The Long Weekend: Bookmonkey Style

For my readers not in Alberta Canada, we're just finishing up the August long weekend here - Heritage Day to be specific, and although I didn't really take in the Heritage Day festival this year I do feel like my long weekend was time well spent.

First of all my family got to start watching the first season of the HBO Series, The Newsroom, which has been pretty excellent so far.  

Next up, I got a good fifth of the way into the PS3 game Infamous 2, which takes the electrical-powered character from the first game and puts him in a city surrounded by ocean and swamp (he can't touch water or he'll die) - so far its been a lot of fun.

Past that I got to take my wife out for breakfast, go to one of my monthly book clubs, check out the 1971 Ken Russell film The Devils, and see a pretty neat little fantasy film called The Brass Teapot.

But now it's sleepy-time for this tired little bookmonkey, and back to work tomorrow.

G'night all!

Things I've noticed: Choosing a book can be hard!

For my book club meeting this Sunday, I've got to select our June title - usually this is pretty easy, I've got a lot of books on the go and simply select whichever one the library has a lot of copies of to be the next title we read.

Problem is, all of the books I'm reading next month either have not yet made it to the library, or only have one copy.

So tonight I'm going to have to go through my bookshelves and figure out if any of the many titles in my "to be read" collections might work.

Also I'll be following up a pretty gritty title for our May title (Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami - which I've read before but am totally excitted to check out again), so I'm looking for something which will represent a nice change of pace.

 

In the end I think I'm going to find something either related to school (maybe not), or something related to one of my favourite authors...

I'll let you know when I do!

Things I've Noticed: Picking a book for book club can be tricky

My problem with choices has always been finding some way to narrow them down – I’m not good with having dozens of choices, I like having three – do this, do that, or do something else.

I’m pretty sure that just a few days from now I’m going to have to have a selection for my book club’s April book. The problem is that I’m not entirely sure what I want to read. I could go for a comic book series (I did that with the Greg Rucka series Queen & Country a few months back) or perhaps a new genre book I’ve been looking forward (I did that with the then new Stephen King book Under the Dome last year), or maybe I could just randomly pick a book from the dozen boxes of old Fantasy/Horror/SF paperbacks I’ve got sitting in my basement.

I already have a pretty good idea of the books I’ll be reading for the month of March – I have a little song that reminds me of my seven categories, it goes;

Horror, SF, Fantasy

Book Club, Book Club, Jeeves and Me

Which represents my tactic of reading one book from each of my favourite genres, one book for both of my book clubs, the next in the Jeeves and Wooster series by P.G. Wodehouse (3 more to go and I’m finished) and finally one book that merely tickles my fancy.

The problem is I’ve read a lot of books over the years and most of what I’m reading these days falls into the “hard to find” category, a category you specifically do not want to use for a book club selection. So now I’ve got to think about which book I would like to read that is a) available in sufficient numbers at my local library, b) of interest to the members of the club (who range from being interested in Classic Lit and Non-Fiction to Archie Comics), and c) hopefully an overlap with one of my regular monthly books so that I can double up on some genre reading.

In the end I’m leaning towards either some dark fantasy (I’ve always meant to start reading Charles de Lint, and his earlier stuff was pretty dark) or maybe one of those Young Adult books I was going on about last week.

You know, being in a book club is trickier than you think.

You owe it to yourself #5: Book Clubs

In the last three years I've joined two book clubs, the first one really wasn't for me (basically we just read the Oprah book of the month), but the second one has been a really great experience. I mean really, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think, Book club?

HEY! Fine, I guess some of you thought of some sort of reading circle from the 1800s (pictured above), but reading clubs don't really have that "Anne of Green Gables" feel any more. Let me tell you some of the great stuff I've done in my last three years at the club. I've massively expanded the kinds of books I read, met tonnes of great people and eventually found the inspiration to do these posts.



And for you guys out there who think book clubs are only for the ladies, remember, men reading books are sexy! (pictured right - my reading nemesis, James "Sawyer" Ford) And especially for you single fellows out there - the ratio of men to women at a book club is usually 5 or 6 to 1, so there you go.



The club I belong to selects a new genre every month, so we read all sorts of stuff, including non-fiction, short-stories, and more. Basically, being in a book club forces you to read a lot of books that you wouldn't otherwise look at, as well as sharing your own personal favourites with other people and doing it all with a nice cup of coffee (pictured left).

Check out local book clubs, you'll read great books and meet great people. After all, expanding your horizons is good and you owe it to yourself.