Ve Haff To Pick A Book!

Okay, I have to admit, the Book Club bit is the one I’m most excited about. I can’t wait to get started.

What we intend to do is have three books on our shelf at any given point of time. So you can take your pick. We’re going to make sure that we rotate genres and if you think we’re playing favourites, feel free to send us a Howler. Also, one of those books is always going to be writing-related. Fair enough?

You can decide to read as many as you like – and we’ll understand if you skip a week or two in between. You do have your own to-read list to plough through, after all. Don’t worry, we’re pretty laid back about this. But give every book some consideration?

What Do We Read First?

We’re leaving it till Sunday to see how the suggestions play out, and then we’ll put up a poll. For now, looking at how the Goodreads discussion is going, Harry Potter seems to be the current favourite. Personally, I think this might be fun. Even though I’ve “grown out of them”, I visit the first four every once in a while and I’m filled with this warm Peter-Pan-I’m-still-a-kid feeling. Also, it’ll be the easiest to get your hands on. So, I wouldn’t mind a re-read, and for those of you who haven’t read them yet (*cough*Matt Watson*cough*), now would be a good time to start.

Apostolia has recommended Jonathan Coe’s The House of Sleep, which a) I’ve never heard of and b) sounds quite interesting. I looked at her bookshelf, and she’s read this before (AND given it five stars).  Here‘s the summary she gave us, go check it out!

Then there’s Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman (thank you, Pallavi!) We  also have Durga‘s suggestion – to read The Hobbit. Appropriate, I think, considering that a lot of people will want to read this before watching the movie (very excited – if it’s going to be like any of the other movies, I know they’ll do the book full justice). Sindhu, my  partner-in-crime threw Orwell’s Animal Farm into the pot. Which (*shameface*) I haven’t read yet, and am receiving accusing looks from my bookshelf for.

Jenny Keller Ford had this to say about Veronica Roth’s Insurgent :

I love a great YA dystopian story. The first in the series, Divergent, was amazing and I would like to read the second in the set and talk about it.

Now, I haven’t read Divergent, but it’s on my list, and I’d love to finally pick that one up.

On to the writing. Astarteia wanted to read Bird by Bird (we told you you’d hear about this a lot), and so do I. I also want to read Stephen King’s On Writing and Erin’s suggestion – Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down The Bones.

Personally? I’d love to pick up The Picture of Dorian Gray and Maus in addition to one of the books on writing. I’m ashamed to admit that the only Dorian Gray I know is from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I intend to fix that. Soon.

One last thing. I was looking through the blogs that signed up the other day, and I found an amazing list of writing-related books which I intend to go out and get as soon as I can. Maybe we can include them in due time?  Thank you John Andrew Fuller! (Psst. You have got to check out his blog. Go. Now. Yes. Now. You can come back later. Go, go, go!)

Do you have a book in mind? A book that you’ve read before, loved, and wouldn’t mind reading again? Or one that you’ve always wanted to read, but never got around to? Leave us a comment, join the Goodreads discussion, or draft out a post telling us why we should read it – we’ll put it up!