Hey !bookworms
I figured if I can spend 5-6 hours a week watching reruns of old sitcoms, i might as well spend an hour on a bookclub in rdrama.
I have a few conditions though
Barred:
B.1. No classics (no Steinbeck, Harper, Borges, Hemingway, Conan Doyle etc). Doing a bookclub posts on their works is, frankly, well just circlejerking.
B.2. No modern hipster "I-went-to-Private-College" author (Franzen, DeLillo, Yanigihara, DFW, etc).
B.3. Goes without saying - "I'm too smart ie a neckbeard" type obnoxious people who recommend textbooks
Not Barred:
N.B.1. Really good fiction. Examples:
N.B.1.1 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - A recasting of "David Copperfield," narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them.
N.B.1.2 Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
N.B.2. Really good biographies of interesting people written by really smart authors - Presidents (the lesser known ones especially), Industrialists (Vanderbilt, Joseph Kennedy Sr.), Generals (Omar Bradley, Nimitz, King etc), Scientists (Vannevar Bush).
N.B.3. Science Fiction (must be smartly written, the concept maybe dumb and unscientific). Think more "Story of your life" by Chiang and Jurassic Park by Crichton than whatever the heck Dune (too much on the nose) or Three Body Problem (trying to cover up lazy writing style with science) is.
N.B.4. I really don't want to but... History and General Nonfiction. Keep in mind Rule B.1 and B.3 still applies. No lame books like Sapiens or Guns, Germs and Steel. Neither are books like "Introduction to XYZ. An objective approach". Leave your autism out of this.
cc: @nuclearshill and @binturong (to pin this for 24 hours on /h/lit )
Edit: BARRED ON PUBLIC DEMAND: ANY NOVEL WITH 250+ PAGE.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's a classic so it's against your rules. But "Notes from the underground" is short and relevant enough that it could actually lead to a successful bookclub.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context