HOP Book Club

i love to read and discuss books. did a search couldnt find a book club so im starting one

what books have you read recently? were they any good? which books would you recommend?

i personally have just read Johnny Cash' autobiography and loved it. Beautifully written, poetic and at times moving.

I wouldn't read "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

It's crap. The paragraphs are sometimes two pages long. And everyone has the same name. And they're all nutcases. Oh, and they want to sleep with their sisters and mothers and aunts. And there is an entire chapter about an aunt and her nephew having so much sex they break furniture.

And I still have an exam to write on it in a few weeks' time

I loved "100 years of solitude". What does that say about me now?
Another very nice book:
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller: greatly helped me to understand what is going on at my workplace. and in life in general.

Songlines by Bruce Chatwin.

Recommended by a poet friend of mine a long time ago, and I read it as I traveled in Australia.

It's basically a travel book about Oz... but it explores Indigenous traditions, and eventually develops into the examination of human nature, why we are here... and the human need to travel (we have two legs, after all).

ooh, but "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak (or somehting along that spelling) is W.I.C.K.E.D. and I loved every second of it.

Rouge! I have to disagree, 100 years of solitude is my favourite book of all time... poetic, original, insightful; i get very much into the story (cried for ages at the end!). I love the way nature is a mirror for the people. And it makes great points about progress and time.

Have to ask though, are you reading it in english? It really loses in translation.

Another excellent book I'd recommend to anyone is everything is illuminated, by jonathan safran foer... magic!

Mark Haddons' "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time" is amazing, just for the way it's narrated through the eyes of a kid with aspergers syndrome.

Yeah, I'm reading it in English. I have the Spanish version, but only to read snippets (ie, the quotes I need for my essays) cos my Spanish isn't good enough to read it fully yet.

I've heard a lot of people say that they love it, but I honestly can not see it. I loved it for the first 3 chapters, and then I loved the last two pages. But everything in between was a painful waste of my life that i want back.

I understand the metaphors and symbolism in it (kinda gets drilled into you when you're doing literature) but reading it I found it to be a bunch of ramble that just swam in my head.

maybe if i wasnt being forced to read it then i would like it, but i severely dislike "Of mice and men" by John Steinbeck. I think its the fact that it was published in 1937 that does it for me. The language used is sorta an old style american thing, it really is awful!

On the other hand, i absolutely adore Martina Coles' "Goodnight Lady". The relationships were really well developed and the plot was well thought out so it answered all of your questions, yet left room for you to think "Well, what happens after this then?" Without a doubt the best book i have ever read.

Ooh! I hated "Of Mice and Men" too!!!! I don't remember why I hated it (I read it a few years ago) but I remembered wanting those reading hours of my life back too!

I swear there are books that I do like!

I loved of mice and men! Is amazing! I love Lenny cuz he's just so frickin' stoopid and innocent it gets him killed haha and he likes stroking dead mice! Yeah I related to that character a lot. And it makes you pure hate loads of people in the book cus they are such genuine 'holes, especially towards Crooks, and just because he's black! That made me real angry. And although Lenny dies so does Curlys' wife and she was a slut [censored] which is all good. But the way Curly doesn't die makes it annoying but also un- cliche. I SHUT UP NOW

as much as i hate of mice and men 'cause i was forced to read it in school, it's actually a very well written book!
i'm a massive irvine welsh fan, once you get over reading it in a glasweigian accent it's amazing! i read trainspotting before i ever saw the film, and the film does it no justice at all! i'm currently reading the hitchikers guide to the galaxy, confusing as hell that book!

the handmaid's tale is good, woman's rights and stuff like that
and the poisonwood bible, it's about missionaries, some of who make it out of a troubled african country, and some who don't. it deals with expectations and reality and how some of it is relevant only geographically. it's not really about Christianity persay, it's about the characters and their development. if anything, it shows that Christianity may not work everywhere for everyone. a book about tolerance and such

Meh.

Perdido Street Station - Chine Mieville. Ground-breaking amazing Sci-finess.

I, Lucifer - Glen Duncan. AWESOME modern-day black comedy about Lucifer living as a human for a bit. Lots of Angelic interaction and an amazing end. Think Good Omens/Dogma sorta stuff - but BETTER.

Book of Five Spheres (Or Rings.) - Muyamoto Musashi. The legendary writings of one of the best known personas in the Bushi class. Very insightful.

Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett. The only Pratchett I've ever enjoyed, mostly because it's not full of "humour" and trying to be funny for the sake of it. Death of Rats is great too!

Anything by Milton, Shakespeare, Byron or Keats. I'm such a sell out in my classical tastes.... *lol*

Catch-22 - This is a book I've tried to read so many times but I just can't get into it! I don't know why either. I think the furthest I've got is the conversation about why he has crab apples in his cheeks. It just seems really heavy going without actually getting anywhere. Shame really as the whole premise of the catch-22 itself, that a pilot can get out of flying missions if he's declared mad but anyone who doesn't want to fight can't possibly be mad so they all have to fly really appeals to me!

Of Mice and Men - I had to read this at school as well and didn't think much of it but then went back and read it off my own back a few years later and actually enjoyed it. The theme of friendship no matter what kinda struck a chord I guess but I don't remember much else. Might have to read it again...

The Handmaiden's Tale - Another one I read at school and have gone back and read since. I enjoyed this one too because we'd read 1984 as well and I liked the parallells between them. The idea that there is this Utopian state forced upon the people by the authorities and it turns out that everyone still has the same old vices and needs to satisfy.

I think the best book I've read over the last couple of years was The 5 People You Meet in Heaven. I read that in one sitting and didn't even notice the time going by. So poetic and vividly written. Very moving at the end as well.

Oh my, I forgot that one. I saw the tv movie first and then bought the book for my friend...but read it the night before I gave it to her.
now i have the book and movie... the movie was a good adaption i thought

A GREAT book is Angels & Demons By Dan Brown (Dude who wrote the Da Vinci Code) I say its just as good as the Da Vinci Code but without all the religious unsettling alot of people had to deal with. It will keep you guessing till the last chapter!

I have to say I also enjoyed Angels and Demons, despite it being obviously trash. Kind of a guilty pleaure.

One of my favourite books EVER is Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. It's an utterly beautiful book (well, short story really), about a seagull that flys for the joy of flying, rather than the necessity. For me, it's kind of a literary Shawshank Redemption, in that it gives me the same kind of uplift.

I'm also a Tolkein geek.

Gray's Anatomy (round about the 37th edition) PRETTY DAMN INTERESTIN' YO!

Not exactly a white-knuckle un-put-downable on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller though...

Ooh! But you know what is?

The Odessa File
and
The Day of the Jackal

both by Fredrick Forsyth.

haha nice to see that people agree with me about of mice and men.

Rouge: don't even start me on wanting my time back! its taken our teacher well over 20 lessons (at an hour each lesson) to read the book out loud... it took me a mere 45mins! so i am now having to listen to it over and over and over! i've wasted 20 hours of my life reading this book!

mods: i do have to agree with you on that, it is quite well written, i love all the animal imagery in it, it really is the only reason i didnt set the book on fire!

The odessa file was an awesome book!

Mine was so well loved the spine was taped together with fluro gaffa tape! And then because it was so obvious, i actually SAW it do the rounds of a bus I travelled europe around!

I hated Of Mice and Men, Catch 22, Things Fall Apart, All the President's Men, and pretty much ANY of the books they forced me to read in school. I think it was less about the quality of the book and more the fact they you had to read it outloud and really slowly, especially when you hit a slower student in the class. I like to read fast and plow through books.


But, for a super-freaky but good read, try DREAMWORLD by Jane Goldman before going to an amusement park. It features a murder/suicide in the first four pages and follows the cover-up through the eyes of Sylvia Avery, an investigator in the park police force. Very interesting read, and really creepy when you go to an amusement park considering how much such locations DO try to sweep distasteful events under the rug. I always read it before going to Great Adventure or on vacation.

Grapes of Wrath is a good 'un.

Farenheit 451- absolute BEAUT of a book, so poetic and descriptive. Monserat, if you liked A Handmaid's Tale and 1984 then you should check this out. More with the futuristic dystopia (yey dystopia novels! I did my extended essay on them in my I.B.)

Rouge, you're mad! 100 Years of Solitude is amazing!!

oh, if you're just after a quick read and a chuckle then anything by Bill Bryson should suit you...

Knew I'd miss one! Trainspotting! The film really does only tell half the stories in the book. Shame really as I think the New year's party would've made a good sequence. Did anyone else find themselves reading the Glaswegian dialect aloud to understand it??

Angels and Demons - despite myself I did end up enjoying this one. I had to persevere through the first few chapters though as the writing style of setting something up at the end of a chapter then going on to something else got a bit irritating, I kept having to go back and check who had gone where and when. So far I've avoided reading the Da Vinci Code as to me it looks like the same story but in Paris rather than Rome. An American College Professor of Relegious Symbols is called to a mysterious murder, has to follow a series of cryptic clues whilst being chased by a shadowy underground organisation with religious overtones and helped by a beautiful young lady who is connected to the murder victim. All the while dealing with an arrogant police force. Or am I being a book snob???

Fahrenheit 451 I did read in school! I remember enjoying that as well. That's the one where the firemen start the fires instead of putting them out isn't it? I can't remember how it ends though, I know the guy starts reading and hiding books but that's it. Random fact - 451 degrees Fahrenheit is apparently the temperature that paper spontaneously combusts at, or so I was told.

Re: F451 - yup, that's the one!
It says it in the book that that's the temperature at which paper burns but I read somewhere that it's not exact, depending on the paper's composition and ink etc etc...

Any body ever read "A Brave New World" By Aldous Huxley?

Yuppers! Another great dystopia novel!

(heh, me and my love of dystopia stories, I so would've been an emo kid if that had been invented when I was a young 'un!)