Tag Archives: © 2012 Book Chatter

Book Club Possibilities…Thoughts?

Possible 2012 Book Club Picks

My book club has been meeting for over thirteen years. That’s a really long time and we’ve read plenty of good books, a few great ones, and a few stinkers. What book club hasn’t? On January 19th, we choose our books for the year. Yep, the year. We each come up with 1-2 choices, pitch it to the group, and then take a vote. This works extremely well for us because when it comes down to it, we whittle it down to a near perfect list and having the entire list before us, allows us to move books around to balance it out a bit.

This year, three titles continue to pop-up in my mind even though I’ve only read one of them. I’m not sure which two I will pitch and let’s be honest, I could completely change my mind come the 19th. For now though, these are the three I am considering:

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Booker Prize winner)
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (It’s been on my shelf for far too long)
Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam (Loved it, reviewed it here)

The other book that caught my eye, is Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney. There’s been a lot of buzz about it. Sounds interesting, but I’ve no idea if it’s discussion worthy. That’s the thing, I don’t really care if the group “likes” a book. It’s nice when that happens, but to me, it’s not a requirement. I’d rather have a book stir you up emotionally and create a lot of discussion rather than it being a “nice” read.

If you’ve read any of these, what do you think? Will these stir people up and create discussion?

Or… if you have another book that you think might fit the bill, please share it. As always, I will post the final list under my Book Club tab.

Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Sunday Salon: Warm and Sunny

The Sunday Salon
With the weather so warm and inviting, I’ve been all over the map with my reading. For one, it feels like spring and I’ve done just about all of the spring cleaning I can handle so when I sit down to read, I want to be pulled in right away. Two books that are working for me right now:

The Odds by Stewart O’Nan (my first O’Nan!)
The Stranger’s Child
by Alan Hollinghurst

Other things on my mind:

  1. The Big Bang Theory is one of the best shows, ever.
  2. That working a 5-day work week is draining on many levels.
  3. That the friends I am closest to, live too far away. Between this blog and Facebook, I’ve come across some amazing people.
  4. That cooking healthy meals is easy, but expensive. It shouldn’t be that way.
  5. That I can  never overdose from too much Doris Day. Add Rock Hudson and I’m in heaven.
  6. That the production of “Alice” that my kids are in, is just around the corner and things are about to get very hectic.

Today, I need to run a few errands but then it’s me on the couch for the rest of the day. I made a huge pot of white bean soup for supper. It’s not a “soup” kind of day but it will be good anyway. What do you have planned?