Awesome Book Covers

Which one do you like best?

We shall discuss your affairs over a Christmas box of Franzia, Bob!

What to say about the second most well known Christmas story? Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is a story whose particulars are well known to us all, but few had read the original. What did we discover?

Girls with Dragon Tattoos Love Boxed Wine

Our perception of Best Sellers is apparently somewhat jaundiced. We've come to expect Da Vinci Codes,  or perhaps a few hundred pages of Tom Clancy putting info on the latest nightvision scopes and his Cold War Hangover Fever Dreams into a shaker, or various tales of how rich women finding themselves, bearing the sticker of Oprah's Book Club. We are not Oprah's Book Club, we are the Guild of Franzia--our souls are as hard and black as our livers.So it's a bit of a shock that best-selling sensation The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, praised by mothers and BYU folks alike, sits comfortably on our shelf with the rest of the urban despair and death camps.

Respond with # of Read and # of Started not finished

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bront
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwe
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegge
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martell
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A Review of Dr. Zhivago

With the publication of the new translation of Dr. Zhivago there have been a few reviews. Here is one I liked and thought was kind of interesting. Enjoy, leave a comment if you have anything to say...

Franzia Made From Corn and Bark

We've visited Dystopias before. We've been through county lock-ups, prisons, training camps, work camps, death camps, brainwashing centers, POW camps, Club Feds, prisons of the mind, and even saw mention of a prison planet. In each case, we were removed by the span of history, or the gulf of reality. This time, though, it was all real, and all happening even as you read this.

A Franzia Box Introduced in Act 1 Will Be Important in Act 3

Fittingly, on the night of the year's first valley snow, a night marked with cold and clouds, we gathered to ruminate on a true Russian master, Anton Pavlovich Chekov, and his shorter works.

Perdido Franz Station, Part 2

The strange tale of Perdido Street Station did indeed unfold. And it unfolded as a monster hunt. Something of a let down, but not enough of one to rob the novel of its bizarre and terrible power.

Reading Dickens in Logos

I found this article really interesting and thought you fellow book nerds might find it interesting as well. Reading Dickens in Logos

Anyway, enjoy let me know what you think.

Mornin' Guvna

I've booked you all seats at this event (not so much the plane tickets though...). Brush up on this and come on over!

Franzia Street Station, Part 1

A strange tale is gradually unfolding in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, and our conversation also gradually unfolded. But luckily, no one had to flay anyone else alive to illustrate their point.

Blame It On Too Much Cheap Wine

As befits a novel called Blame, the team gathered to assign a little. After a brief bit of rote business wherein Chris Lake encouraged all to "sandwich with compliments", the knives came out. So here is a slice of compliment bread at the top--this novel united us. United us in hate. It was a novel in an Arrested Development world devoid of irony, a Veronica Mars world devoid of a troublemaker, a 90210 world devoid of camp. And the blame fell squarely upon author Michelle Huneven.

A 2nd Night with Handmaids, Numbers of Nights with Franz Indeterminate

The concluding night focused upon The Handmaid's Tale dovetailed with the previous, as we discussed the further revelations of life under the flag of Gilead, and the mysterious fate of mysterious Offred.

I would rather borrow the lion...

This is a clip of what I will be like in old age, if I were British. Anyway, I enjoyed this clip immensely. Also, as a side note, Has anyone every had any luck with the book pick-up? Have you every brought a book to the bookstore counter or library counter and had the cute salesperson/librarian say something that led to further romantic entanglements? It's never worked for me, but anyway the video...

The Danger of the Single Story

I wanted to share this video because she explains, in a more interesting, funny, and beautiful way than I ever could, why I read books and fiction and why everyone should.

Blame by Michelle Huneven

This is the next book after the second half of Handmaid's Tale.

Change of Pace

I was trying my damndest to watch the amazing video posted by Kelly but the margins kept cutting off part of the image.  So I changed up the format a bit. Hopefully that's ok with y'all.  I'm not emotionally attached to it if you want to make changes. I just needed more room, dammit!

Addendum: I am using my mom's tiny tiny laptop for a bit so perhaps that is the cause of this issue.  Remember the 3"x3" black and white TV's that used to be around?  This is the slightly older brother of those things. Sigh.  I want my computer back :(

Also Mentioned Last Night

The Handmaid's Tale (as told around a box of Franzia) Part 1

Discussion of the first half of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale continually orbited its central figure, the handmaid known currently as Offred--her status, her plight, and her ways of coping.

The London Library

For when we have a book club tour of the city...

Book Club in London

Yesterday we did some walking aruond the city and I came across a couple things that reminded me of you guys.  (it looks like you will have to click some of the pics to get the full version) The first was this painting...

And it came with this caption...

So you really can make anything relate to Bovary it seems.  Thoughts on the interpretation?

Secondly was this...

I don'thave From Hell with me so you'll have to let me know if Moore's portrayal is accurate. I can only assume it is with him but I was curious.

Hope you are all doing well!

Franzaholics of Dune

As befits the novel, discussion of Frank Herbert's Dune covered many a theme and topic, from the central allegory of Spice as Oil, to the lead's shockingly fast progression from likable-if-naive young noble Paul Atreides to unlikable and fearful messiah/revolutionary Paul Muad'Dib. Paul's age at the end of the novel, proposed to be somewhere between 17 and 25, remains uncertain, though it was agreed he was quite young for someone so powerful. Much was made of the speculative aspects of genetics, human capability over technological, and politics, as well as the progression of the series, and the changing perspectives on its characters, as protagonist becomes antagonist, the powerless become powerful, and the old order reacts to the new. The strange impotence of those who seemingly hold the power was brought up, and how the pull of their drug--spice, commerce, or oil--renders them such, also was brought up, as was Herbert's disinterest of action in favor of the consequences of action, and the creation of vivid characters to inhabit his detailed universe. The spice did indeed flow.

Fascinating London Web Site

As one of our number is off to London soon, and as we have read "From Hell," I found this site as I was doing some reserach for work. It contains digitized, original documents from Old Baily in London from 1690 to 1800. There are documents from criminal trials, government social policy, some letters, etc. What is cool about it is the site is keyword searchable. Anyway, just something to waste your time on.

And because I love you...

Jane Austen fight club...what's the first rule of fight club mofo?

iTunes University

I learned about something interesting yesterday.  You all probably know about this but it was a revelation to me.  On iTunes, they have the iTunes University with free courses from all kinds universities.  I found a Yale course on the American novel since 1945, for example.  The course has a total of 51 classes but, of course, you can pick and choose any that look interesting.  As fellow lovers of learning, I felt compelled to share :)

Lovecraft crazy cat name contest

So as was mentioned at the last book club, we have thought up a little contest for our reading of H. P. Lovecraft. As you know we are reading at least three short stories by Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" and any two others. Now the contest, Lovecraft was a well-known eccentric, at the age of ten had dressed himself in a sheet and turban and claimed to have converted to Islam, this is 19th century New England. He had a massive fear of old people that bordered on a phobia. So the contest is to find the 'interesting' name for one of the cat's mentioned in one of his short story. The person who wins gets a candy bar of their choice. So, good reading.

Upcoming Events

Next Wednesday we will be watching Fight Club.  Not sure who's hosting that yet so keep an eye out for updates.  Book club on the 21st is at Kelly's house and we will be discussing the H.P. Lovecraft short stories.  Everyone is reading Call of Cthulhu but then you can pick any other 2-3 stories on your own.  A candy bar of your choosing is the reward for anyone who finds the story involving a cat with an "inappropriate" name.  No cheating allowed!  This is a major award, people!

The next two books will be Dune and Handmaid's Tale.  As of now, we decided to try and read Dune in the normal two weeks but we will reassess of it seems that is too much.  Have a good weekend everyone!!!

7/12/2010~ We have decided we are watching Fight Club at Chris & Charity's house this week at 7pm.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Dune by Frank Herbert

José Saramago, Nobel prize winner dies

So I wanted to mention the death of Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago. Here is a link to his obituary in the NY Times. You should read it. He led a fascinating life. I have read a few of his books and I recommend Blindness and The Cave. I have started reading Baltasar and Blimunda and have really liked it so far. So just a bit of book news for all you nerds out there.

And the winner is...

It appears Mr. Murakami was the winner of this round of votes :)  Thanks for giving your opinions!

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert	0 (0%)
Firmin by Sam Savage	1 (14%)
Pastoralia by George Saunders	0 (0%)
The Astonshing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson	0 (0%)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson	2 (28%)
Lefthand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin	1 (14%)
Maus I and Maus II by Art Speigelman	2 (28%)
Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami	3 (42%)
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers	0 (0%)
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier	1 (14%)
Lush Life by Richard Price	2 (28%)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman	1 (14%)
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett	1 (14%)
The Plague by Albert Camus	1 (14%)
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis	2 (28%)
Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett	2 (28%)
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith	0 (0%)

(Reluctant) Movie Viewing

It appears my guilt trip was successful as we will be watching From Hell at my house next Wednesday (June 30th) at 7pm.  If you want to bring any snacks please do.  I have a few bottles of wine that need drinking as well :) See you there!!!

So I just Finished "From Hell..."

...and I found it disturbing. I started out hating the artist. I felt he was too blurry, too vague, and did not make the different characters easy enough to distinguish. But by the end I was thankful there was not too much realism in the images as I might have been sick otherwise (chapter 10 if you don't know). So,I started out not really liking this book, but now I am conflicted. It has really got me thinking. I only lightly dipped into the end notes and I almost want to reread the text and read the end notes as well as they seem really interesting. What does everyone else think? Did this book leave you with any questions? what did you think about the artist?

Slight Change

We will be having book club next week on TUESDAY instead of Wednesday.  It's still being held at Chris and Charity's house.  See you there!

My Favorite Quote About Ayn Rand

So this has nothing to do with "From Hell" or anything. I just hate Ayn Rand and I re-discovered this quote and thought y'all might enjoy it.

“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kid’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.” – “The Value of Nothing” by Raj Pate

Sex and the City 2 Review

Here is a link to the review of "Sex and the City 2" that I talked about last night: Burkas and Birkins by Lindy West

Special Screening: Blade Runner

Click the title for more info.

H. P. Lovecraft

We don't have a specific book or story for this week.  Just read 2-3 short stories and we'll share what we liked.  Here's a link we found with a bunch of his stories online. 

Fight Club

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick

What You Missed

I apologize in advance for the bullet-pointedness of this post :) 

Things we discussed and voted on at club tonight: 

• We will update the blog at the end of each club meeting with the location of the next meeting as well as with the title for the next book we choose.  
• Chris will be the contact for everyone if you have any questions and he'll send a reminder text a couple of days before the club
• To make snack coordination easier for everyone, we decided to start a rotation that Chris will keep track of.  If you  host the club meeting at your house, you don't need to worry about bringing any snack stuff that night.  We're going to try it to see how it works out and hopefully it will make things easier to coordinate.  
• Because From Hell is proving difficult to find and is really expensive to buy, we decided to push it back another two weeks.  Hopefully that will give everyone time to find a copy and read it since it is so large.  We decided to pick a small book that will be easy to read in the meantime.  And the winner is.....Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick.
• The book after From Hell will be...... Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.  There are a lot of copies at the library but they are all checked out so hopefully this will give us enough time to put them on hold and read them before then. 
• Lastly, after Fight Club we will read H. P. Lovecraft. Instead of reading a specific book or story, we voted to have each person pick 2-3 short stories and we will talk about what we read.  It could be a really interesting way to review him as an author and see what themes we pick up on.  Check the Lovecraft post for a link to a bunch of his stories available online. 

This week's Quote of the night: "Ben and I have a history of Lovecraft!!!" Chris Lake 

And for the vote results so far (the poll is still up and running on the lefthand side of the blog if you want to vote):

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert	0 (0%)
Firmin by Sam Savage	1 (16%)
Pastoralia by George Saunders	0 (0%)
The Astonshing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson	0 (0%)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson	2 (33%)
Lefthand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin	1 (16%)
Maus I and Maus II by Art Speigelman	2 (33%)
Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami	3 (50%)
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers	0 (0%)
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier	1 (16%)
Lush Life by Richard Price	2 (33%)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman	1 (16%)
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett	1 (16%)
The Plague by Albert Camus	1 (16%)
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis	2 (33%)
Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett	1 (16%)
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith	0 (0%)

Change of Venue

At the last minute, we were able to get the Post Theater for our movie viewing this evening.  Here is a map of the location.  It will be after parking service hours so we can park at the Fort Douglas Museum which is just to the west of the theater (it's the building behind all the military equipment you see on the left when you drive East on  South Campus Drive/Hamstead Road).

The Maltese Falcon and Bogie

So, I am a few chapters into The Maltese Falcon and I can say that knowing the Bogart movie as well as I do has changed the reading experience for me. The dialogue in the movie follows the book quite closely so far. This means that although Sam Spade is described in the novel as a "blond satan" I can't get Humphrey Bogart's face and voice out of my head when I read about Spade. Joel Cairo is Peter Lorre in my head as well. I have the same problem with The Lord of the Rings. With the movie out, all I see when I read is Elijah Wood as Frodo and Ian McKellan as Gandalf. Do you think this diminishes the reading experience? or is it a good thing?

Also I do have to say that I was shocked by the homophobic portrayal of Joel Cairo. I knew it was there but Hammett lays it on pretty thick; all the "mincing steps" and "perfumed handkerchiefs" are distracting. This might be something to talk about when we meet. How do stereotypes in an older book affect our enjoyment of the book? How should we react to these kinds of negative stereotypes? Anyway just something to think about.

I have this scalpel...

Perhaps it was the Franz, perhaps it was my giddiness at having Teddy Grahams for the first time in years, perhaps it was fate.  I don't know what was in the air last night and I don't know about you but I had a great time! 

Here's what we decided for our next books:

May 12th: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett  @ Noelle's House

May 26th: Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson, part of the 33 1/3 Series
@ (Location TBD)

June 9th: From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell @ (location TBD)

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson, part of the 33 1/3 Series

Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett