what books has your book club done?

[DimpledThighs]

do all book clubs read hte same things roughly?

Here is ours, as I remember them

The Alchemist
Kiterunners
Arthur and George
Labyrinthe
Birdsong
The Abortionist's daughter
The Island

Can't tell you. Might threaten my anonymity .

But I reckon they end up reading a roughly similar mixture, odd wildcard thrown in.

I alwys want to read 'outside the box' but we always do similar things to the newspaper book groups and even (gulp) richard and judy.

This year we have done:

Kim
Time Travellers Wife
Case Histories
The Kite Runner
No1 Ladies Detective Agency

But whenever an unusual suggestion comes up it gets shouted down.

hey pointy dog how could revealing your book group books threaten your anonymity - are you judy?

We only do books with sex or death ... including

• Jane Eyre/Wide Sargasso Sea combo
• We need to talk about Kevin
• Brave New World
• Call me Elizabeth (trash)
• 1984

Um, can't remember any others - we constantly nearly do Kiterunners & TimeTravellers Wife - but have escaped so far

Have some Japanese short stories next - looking forwards to those...

A Piece of cake
Christmas Carol
Watch me disappear
I capture the Castle
Perfume
Saturday

is what I can remember and next we are reading I know why the Cage Bird Sings

We did Perfume for our first meet, sophiewd - suspect that's a book club classic!

Northern Lights
The secret river (good book)
How I live now
The Handmaids Tale (great book for a book club)
Gem Squash Tokoloshe

We've done

Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
Field of Blood - Denise Mina
Mathematics of Love - Emma Darwin
The Tin Man - Martin Shannon
The Island - somebody Hislop

did not realise when I startded the thread but this is going to be great to make a list from and take to bookgrop- thanks.

har, no dimpled. I'm richard.

Of the people I know, my book groupers are most likely to perhaps be mnetters.

You should change your book group rules. Take it in turn to choose a book, no discussion, individual's choice, everyone reads it.

Just don;t be sensitive if everyone hates your choice.

good point pointy (ahahaha - so wiity am I)

will propose it and see what happens.

That's what we do, Pointydog - and we have read, among others:
The Historian (my fave, I think)
Last King of Scotland (for next week)
The Kite Runner (for next month)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Black Swann Green
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Skellig
Snow Falling on Cedars
Enchanted April (which I hated, but may have been an abridged version, as it was the library's large print copy!)
Saturday

DImpledthighs - we do a bizzare book-choosing system too - everyone puts in one/more suggestions (we sometimes agree a theme - eg. 'classics', romance for valentines meet, something festive/short for Christmas!) - then we narrow it down by discussion, then vote - sometimes with 1 vote each, sometimes 2/3 votes. It usually takes us longer to choose a book than to discuss the last one

funny- that sounds good too, I think we are most certainly up for a book choose revamp - but probably discussing how we chose the book will take longer than anything else.

Do you ever get really pisssed during book group?

I am part of a new group formed of North Herts mumsnetters and we are on our fourth read:

My lover's lover - Maggie O'Farrell
Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracey Chevalier
Middle Age: A Romance - Joyce Carole Oates

Some from the other group I am in:
Life of Pi
the Tractors in Ukraine one
Lord of the Flies
Lucky Jim
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Vile Bodies
Scoop (Evelyn Waugh)
Music and Silence
Vernon God Little
Poisonwood Bible
The Accidental Tourist
As I lay Dying
Mendel's Dwarf
The Green Knight
The Sorrow of War

Have deliberately not recommended or otherwise

How do you go about finding a book group? I joined one but didn't really click with them... Now I'd like to give it another go, but haven't noticed any adverts for one.
We read:

The Kite Runner
Rebecca
The Island
Time Travellers Wife

Can't remember the rest!

hotcrossbunny where do you live? Have you got a nice local library?

hotcrossbunny- mine came about from a playground chat - thoguth it would be awful as I didn't know any of them - then we went out and got realy tipsy. NOw best mates.

Haven't spotted anything at the library... Whenever I meet other mums at the park/toddlers etc So far when I've mentioned looking for a bookgroup, I seem to be met with a blank look as if I'm mad!
I hoped there would be some sort of register or something of bookgroups in my area but I guess they are usually pretty informal affairs... Will keep looking...

I am known in my group for not liking the choices lol.

We have done
Shadow of the Wind (OK-ish but annoying)
Posession (liked it 15 yrs ago but not now)
The Golden Gate (Vikram Seth novel in verse, hated it)
A novel by a local author (he was good but it was only OK)
Moondust (so badly written I couldn't finish it)
The Yellow Wallpaper (short story from 100 yrs ago, quite liked that one)

DT I like what you have done better! Lio I love Anne Tyler and Maggie Ofarrall. Could I really suggest Anne Tyler? I thought it might be a bit lightweight (= pleasant to read lol)

hotcross - there is a umsnet bookgroup on here if you fancy it. I don't know where you are but we have a very informal come if you have read the book, come later for a drink type approach. It is had to know where to start. I talked about it for months - you know wanting to start a group etc. before anyone took any interest.

There are book people out there you just have to hunt them down!

Clary - our bookgroup book choice method does so not work!

well each time someone chooses a book and then hosts.

So I need to have a house fit to host in before choosing.

What if everyone hated my choice? That would be quite funny.

we don;t do houese we do pubs - hence the drunkness I guess!

Ooh how do you discuss it in a pub?

The good thing about a house is that we take lots of yummy food and the booze is cheap.

Don't like pubs - too smoky (lol must be getting old)