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Welcome earthlings to the Awful Book of the Month! In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. Past Books of the Month 2011: January: John Keats, Endymion Febuary/March: Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote April: Laurell K. Hamilton, Obsidian Butterfly May: Richard A. Knaak - Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood June: Pamela Britton - On The Move July: Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep August: Louis L'Amour - Bendigo Shafter September: Ian Fleming - Moonraker October: Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes November: John Ringo - Ghost December: James Branch Cabell - Jurgen 2012: January: G.K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday Febuary: M. Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage March: Joseph Heller - Catch-22 April: Zack Parsons - Liminal States May: Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood June: James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man July: William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch August: William Faulkner - The Sound & The Fury September/October: Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace November: David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas December: Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night 2013 January: Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Liebowitz Febuary: Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination March: Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains Of The Day April: Don Delillo - White Noise May: Anton LeVey - The Satanic Bible June/July: Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell August: Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide September: John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids October: Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House November: Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory December: Roderick Thorp - Nothing Lasts Forever 2014: January: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness February: Mikhail Bulgalov - Master & Margarita March: Richard P. Feynman -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! April: James Joyce -- Dubliners May: Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 100 Years of Solitude June: Howard Zinn -- A People's History of the United States July: Mary Renault -- The Last of the Wine August: Barbara Tuchtman -- The Guns of August September: Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice October: Roger Zelazny -- A Night in the Lonesome October November: John Gardner -- Grendel Current: quote:'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. http://www.amazon.com/The-Stupidest-Angel-Heartwarming-Christmas/dp/0060842350 About the Author quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Moore_%28author%29 Discussion, Questions & Themes: If anyone thinks of anything intelligent (or otherwise) to say, please share it! This month we're just trying something fun and seasonal. Pacing No pacing or spoiler rules this month. Further Resources: Moore has written lots of other stuff of varying merit. Final Note: If you have any suggestions to change, improve or assess the book club generally, please PM or email me -- i.e., keep it out of this thread -- at least until into the last five days of the month, just so we don't derail discussion of the current book with meta-discussion. I do want to hear new ideas though, seriously, so please do actually PM or email me or whatever, or if you can't do either of those things, just hold that thought till the last five days of the month before posting it in this thread. Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!
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Dec 2, 2014 20:37
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 09:17 |
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I'm excited to start reading this. I've heard good things about Christopher Moore, I've been meaning to read Lamb forever and this seems like just as good of a start as anything (and in season). I'm currently next in line on for the e-book from my library so hopefully I'll be able to begin soon!
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Dec 4, 2014 04:08
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Lamb is amazing, Fool is great, The Serpent of Venice is great, A Dirty Job is good, everything else I haven't read. Moore's good at taking established stories and recreating them.
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Dec 11, 2014 16:57
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I couldn't find this book in my library (or in any physical bookstore for that matter), which is too bad because it sounds cool.
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Dec 15, 2014 23:31
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This one is my traditional Christmas read. Every year the jokes get less funny and the story gets shorter, but I love it anyway. It was my first Moore book, which was probably a bad decision since it's made up of characters and stories that you're clearly supposed to already know from his other books, but that doesn't make it inaccessible in any way. In fact, it turned me on to reading the rest of his books, and established a bit of familiarity when I dove into each of them.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:14
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So I finally got around to reading this (after having to wait most of the month for the e-book) and I thought it was a lot of fun, pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. There were a lot of laugh out loud parts and I also really liked how he wrote the dog's internal monologue. I started to lose some interest after the zombie attack part began and I felt like that whole section of the book sort of dragged, but that's really my only complaint. Also I had no idea this was part of a series and I don't think I would've realized it myself if I didn't see it mentioned in this thread. Overall I definitely enjoyed the book though and I'm planning on reading Lamb soon.
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Dec 29, 2014 05:20
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Oh shi Time for January book recommendations Any suggestions?
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Dec 29, 2014 05:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh shi Something from Italo Calvino, like Invisible Cities. There hasn't been an Italian TBB BoTM author since Eco in 2007 and he's very good.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:41
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Why Invisible Cities instead of If On a Winter's Night a Traveller? That's the only one of his I'd heard of before.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:48
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I suggest hopscotch, written by julio cortázar.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Why Invisible Cities instead of If On a Winter's Night a Traveller? That's the only one of his I'd heard of before. If On a Winter's Night a Traveller would certainly be a good choice as well. I only read Invisible Cities, The Nonexistant Knight and The Baron in the Trees which were all excellent.
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Dec 31, 2014 11:31
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Suggestions: P.G. Wodehouse, Robertson Davies, or some essays by George Orwell, because I'd love to see a good discussion of his non-fiction.
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Jan 1, 2015 01:36
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Owen Jones, Chavs is my suggestion.
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Jan 1, 2015 16:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Why Invisible Cities instead of If On a Winter's Night a Traveller? That's the only one of his I'd heard of before. Invisible Cities is the better book. IF on a winter's night a traveller is very good and interesting, but Invisible Cities is really beautiful, and just about one of the most aesthetically pleasing books I've ever read. There's quite a few interesting discussion points as well about signs, language, and definitions of things.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:30
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I'm happy to cast my lot for invisible cities, if only because I have found a copy.
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Jan 3, 2015 11:45
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Ok, it'll be Invisible Cities. I'll get a thread up.
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Jan 3, 2015 15:41
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