thomas Mann. But as soon as you get used to it, you will love the beautiful descriptions.
I just finished On Chesil Beach, and I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this weekend as well. It's been so long since I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I wanted to refresh my memory.
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I'm late in posting this, but to those who loved 84 CHARRING CROSS ROAD: Did you love it immediately, or did it take a bit for you to get into it? I tried it a few years ago and stalled--I don't know if my expectatins were just too high (it sounds like a PERFECT book for me) or maybe my mood at the time. Perhaps I just didn't give it long enough?
It's not a book which jumps out and grabs you hard, it's more of a slow, contemplative, leisurely drawing one into it's tale gradually kind of book. I think you need to be in the right frame of mind for those books, myself. I think it's a book which is perfect for the bedside table -- a small bit each evening and before you realize it you are hooked and reading more each night .
That's sounds like a good read. I need to check it out.
Thanks, Dottie! I will have to try it again sometime.
I added it to my list of books to read as well. Sounds good. About half way through Brideshead.... it's good.... I haven't moved on to anything else. I'll let you guys know how it was when I finish it. :)
just finished Breaking Dawn..now on to The Book Thief.
For me, 84 Charing Cross Road was immediately terrific. In general, I like the epistolary approach and in this book the language and hints at the letter-writers' lives and characters grabbed me. I finished it in less than 24 hours - had to allow an interruption for a family get together on Christmas Eve, or it wouldn't have taken that long! But when it was over, I wished I'd stretched it out a bit more. Hope you all like it too!
I am about to start . . .The Shadow of the Wind.
It came highly recommended by a friend.
I can't wait.
This is the 1st paragraph of the preface . . .
I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Monica in a wreath of liquid copper."
I like that description. It's poetic without making me puke.
As sad as it sounds, I think I'm going to read Sex and the City, just to get me started with my goal. I don't know. Sometimes I need a non-literary, non-thinking book to get me going.
Lori wrote: "As sad as it sounds, I think I'm going to read Sex and the City, just to get me started with my goal. I don't know. Sometimes I need a non-literary, non-thinking book to get me going."Lori -- not one, single thing wrong with that -- we all need to "change gears" sometimes in our reading agendas. We put down the book that has us stuck at page X for three months and is still sitting there and we zip through a "fluff" read (like Sex and the City -- which I've read, by the way). Or we get tired of no time for "real" books and give up after a half dozen or so light reads and dive into Anna Karenina or another of the Russian sagas. And you have school to deal with as well. Be kind to yourself.
Having read and loved The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford before Christmas, I couldn't wait to finish Wide Sargasso Sea and return to Mitford's world and hugely enjoyable writing. So right now I'm reading Love ina Cold Climate, and enjoying it just as much as TPoL!
Dottie, Thanks for the kind words. I feel guilty sometimes when I read fluff because there are many more worthy books to read and fluff could easily be read during school. But you're right: sometimes we need to change gears.
The way I look at it (and not saying I don't love me some good TV--Gilmore Girls!!!) but even if you are reading "fluff" you are still reading and engaging your imagination :-)
Stella, let me know how you like Wide Sargasso Sea. I read it for a class, and we compared Wide Sargasso Sea to Jane Eyre. Have you read Jane Eyre? I would be interested in knowing what you thought.Dottie and Kathryn, I love the way you put it with reading fluff. I was kind of beating myself up as well over reading a Christmas romance flick. Even though I was sick, and I read the entire thing in one day, I still felt bad because I could have been working on my Brideshead goal. But I like the thought that we are still reading and sometimes need a break. Thanks!
I can't wait to finish my fluff because I'm really wanting to read Jane Eyre for some reason. Sadly, I don't have it with me at the moment. I guess I'll work on non-fiction for a while after I finish SATC.
I am reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I totally love it! It's filled with people who love books-it's awesome. Actually it makes me think of something that would be a Rory book if the show was still on the air.
I'm might have to look at buying that book.
Hannah wrote: "Stella, let me know how you like Wide Sargasso Sea. I read it for a class, and we compared Wide Sargasso Sea to Jane Eyre. Have you read Jane Eyre? I would be interested in knowing what you thought."I finished WSS Hannah, and though I think it is an exceptional novel and Jean Rhys must be praised for how she wrote it: her subtle recurring symbolism, her evocative narrative voice, etc. and though I admit it is a novel of great quality and talent, it is the same to me as Possession was: it just didn't appeal to me, I couldn't connect or even find a tiny thread to feel inside the story. I didn't like it as a story, the location, the mentality, everything was too foreign for me, but I concur its literary brilliance.
Yes I have read Jane Eyre, and we have also compared WSS to JE, especially the characters of the naive, young, childish Antoinette/the mad violent animal-like Bertha Mason and the young Rochester of WSS/the 40 year old Rochester in JE.
I'm glad I read WSS, because I think it gave me a more "whole", a much more layered and complex picture of everything I have previously read in JE.
(And the Rochester in WSS wasn't such a shock or revelation to me, since *I may shock some* I'm not a big fan of Rochester. I find him rude, controlling and cruel, not my kind of hero at all. So seeing these being confirmed in WSS in the way he treated his wife didn't surprise me too much.)
Stella, I have to say I'm not surprised by your reaction to WSS. I (am slightly ashamed to say) have yet to completely finished it, as I didn't have time to finish it with my British Literature class. However, I have to say that I have to really talk myself into trying to finish it. I did not really enjoy it, the beginning that I read and the excerpts that I studied because of class. The writing, as you said, is in incredible. And it's a great novel. It just did not appeal to me. I really enjoyed Jane Eyre. And to see someone's so hostile reaction to the novel was very discomforting, I guess. One of the things I am learning as I grow up is that not everything is beautiful and with a perfect ending. I'm learning to embrace stories and literature about love that have flaws (not with the writing but in the story), as in they are not the perfect fairy tale stories. I guess WSS is just beyond where I am in accepting and even enjoying non-perfection.Interestingly, your "shocking" revelation was the way most of my British literature class felt. There was a definite majority who hated Rochester and only a few who actually like him. (me being the romantic, I bet you can guess where I stood). I actually wrote a paper on the defense of Rochester.
I enjoyed reading WSS as a possible background to Jane Eyre. My inability to embrace some dark things forced me to keep the books separate and not as related to each other, so that I could still love Jane Eyre. Perhaps as I grow up and mature some more, I will be able to love Jane Eyre even with the possibility of what could have happened in WSS. :)
Hannah and Stella -- your comments have interested me as I am generally not very taken with books such a WSS which are connected to a classic -- in this case, JE. However WSS I thought was a perfect companion and did very little damage to Jane Eyre's story and yet stood very well as its own story also.I understood Rochester's darkness in Jane Eyre as stemming from the restraints imposed by having a "mad" wife and in that time usually such cases were kept out of sight and likely when a person was a high profile member of society they were not institutionalized. He was lonely and unhappy and could not seek companionship or love because he waas tied to Bertha. Jane's arrival was a sort of happenstance falling in love event and he dared to hope he could be with her in spite of Bertha's existence. Wide Sargasso Sea certainly explains how he came to be tied to Bertha and how Bertha came to be "insane" or deranged which is a better term in my opinion. I think the background added depth to both of the characters in Jane Eyre. I also think the younger versions could support the story in Wide Sargasso Sea even if a reader didn't know Jane Eyre at all.
Thanks for your posts.
Message 388: I LOVED the Shadow of the Wind. It is a wonderful book! You should love it!
On fluff ... it is my considered opinion that fluff (or, as I call it, junk food reading) is an important part of life. I'm sure everybody who posts here has a guilty literary pleasure. I, for example, devour Catherine Coulter's FBI thrillers. They're not particularly well written, the plots are pretty much all the same, and those main characters have to be the worst parents ever! Still, whenever a new one is released, it goes on my library request list. The same with Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Although I readily defend King's writing. If Dickens and Poe had a literary child ... Anywho, sometimes nothing will do but a HoHo and a glass of orange Kool Aid.
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I finished Brideshead Revisited! :) My moving back to school plans changed and so I have a couple days to do nothing of importance but read. I've enjoying the calm before the storm of school. :)Anyway, I loved Brideshead Revisited. I think that the story is good. But the writing is incredible. I would for a period of time and think I should be bored, but I would look up and see that I've read for over an hour and passed 30, 40, 50 pages without coming up for air. I enjoyed it, thought I did feel like there is more to the book than I was able to grasp. I might put in on a list to read when I'm older. But I would recommend it, even if just for the writing. I really enjoyed it.
On to The Secret Life of Bees!
I just finished James and the Giant Peach and can't believe what a good book it is! What a wonderful treat!
Excellent Women by Barbara PymThe wit and eye for the quirks of society and humanity reminiscent of Jane Austen, but set in post-WWII London. Hugely enjoyable this far!
The Rory Gilmore Book Club
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Erin - I haven't read the book, but I think it's on my list. I loved the movie. Why does the entertainment industry have to make every interaction between a man and a woman a "love affair?" Helene and Frank had a true and lasting friendship, something which I believe far more valuable than an "affair."