The Next Year's Picks (and other recommendations) Summer 2013- Spring 2014

Okay- here it is- the next year's picks and their months, with links to the books so you can check out additional info.
A brief explanation- we tried to pick a variety if genres and space them out as best as possible. Because we tried to get a variety, some books were not picked because they overlapped with things we've already read or other choices- but take a look at the other recommendations at the bottom, because the suggestions were great!
I'll add blog posts to remind of upcoming dates- each choice is intended to meet at the end of that month. (Ex: We're meeting for The Orchardist, June's pick, on  June 30th). If you would like to volunteer to host one or more of these, please let me know! Unless I change the listing on this page, please consider the host space needed. Also- still working on the new format. As y'all continue to visit this page, it will end up on the left hand side under "most viewed posts", which should make it easily accessible.


June- The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin          (host: Stacy Leatherman)
July- Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis           (host: Kiersten Krajcar)
August- The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls
September- City of Thieves by David Benioff          (host: Karyn Vorhees)
October- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern          (host: Kirsten Johnson)
November- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
December/January- Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
February- The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
March- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
April- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
May- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer


Other Recommendations from fellow Cuckoo's Nest-ers, in no particular order:
(I'm adding the name of the chooser if I know it so you can ask them about the book if you're interested. Comment to claim your choices if you want!)

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese     (chosen by Kirsten)
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts       (chosen by Tracy [I think])
Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles by Keith Black, MD
Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
66 Days Adrift: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Open Sea by William Butler
The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks by Susan Casey
Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse     (chosen by Kiersten)
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
Yaeger: An Autobiography by Chuck Yaeger
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan     (chosen by Kiersten)
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse     (chosen by Kiersten)
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver



There you go! Comment, get reading, and enjoy! Sharing books and tips with others is part of what makes our group great- thanks for putting thoughts on the blog so we make sure everyone gets the info.  Keep saving up other ideas- if this goes well, we'll try to compile this list yearly.

Happy Reading!

The Orchardist- June

Hey all! Updates-
Yes, I know the blog is a little lame. I'm working on fixing the font, but I wanted a format I could manipulate more easily than the other one so we could (hopefully) keep the year-long-list and the book club by-laws in an easy to find place without scrolling through a million things. Expect changes this week. Also, expect the year-long-list this week.

We have a meeting time! I hope you're all doing well with The Orchardist! Word on the street is that it's now easy to come by, so buy or borrow. I bought mine today and if you're okay with notes in the margins, you're welcome to it when I'm done. B&N has it marked off 20% if you don't want to wait for Amazon to ship it.
As a change of venue, Stacy is our hostess and has booked us the back meeting room at Symposium coffee house in Tigard at 8pm. Yay! The room is free, but if you have the means, it's probably a good idea to buy coffee to support something local.

Symposium
12345 sw Main St
Tigard 97223
8 pm
Sunday, June 30th

See you all then- happy reading!

Gatsby Film Anyone???

Hi ladies, Karyn here - I know some of you have seen The Great Gatsby, but I'd love to go see it with some book club buddies.  I'll be available Friday, Saturday (June 7&8) if anyone wants to meet up with me on those days, please text me!  805-340-6232 
Thanks!   

June

Okay, fastest blog post ever because I'm on my way to the middle school overnight field trip (blechhhh) but I wanted to get this info out before the big weekend-

June's pick is The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

We will meet sometime at the end of June. We have picks figured out for the next yearish, thanks to everyone contributing and Stacy helping me go through them all, and you'll get a long and lovely post with the next year's list and other recommendations, but for now, get started on The Orchardist!  This one takes a little bit of time, so make sure you get it and get started.

Anyone willing to host for June, perhaps one of the people that chose the book? Leave a comment or shoot me a text and I'll get the word out.

Happy Reading!

Clarification/Reminder/Announcement...?

Hey there!
Seems I wasn't super clear and forgot to update (I know, I forgot to update- shocking!), but for those of you that didn't hear through the grapevine, we're meeting this upcoming Sunday, 5/5, at Karyn's house at 7pm.

We'll be discussing Gatsby and hopefully getting a date on the calendar for seeing the movie after it opens.

Hope to see y'all there!

Happy Reading!

Movies

Two quick movie announcements-

FIRST of all, please join other nesters to watch Dead by Sunset at Stephanie Balavac's house next Sunday, Apr 28th, from 7-10 pm. Snacks at 6:30- movie starts at 7 sharp. :) Please let Karyn or Stephanie know if you'll be able to make it!

Secondly, The Great Gatsby comes out in theatres on May 10th. What days work best for y'all? Post or lemme know so we can pick a time that works for the most people.

Happy Reading!

Book Club By-Laws

Book Club By-Laws

a.k.a. Words to Read By

In case you weren't around when these were established, or you've forgotten them, or you think OTHERS have forgotten them, here are the newly updated and expanded-upon rules and regulations for book selection and reading. Let me know if I've missed any.


1. Nothing over 1,000 pages. Consider length in general- if it's on the longer side but it's still an engulfing read, 700 pages might not be terrible, especially since we're establishing the books well in advance. If it's a dry biography, or even a fabulous book by a Russian author that has like 250 pages on Russian farming (I'm lookin' at you, Anna Karenina), 400 pages might be way too long. Use your judgement- but DEFINITELY don't EVER exceed 1k. Do I love Stephen King's Under the Dome? Heck yes. Will I choose it even though it's 1,096 pages and that's sort of barely over? Heck no. Sorry, Stephen.

2. No books that can be bought in a grocery store checkout line. Quality, people. No Twilight, no romance novels, and for heaven's sake, NO FIFTY SHADES OF ANYTHING. We want to become collectively smarter through this.

3. No books that require prior knowledge. Got a great book that's in the middle of the series? No thanks. Recommend the series all you want, but please don't pick it for club. Great book on something subject specific (medicine, science, history, etc) that you need to have a degree to understand? Sorry, it's not the right fit for group. This doesn't mean the book's not great, it means that it's not accessible for most people.

4. No Christian books. Sorry. I love Jesus, and so do many (most/all) of the people currently attending, but this will alienate visitors. This HAS to be a safe place to invite all kinds of people. Books about missionaries or with religious themes are fine, but please stay away from "Christian fiction".

5. Consider discussion. You may have loved a book, but if there's not much to talk about, leave it. Recommend all you want, but please don't choose it for club. For example- Stacy and I both LOVED The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and would highly recommend it, but neither of us has chosen it because it wouldn't elicit much discussion. But seriously, read it! It's lovely.

6. Don't choose a book that you feel so strongly about that you will be blind/deaf to the opinions of others. Here's a quote from my 4th favorite book of all time: "Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book, and then there are books which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal." Evangelical zeal= great! You'll spark some great discussion with people that have different views/opinions. "YOUR" books= danger! Some of us are extremely passionate about books and have a few that we can't hear other opinions about. DON'T choose those books. We want to be friends at the end of this. I'm a mostly rational person, but there are some books that I feel so strongly about that I have to resist the urge to punch people when they disagree. That's insane, I know that, and so I haven't chosen those books. End of story. On that note, some advice for readers...

7. Feel free to disagree/ skip a book... but challenge yourself. We want to grow from this, and reading the exact same type of book over and over isn't the answer to that. However... I sort of strongly dislike nonfiction, but I've grown to appreciate it because I took a few chances. I'm a better, more well-rounded reader because of it. Don't dismiss something because it's "not your thing". On the other hand, I chose to skip a specific book for personal reasons, but that didn't reflect on the book itself or the person choosing it. I just wasn't emotionally strong enough at the moment to deal. I also wanted to choose a book on the US's first serial killer using the Chicago World's Fair as a hunting ground, and I know that ruffled some feathers. That's okay- not every book is for every person. Respect the choices of others.

8. Bring your own questions/points to discuss. This is a new rule- but PLEASE bring things you'd like to discuss. The discussion questions we find online are generally surface-y and meant for book clubs that are more about the wine selection than the book selection. I've got nothing against wine at book club (seriously), but we would like to be more than that. Questions from everyone will hopefully start important, intellectual discussions. Think about quotes you love, symbolism/metaphors, author's purpose, all that jazz. It's like English class, but you don't have a really hairy old man telling you what Bradbury means and you aren't doodling in your notebook- you're involved because you WANT to be, and so does everyone else. That's kind of great, right?

And now, with that, don't forget to have your 2-3 choices for next month (May's) meeting. We'll get a variety, so choose whatever you want, and please respect what we end up coming up with. If your books aren't chosen, they'll go back in for consideration next year, and it may be just so we can ensure a variety. Thanks!

Happy reading!