The Next Best Book Club discussion

Well it seems that I landed in the middle of a gold mine when I found this group! *Does a happy jig* It's nice to know that I'm not the only bookaholic in this world! My family thinks I'm a few pages short of a novel sometimes, but hey! At least I'm filling my free time well!

I'm really excited to see what books other people are reading and recommending. I like to stay abreast of the current reading trends, and I've found some really great books that way! (Yes, yes. I found Twilight that way. Let's just get that out of the way first...)

Setting the reading part aside, what about writing? Is anyone here writing anything interesting or know of anyone who is? Reading and writing go hand in hand as far as I'm concerned!

Can't wait to read your comments! :)

You'll love the group. Lots of great reading suggestions so be prepared to READ READ READ.

Welcome Sharee

Welcome Sharee, you're in good company here. I think filling your free time by reading is admirable. I don't have a lot of formal education, so if I hadn't read so much as a kid I wouldn't have people snowed into thinking I'm smarter than I am :P

Welcome Sharee. I too enjoy performing the jig of joy. As to whether my wife enjoys seeing me do that...well that's another issue.

Hi Sharee. Well, flattery will get you everywhere - we are a great group. Thank you!

Welcome and look forward to discussing lots of lovely books with you.

Welcome, Sharee! Now the problem will become keeping your reading to your free time and not neglecting the rest!

HI Sharee.. welcome. You certianly did find the right group!!

Thanks, guys! Leppaluoto has the right idea! Some of the best writing I've seen is definitely in the comments on this website!

I was laughing at Bonnie's entries in her own Newbie thread. It seems I'm not alone in the whole now-I'm-going-to-be-ditched-by-everyone-I-know-because-I'm-going-to-the-bookstore scenario! I really thought I was the only one with that sickness! (Or could it be that non-bookstoreaholics - is that the right terminology? - are the strange ones? ...hm. I'm leaning more toward the latter scenario...) :)

I'm really impressed with the books that we're reading here! Part of the reason I joined this group was to find interesting authors outside the YA genre... (I'm getting a little tired of that genre to be honest. I've been submersed in it for WAY too long! I'm going to break out in pimples and start sporting the word "like" in most of my sentences if I don't find an out soon!) So I got online and read the first chapters of both The Book of Lost Things and The Raw Shark Texts. I'm so excited to read them both that I'd almost walk the five+ miles to my local library if I didn't have other obligations! *sigh*

I'll be getting them by tomorrow at the latest, though! WAHOO!! I'm finally finding my way out of the YA mazes! (Good little mouse! Here's some cheese!)

So now, unfortunately for the rest of you, you're stuck with me! Make the best of it you can! *Mwa ha ha ha!!*

I love previewing the books on line... Gives me a better feel as to whether its my style of novel or not. Ive emailed other sites and asked them to consider doing the same thing... B&N is great.... But i dont like to order from them....

Anyhow, Glad to hear you are excited to get jumping into some new genres.... You'll have a great support system and sounding board with us here!

Thanks, Lori! Yeah, I'm not a big B&N fan, myself. If I buy a book, I tend to go the SamsClub route (Breaking Dawn hardcover for $12 baby!), but if not, then I go to Borders. Probably because it's less than a block away from me... hm. :)

I actually got onto my local library website and found the first chapters there! Hooray for libraries! At least I have a cheap-as-free way to keep up with everyone as far as getting books to read! I don't doubt that I'll be putting several of them on my wish lists when I'm done, though! Look out world!

Yeah, I know, huh! I'd be there a lot more if I had.. oh.. say.. money!! That's the kicker for me! I don't go if I ain't got no dough. :) There's a rule of thumb to live by, eh? Ah hahahaha! But yeah, I'm blessed like that! Good thing I don't have enough money to go over there every day and laze around in their cushy chairs drinking something delectable - like their hot chocolate! Mmmm! - while devouring a book. *sigh* So blessed and cursed. Yeah. That's me!

Ken, I'm wiping tears from my eyes from soooo much laughing! Because I have a confession to make - I commandeer one of those colourful kiddy stools into a corner and hope my powers of invisibility mask my huddling from exasperated parents!!!

Hi Sharee! You'll like it here - we're a mixed bag of nuts!

I was wondering where those stools got off to... :)

Hi Sharee,sorry I'm late to the welcoming party but it seems you have already made yourself at home and are fitting right in :)So I will belatedly add my welcome to the others and I look forward to getting to know you better.

No problem, Sherry! I tend to ALWAYS be late to parties, welcoming or otherwise!!! :)

Okay, so I was reminiscing yesterday about my how-to-read-a-book-till-all-hours-of-the-night-without-getting-caught strategy from my teenage years! Here's what you do: Go into the bathroom and read to your heart's content!! Ah ha ha!! No one would care if there was a light on in the bathroom and no one would be awake enough to know better! Right??

Wrong! I can't tell you how many times my dad would yell from his bedroom down the hall and, calling me by my name - I really don't know how he knew it was me! - tell me to "put that book away and go to bed!" Smart man! I think it's taken me until just recently to discover that I should have switched midnight reading venues and put them on a rotating schedule instead of sticking to just the one! Ha ha!!

hehe,if only you had known!

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, you know! I just wish I'd had better vision back then!! Ah ha ha!! ;)

Or a more crafty nature.There's a lot to be said for craftiness,when it is used for the power of good like reading...:D

Ah ha ha!! Yeah, craftiness has always escaped me! I'm about as crafty as a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of him! "Don't worry, George! I'll get it, George! If I just sneak up on it one step at a time, it'll go in my mouth, George! I swear it will, George! Just one step at a time..."

Haaha!

I've gotten much craftier as an adult with kids...well even as a married adult I suppose but as a kid,forget it!I was terribly honest and forthright often at my own detriment.I couldn't tell a fib without it being written all over my face!

BTW,don't know how you feel about it,but it's lovely that our names though,the same are spelled differently.I have a feeling you and I are going to get along like a house on fire and it would just be too wierd to have the same names!

Alas, my dear friend, I'm afraid I pronounce my name a tad different. Shuh-REE. :) But hey! I'll be the house, you be the fire, and we'll light up the city! I'm down with that! Look out world! Here we come!!

Totally cool!!!Now that is the pronounciation in my mind when I read your posts. I'm feeling the burn already!

Ken, you are so funny! What a great idea you have about kicking the stool along.

Welcome to TNBBC!! :-)
Hope you feel right at home in this wonderful cyberspace niche.

Welcome Sharee! Too funny about the stools! However I usually never make it that far. I'm one of the ones who just sit down in an isle if there aren't any comfy chairs or stools. It drives my kids nuts, but hey it works for me!

LOL, Ken. I'd like to know how you explained this to the person on the stool!

Yeah, Laura, I'm a floor-sitter, too! One of my main bookstore pet peeves is when someone is standing right where the books I want to look at are and setting up camp there. I was at Borders once - okay, many more times than once, but for the sake of this story... - and there was a couple that were obviously college age first daters. They were standing RIGHT in front of the books I was wanting to get to, reading aloud some weird "If you were in this situation, would you A, B, C, or D" book. It was really strange. ...And they didn't go away for a LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time! Finally, being the oh-so-patient person that I am, I nonchalantly started browsing bookshelves in their general direction until I conveniently got in their circle of personal space and they moved over. *expels a long awaited sigh of relief* Crisis resolved! :) I guess I just need to get into the personal space of people who block bookshelves more often!! Ha haa!

You definitely are patient, Sharee. I would've gone over and said, "I'm sorry, you're standing in the way of my next fix, so if you don't slide down a little, I'm going to start having a seizure" *sweet smile* "Thank you."

Ha ha! Me too, April. "Get out of here peeps! You're blocking my splurge."

Don't know about your Borders, but ours has some very comfy windowsills. The floor suits me just fine until I have to get up after sitting on the berber for too long. Have some of those bookreading rug burns here and there (oops, too much information).

Haa haa Linda, I hate sitting on the floor, even squatting... Im not as young as I used to be, getitng up after being in those postitions for too long hurt.... Yowsers .. I feel twice my age sometimes!

Hi Sharee-

Belated welcome here too. I've been in Vegas and my net connection there was so slow it just wasn't worth it. I enjoyed reading through these posts though...

Come on Lori, I don't believe the "I'm not as young..." line. I just got back from working out for two hours and there isn't a muscle that isn't screaming "why didn't you just sit and read some more?" I have to admit, I do love a place with cozy corners. In college, I used to hide out in the music room on a window seat (big cushion) and put headphones on to study. 1812 Overture really got me going and blocked out all the rest. Nothing like some cannons to make the world go away.

Anyone else need "complete" quiet to read or at least music with no lyrics?

Welcome Sharee! Yeah, I know I am late with it. But I am not as new as I was, so I figured now I can welcome people. :p

Sharee,

That reading in the bathroom sounds very much like my 11yr old son right now. No matter what time we send him to bed, he'll sneak in the bathroom and read!! Our bedroom is downstairs so we don't notice it so much. Our other kids who have their bedrooms upstairs do notice though & they love to tattle. Exactly how do you punish that behavior? He's one of my little readers.

But isn't it funny though that we don't reprimand them as much because we can identify with the addiction? :)

I once looked at my gynaecologist in horror when she recommended reading as the answer to my insomnia (in the third trimester). I told her - if I start reading, that's it, I'm never getting a wink because I can go on until I finish the darn book!

I had to chuckle...

If I see the lights still on at midnight on a school night in the girls' room, I know I'll find one (very occasionally both) still reading. I tell them to turn out the light. But I don't thing I've ever been able to do it without a grin on my face.

OK ok ... so I guess i cant use the "i feel older" comment... But i really do. when i was 10 years younger, i used to be able to lay on the floor... oh dear, im not going to win this conversation, huh?

haa haa haa

Wahoo, Ken, I'm a "chipper young groupie" am I? Fabulous! :) Just the categorization makes me smile! :D

Suzanne, taking the book away the next day is punishment enough... especially if the book's so good that it's keeping him up reading in the bathroom all night long! I'm just glad my parents didn't think of that punishment!!! Ha haa! Huzzah for parenthood!

Wow, Ken, I never would have thought of letting kids stay up as long as they want as long as they're reading! You're an inspiration to us all, man! A total inspiration! (And yes, I think I'll try that idea on for size... especially since I'm privileged to stay up reading myself!) :)

Kat, that's FABULOUS!! I have that issue, too! Reading at night only gives me sleepless nights! I don't understand how people can fall asleep during a book if it's earlier than, say, four or five in the morning! (That's usually when my juice runs out and my eye lids start drooping and I have to keep blinking hard every minute or less to get my eyes to focus on the letters on the page that start getting fuzzy and my brain dives off the face of the planet to a place that makes me feel both dizzy and like I'm repeatedly blacking out...) And what, by the way, is a gynecologist doing diagnosing and treating insomnia??? ...wait. Let me retract that by saying, officially on the record, I really don't want to know!!! Ha haaa!!

You can still lay on the floor no matter what age. The props you need to get up are the only things that change. First stage, jumping up on your own. Second stage (aging, but still young enough), rising to hands and knees, rocking up to a crouch. Third stage (gathering in the years), footstool nearby in case you have to take it in stages. Rise and then lift to the stool. Use the chair next to the stool to lift from there.

Ah ha ha!! Linda, it sounds like you know about this kind of thing! Though I'm not sure I've ever "jumped up" from lying on the floor! (Yeah, when I read that I imagined the whole martial arts jumping up from lying on your back to standing position by... well, I don't know how they do it, actually! :) I'm stumped! Thus the never having jumped up off the floor bit!)

Sitting, lying down, standing... it doesn't matter how, I just tend to love to read! One thing I got pretty proficient at was reading while I was walking... but that's not to say that I never fell flat on my face or totally knocked into someone!! :) Does anyone else read a book while navigating through throngs of people? Or read while walking and trying not to trip over out-of-place objects like rocks, curbs, cars, telephone poles, and the occasional building?

Hey Lepp- My daughter stayed up all night to read Breaking Dawn too. She was really irritated that I waited until we were on vacation to read it because she couldn't talk to me about it.

Back to school here in a week.

Ken, you are as young as your (in)ability to leap small footstools. You are quite a guy. Every time I read one of your comments, I can't get over the fact that you are reading 100s of books, traveling and "been there, done that" somewhere in your past. Props to you.

So let's open up Ken's tome of knowledge yet again, shall we? (Yeah, for those of you who don't know, Leppaluoto is Ken.) :) You are amazing! That aside, what's your version of "a reasonable hour" on a school night to let the kids stay up till? I'm having internal hemorrhaging over this issue since I'm wrestling internally with myself over it. Save me, k? (I'm sure you can imagine me flopping about on the floor, writhing in pain over something that, in all actuality, shouldn't be causing me to go into death throes in the middle of my living room floor, but is anyway.) ;D

Huzzah for all the Breaking Dawn fans! It seems that the opposition tends to voice their opinions a bit louder than others... well, aside from me, of course. I tend to - very loudly, mind you - voice my position opinion about Stephenie Meyer and her books wherever I can. *Starts a nasal, philosophical drone - like the guy from the Clear Eyes commercials!! :D* Yes, my friends, it's true. Stephenie Meyer returned me to the world of bookwormerie which entails near constant reading, buying of books, and cramming of newly purchased books in any nook or cranny with any shelf size larger than a penny. :D

Okay, I'll ditch the philosophical drone, but hey! I just learned the correct spelling of philosophical from all of this! ;D

Yeah, Twilight is one of the first books that I've gone out and purchased for my own personal library. Who knew it would be the beginning of the end!!! Dah dah daaaaaah! It's also the first book that I've been soooooo addicted to that I couldn't put it down, even when the Sandman came a-callin'! No kiddin'! I've been able to put other books down, even when I didn't really want to, but Twilight was different. I guess I"m just a sucker for a good, clean love story! ...with all kinds of danger intermixed, of course! NO love story is good unless it has some sort of Grim-Reaper-hanging-over-your-head-about-to-take-someone-down-into-his-world-of-constant-night aspect to it. Am I right?? ;)

So what did you think of Breaking Dawn then Sharee?

I have to say... I was disappointed. And I really enjoyed the first three (New Moon not as much because I got really sick of the whining) but these books made me literally swoon- and it's not easy to make that happen. It actually induced that feeling of first love, which was wonderful (and the reason I believe these books have been so popular it that they do re-create that first love feeling). It's why the fans are so strong.

I know SM changed the tone of the book because Bella had changed and all that... but it lost the strong feeling for me.

Of course I still can't wait for Midnight Sun, and I am getting ready to start The Host- which my daughter just finished and loved... but I thought BD was written to please the fans and give that happy ending and tidy wrap up, without doing a better job of developing the characters and giving us more history as seen in books 2 and 3.

Marsha, I think that I enjoyed the twists and turns that BD took. I did miss that first love feeling in it, though I enjoyed the fact that my preconceived notions were all incorrect.

Thus far I've enjoyed SM's writing. I think I idolize her a bit in that she was just a stay-at-home mom and now she's done something amazing. All four of her books were on the NYT best sellers lists... and I believe some of them still are. I'd like to be able to do that; find my niche in life and make something stellar of myself! (Yes, stellar, not just great!) :) I will, too! Just watch! :)

You Go Girl!

And yeah, I also loved that SM was a stay at home mom (of course, I imagine the hubby can stay at home now if he WANTS to).

I'll always be a fan of Bella and Edward. I can't wait for the movie to come out.

Marsha: I've already read The Host. It's very different from her Twilight series. Instead of that feeling of first love, she evokes a stronger, more familial feeling in the reader. Of course there's a good underlying love story in it, too! :D That just fits SM to the letter!

I can't wait for the movie to come out either, though I'm getting more and more worried as the days tick by. I'm worried that my expectations will be too high, the actors will butcher my conception of their characters, Edward won't fit my preconceived notion of the perfect guy, the director won't direct well enough for me to be drawn into the story, it will be another book-turned-movie flop alongside Eragon, ....Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!

So much that I'm overly worried about, I know! I should just go to be entertained, not to criticize or compare the movie to the book. ...yeah, saying it is one thing, doing it's another! Grrr!