September Book Club

Book club met last night to discuss Life of Pi. Everyone liked it. I liked it, but I wouldn't read it again, and it's not the best book I ever read. There was quite a bit of discussion about the two different versions of what happened on the boat. The consensus was that the animal version was the better, if not the true, version of what happened. There was some discussion of religion but not a whole lot. We talked quite a bit about the island and how unbelievable that sounded. The one part I didn't really like was that the island ate a person. Now, really. And then the person's teeth were wrapped up in leaves that Pi pulled apart? That seems a little ridiculous. I guess he needed a good reason to leave the island that was otherwise so good to him, but a people eating island? For some reason, after all the potentially unbelievable things in the book, that was the one that stood out to me!

The three books suggested for next month were:

Goodnight Nobody, by Jennifer Weiner. This is what we're reading.

Empire Falls, by Richard Russo

Lucky, by Alice Sebold

This rarely happens, but nobody had read any of these books. I actually had already checked out Goodnight Nobody and planned to read it, so that's the one I voted for. Next month is our 2 year book club anniversary! Wow! Instead of meeting at someone's house we're going out to dinner. Everyone's going to suggest a book since there's no hostess, except for Judy and Chrissy who suggested last and this month's books.

In other reading news, I'm still reading Twins of Tribeca. It started out really slow for me. It's gotten better, but it seems to be taking me a very long time to read. Ryan keeps reaching out to grab whatever is behind him so I end up holding the book up in the air and my arm gets kind of tired! I've also just started reading 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff which is an epistolary novel (which I love) containing the correspondence between a London antiquarian book dealer and a New York journalist. I'm reading it before I go to bed, so it's just a few pages every now and then.

Twins of Tribeca

Society Girls was a fun, easy read. It went really quickly. The main character, Clemmie, reminded me a little of the main character, Becky, from the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. She is a little more self aware and doesn't get into as many ridiculous situations though. She is also a little more believable. For people who hated Becky (I'm talking to you Brooke :) ) you might like Clemmie a little better. I also liked Sarah Mason's previous book, Playing James. It has the same family as Society Girls, but focuses on another daughter, Holly. Very cute.

This morning I started Twins of TriBeCa by Rachel Pine. I'm not sure about it yet since I'm only a few pages in.

Society Girls

I finished Life of Pi over the weekend. I really liked it, again, much more than I thought I would. It's nice not to be able to predict exactly what's going to happen. I also like books that are believable. Even if something is completely fantastic, like surviving for 200+ days in a lifeboat, if you can make me believe it could actually happen, I'm perfectly happy going along with it. If you tell me a stupid story about walking down the street that doesn't make any sense, that irritates me.

Right now I'm reading Society Girls by Sarah Mason. Another book I'm liking more than I thought I would. It's a light read set in Britain. It's funny in a way that I really like. The characters can laugh at themselves.

Life of Pi

I'm reading Life of Pi for book club. So far it's pretty good. It's funnier than I thought it would be. It was always one of those books that I'd heard too much about and was sure it could never be as good as the hype. I felt the same way about The Da Vinci Code.

I'm also reading Thicker than Water, Coming of Age Stories by Irish and Irish American writers. I read a story while I pump at work. They're Young Adult stories. Pretty good.

My new blog

I don't know that I'll have time to keep up with this, but what the heck!