Big Other is starting a monthly book club! We’ve chosen 12 books to tackle in 2011. At the end of each month I’ll post discussion questions, comments on what I was confused about, lines I copied out by hand because they seemed super-pretty or poignant, pictures of what I imagine characters look like, fan fiction or a list of food that stained my copy of the book. We invite you to do the same. If our little backstage discussion of what to read is any indicator, the talk should be lively to say the least.
Here’s a transcript of some choice words:
Tim Jones-Yelvington: I want people to read Sweet Valley High: Double Love by the genius Eckhart Tolle, so I can talk to them about it.
Jac Jemc: There are lots of things wrong with what you just said. Anyway, I read that recently and it sucks.
TJY: But I love it and I think it’s ripe for discussion and maybe the discussion will be better if people feel differently about it.
JJ: I don’t wanna.
TJY: Jac, this doesn’t sound like you. You’re usually nicer. Are you feeling okay?
JJ: I’m an angry person now. It’s my new thing.
TJY: Do you wanna watch the straight-to-video Disney release Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas with me?
JJ: Oh, that’s hard to find. Yeah, let’s do it.
Anywayyyyyy: first things first. Let’s vote on what to read for January. I’m narrowing it down to the shorter novels on the list. I’ll reveal the full list after we decide this! Get voting.
John Hawkes Travesty
Manuel Puig Betrayed by Rita Hayworth
Tom McCarthy C
Gordon Lish Peru
Djuna Barnes Nightwood
i wouldnt mind rereading nightwood?
I think I actually snorted while reading the conversation above.
Do I get to vote? I make the rules. I wanna read the Tom McCarthy first.
I’ll go in for C as well – though if this is one of the shorter novels on the list, you must be selecting Witz and The Tunnel and Infinite Jest for later months,
J.A.-
I think we’re reading those three on the side.
This would be a good excuse for me to finally read ‘C.’ It’s just sitting lonely on my shelf.
I wanna read Sweet Valley High: Double Love.
I wanna write it.
When you say it’s one of the shorter novels, are you just thinking of the title? But yeah, I’m in for this and I’ll go with ‘C’ (though I think I’d prefer to have a go at the Puig).
By the way, does this mean we all get to sit in a circle and drink tea and eat cheesecake? I’m definitely up for that!
Yes, your presence is required in Chicago. We are doing this in Chicago, right? I’ve been stockpiling muffin mix and chamomile tea in preparation…
it’s 320 pages. This is pretty average, right? I guess I included it because I’m excited about it, and there’s all that fun Booker Prize biz as context.
But yeah – there are several books longer than this on the list.
And sure – You can eat and drink whatever you want while you write on this blog. Or anyone in Chicago, or passing through, is welcome to snack with me in my little apartment while we argue about the length of the book.
Jac, those book club members in the above picture are reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, not Bridget Jones’ Diary—though admittedly the two are easy to confuse.
Looking forward to this! I’m happy to start with anything from the list.
Also throwing C in the ring.
I would like Nightwood or the Puig.