Book Club Meeting #1

Jun 15, 2014 07:14


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queer_theory June 14 2014, 19:50:44 UTC
What was the last book you read?

I'm re-reading a lot of things this year, so the last two books I finished (and I finished them at about the same time) were Radio On by Sarah Vowell and Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Radio On was Sarah Vowell's first book... It's about a year in the mid-90s where she listened to the radio almost constantly and took notes on it. It was a year when a lot of particularly interesting things happened, and during a time when I was listening to the radio almost constantly too. I like the book for the nostalgia of it. It makes me miss a time when listening to radio was something I really wanted to do a lot of... and because it was a year after Kurt Cobain's death, and Sarah Vowell is a big Nirvana fan, it makes me want to listen to all of my old Nirvana records too. And I've started watching Hannibal this year (though I'm not caught up), so I've been wanting to re-read that whole series of books again.

Of your favourite books, which one do you like to recommend to people?

I almost always recommend either the Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis (four books: Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, Blackout, and All Clear) or I recommend Making History by Stephen Fry. The Connie Willis books are really great... They mostly stand alone if you don't want to read them all (or don't want to read them in order), except the last two which are basically one book. They're also all funny, even Doomsday Book, which is also really dark. It has it's "comedy of errors" moments. Making History is about a graduate student and instructor who find a way to alter history - they make it so Hitler never existed. And then you see the consequences of that action for both of them.

Which ones do you NOT like to recommend to people?

Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert. I'm not sure why I never recommend that. I think... it's something I got when I was in Fake News fandom, something they wrote right after doing Strangers With Candy, and something that's funny in a very particular way, and I just never think of it when I'm talking about books I like, even though it really is one of my favorite things ever. There's some amazing photography by Todd Oldham... Amy, Paul, and Stephen portray the various characters in the book through these photographs (and if you listen to the audiobook, they also sort of perform the book there). Example pictures (if you've ever wanted to see Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert as strippers >_>): Amy as Cinnamon and Stephen as Raven.

Do you still own any books from your childhood?

Sort of. Mostly books I owned as a teenager. And not a lot of them. I used to collect Stephen King books. I used to have everything he'd written, but when I moved to Missouri, I got rid of all but my favorite of his books (I think I kept five of them?). I have the same old worn copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley that I've read every year since I was 14.

What are you reading now?

The SIlence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays by Bill Holm.


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wagrobanite June 14 2014, 20:09:34 UTC
I read To Say Nothing Of The Dog a couple of years ago for my Readers Advisory class in order to read outside my comfort zone and I have to say, I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it... but ug could not stand the time travel.

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 20:22:08 UTC
The time travel is what I love about it. :P

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sayuri_x June 14 2014, 20:23:24 UTC
Heh, I used to own all of Stephen Kings books too. I think it is a teenage rite of passgae to read his stuff. Although I haven't been able to read anything new of his for years and years.

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 20:35:36 UTC
I think so too, though I started collecting his books when I was 10 (which was probably too early, in retrospect - It gave me nightmares when I first read it). I think the last new thing I read of his was Under The Dome, but it had been a few years before that.

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sayuri_x June 14 2014, 20:47:16 UTC
Yeah, I think I was around 12 when I read IT. (I don't even know how I got a hold of a copy of it) and yeah, clowns and I are no longer friends. :) Last thing I read of his was Wolves of Calla but I was so disappointed with the way the whole Dark Tower series went I couldn't finish it.

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 20:59:55 UTC
I haven't been able to finish the Dark Tower series for the same reason... It was really disappointing.

My parents had It and The Stand in one of the bookcases. I'm not sure why because neither of them liked any of his books. I read The Stand when I was 9 and It when I was 10, and then I started collecting after that. I'd get them at swap meets for super cheap. But I don't think I read anything I liked as much as The Stand in all of that collecting. :P

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sayuri_x June 14 2014, 21:05:57 UTC
I loved the first two books in The Dark Tower fiercely and probably my next favourite of his was The Dead Zone. Although if I had to choose an absolute fav it would be The Talisman. I liked The Stand but it didn't grab me so much. However, I did love the Miniseries that was made with Gary Sinise. (You can throw rotten fruit at me now.)

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 21:08:02 UTC
I loved The Dead Zone too... and the first two Dark Tower books. After the first two, I think they got increasingly disappointing with each new one.

*saves the rotten fruit* It's cool if you don't like The Stand as much as I do. :P

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wagrobanite June 14 2014, 21:15:26 UTC
Believe it or not, I've never read a Steven King book (and don't plan to). I have read one of his son's books and only because I was forced to for a graduate class.

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 21:33:15 UTC
I doubt I'll ever read another Steven King book, beyond just re-reading The Stand. I stopped being interested in most of his work years ago. I did try to read Joe Hill's Horns, but I couldn't get into it at all.

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wagrobanite June 14 2014, 21:38:06 UTC
I had to read A Heart Shaped Box... probably one of the worst books I read.

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queer_theory June 14 2014, 21:39:27 UTC
Ugh... that doesn't sound fun. I think I made it two chapters into Horns and thought, "Nope." And I normally try to give books about 100 pages, but I knew pretty quickly it was not for me. I won't even bother trying the others.

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wagrobanite June 14 2014, 21:42:26 UTC
I was so pissed about it too because it had a lot of stuff that was triggering for me and had I known that I would have appealed to my professor. Not to mention even if I hadn't finished it, I wouldn't have been penalized *grumbles*. oh well it's done.

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queer_theory June 15 2014, 04:00:31 UTC
Oh dear... the triggering stuff would really bother me. I'm sorry you had to do that. What was the class it was for?

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wagrobanite June 15 2014, 04:16:57 UTC
my readers' advisory class for my Masters' in Library and Information science program... the teacher was crack

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