TV Tropes Book Club

By request from the Literature forum.

Welcome, one and all, to the TV Tropes Book Club. The basic idea of this coven is (I hope) to widen the literary horizons of all participants and encourage open and enlightening discussion about why we like the books we like, and how we react to books that we're perhaps not so familiar with.

So, some basic rules:

• If you're interested in actively participating, please make a post saying so, and suggesting a book for the club to read/discuss.
• Once we have some choices, one of the suggestions will be picked and everyone will have say, a week to read it. Then we reconvene and discuss our thoughts on said book.
• After everyone's had their fill of the first book, we decide which one is second, rinse and repeat.

To start with, we should probably suggest shorter books that are easily available from the library, major bookstores and/or download. If discussion of those goes well, we might try a heftier book later.

Note: Due to my flakiness issues, I will not be the referee for this thread.

Your thoughts and suggestions?

Current book: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Discussion begins 6/25/12.)

Suggested books (in alphabetical order by title, reading order not yet determined):

• Clockwork Vampires Chronicles by Andy Remic.
• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.
• Nation by Terry Pratchett.
• Paper Towns by John Green.
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.
• Vampire Kisses: Beginning
• ''The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

edited 23rd Jun '12 7:03:49 PM by SKJAM

I'm interested in participating. I don't have any book suggestions, yet, but I do have a suggestion for the rules. Perhaps we should decide the next book at the start of the previous one to give us time to get the book, if we don't already own it.

I am quite interested in participating, and shall watchlist this thread.

However, nothing springs to mind as a suggestion. Reading hefty books is my tendency, so anything below 250 pages is a bit out of my familiarity-purview.

Wait- I take it back. "The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is my suggestion. It's not long, despite the ominous title.

edited 8th Jun '12 1:36:50 AM by Muramasan13

I'd like to participate as well.

My suggestion is "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes. It shouldn't be problematic to get your hands on a copy and it's also relatively short.

What up!

I don't know how a book club works, much less an online one, so I'll just tag along. Hmmm, for a relatively short book I'll have to say The Vampire Kisses series, with the first book "Beginning". You can find it all on Scribd site. Its not exactly a hard read, with the first book at 200 pages or so. Its also, quite frankly, a Mary Sue novel. but I just happened to like it....

I'm interested!

My suggestion is Paper Towns by John Green. I haven't read it yet, but I'm super interested in it. Also, it's a bit metafictional, which might make it a fitting first choice.

I'm going to suggest an old standby, Fahrenheit451 by Ray Bradbury.

I've already read Fahrenheit, but I'd certainly give Bradbury a vote. Maybe Dandelion Wine, as we seem to be tending to the literary in this thread?

Do we suggest books that we read already, in the middle of, or going to?

Anyway, I bought the Clockwork Vampires Chronicles by Andy Remic. The cover artwork and blurb interested me and its basically 3 books in one. So bought it and hoped for the best.

Books we want to read, I think. Nothing too formal. (I do have a few things to say about Fahrenheit, so on second thought I'll second the vote because someone needs to second a suggestion.)

I support Fahrenheit as well. It's been ages since I read it; I wonder if my perception of it has changed. Besides, it would be nice to start off with Bradbury, given recent events.

I'm interested. I also support Fahrenheit.

I support Fahrenheit as well; being as it is possibly my favorite sci-fi book.

Okay, I think that's settled. (Hopefully we'll have grown enough for crowners by the second book.) So I guess we'll reconvene on the twenty-fifth and discuss it, yah?

Sounds good to me.

I'll borrow a copy from my library and we'll convene later then.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to actively participate, but I'd like to drop in every now and then. Not like adding a few more books to the reading list will make a difference, anyway...

I've read Paper Towns. It's a worthwhile read. I haven't read Fahrenheit so I guess I'll pick that up from the library next week. Could I suggest Nation, by Terry Pratchett? It's not incredibly long, but it's good and funny but different from his Discworld stuff.

Started late and not quite finished yet, so just a preliminary observation: My perspective on certain characters has changed considerably between age 15 (when I last read Fahrenheit 451) and age 50.

I just got the book today. I've read the introduction so far (2003 ed.) and was wondering, is there a difference between editions I should know about?

Simon & Schuster edition, 2012. The text itself shouldn't vary greatly between printings, but there will be different introductions, end notes, biographies and such. (And I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's read this book in other languages.)

There is a shorter version, titled "The Fireman" that appeared in Galaxy magazine; I would not be surprised if you could find that in an anthology.

eta: edited opening post to make it easier to find which books have already been suggested.

edited 23rd Jun '12 7:05:20 PM by SKJAM

So, who read the book? Anyone?

Argh, got sidetracked by RL stuff. Barely made it out of the intro.

I've finished rereading the book.

If nothing else, we owe feminism a vote of thanks for reducing the probability that a woman will end up being just a "Mrs. X" who has nothing to do all day but watch the walls.

I just finished part three this morning. Long train rides are annoying, but I get a lot of reading done.

So, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. A couple of impressions:

• I remember being disappointed at Clarisse's disappearance early in the story when I read the book years ago. Now I appreciate that Bradbury wrote her out of the story so quickly, for two reasons. First off, it's a logical development; the authorities have been keeping tabs on her family for ages and she makes no effort to disguise her nonconformity. More importantly, the short time she spends with Montag is already enough. At this point, he didn't need someone like Faber, only a gentle nudge in the right direction. Clarisse is this nudge, nothing more. She has fulfilled her role the second Montag starts to think about all the questions she asked. So, she disappears.

• Colours play an important role. Black, the colour of soot, for the firemen, white for Clarisse and gray for the faceless masses. Interestingly, the fire in Granger's camp is described as "red and white", signifying the shift from fire as a destructive force to fire as warm and life-giving. This transition nicely sets up the phoenix motif shortly before the story ends.

• Fahrenheit is pretty quotable. Beatty's speech gives us "a book is a loaded gun in the house next door", Faber remarks "I don't talk things, sir, I talk the meaning of things." and Granger's "I am Plato's Republic" spiel is inspiring and sad at the same time. Literature isn't gone, but it's only a memory now.

• Speaking of quotes, I'm glad I bought a cheap edition that was intended for foreign language students. The name-dropped philosophers and authors are easily recognised, but without the annotations I would have missed a lot of quotes from the Bible.

I enjoyed reading Fahrenheit 451 again, although I still prefer Orwell or Huxley in terms of bleak, book-burning dystopias. In addition, I feel that a story which asks "Why read?" is a rather fitting start for our Book Club.

edited 25th Jun '12 1:37:49 PM by Farnion

I enjoy this story much more then Orwell or Huxley, mainly because it feels... closer. The dystopian future seems closer to home in this story, especially seeing as some things were pretty well predicted.