Comments | imgoingdowntown: Event - Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

imgoingdowntown

Event - Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Jun 16, 2004 23:07

So far, Germinal has been a bit of a downer. It's France's answer to muckraking books like The Jungle, though right now, it's very much like Coal Miner's Daughter. I guess it's all supposed to be about coal mines.

Maybe after I finish that, I can start Anna Karenina. I ought to read something Russian. Besides, due to a rip in the fabric of the ( Read more... )

Comments 4

No more Icy Sparks honestlyold June 17 2004, 11:16:59 UTC

I'm a little suspicious of Oprah's "new" book club. Wasn't the "new" incarnation's debut book East of Eden? I'm just sayin'.

Oh well, at least East of Eden got a new print run, and it looks pretty snazzy when you take off the giant "Oprah" banner.

The End of Icy Sparks imgoingdowntown June 18 2004, 07:45:14 UTC

I guess A.K isn't as much of a stretch for her "new" book club, which is, as a whole, fairly suspicious. I wonder if there's some hidden message that she's trying to send us. She must have given up more comfortable books for some reason. Maybe you need to line up her titles acrosticly, to create a message like: Help, a shadow government has taken over the United States.

I still miss the old Book Club, not so much because I actually read the books, but because I miss hearing the descriptions. It seems like they were either about death or a debilitating illness, or were dangerously inoffensive and had titles like Comfort Food, Candles, and Pajamas.

So you can take off the Oprah banner? Is it just some sort of wrap-around thing?

Re: The End of Icy Sparks honestlyold June 18 2004, 10:42:11 UTC

I guess Th' P's'nw'd B'bl' takes the honor of being the only (old) Oprah's Book Club book on our summer reading lists?

Somewhere I'm sure I read that the banner could be taken off, but I can't say I have ever actually inspected a book close enough to do it myself. Maybe I just wished so hard I convinced myself that it was true.

OBC archive (the old one)

"46 books, nearly 40 authors..." -- I guess Toni Morrison's multiple inclusions were to be expected, but I'm not so sure about the three Bill Cosby (presumably) children's books. I don't remember those.

OBC (new?)
East of Eden (apparently Oprah-less, at least the front cover)

The new OBC seemed hard to find, but maybe that was just for me. I kind of felt like the spotlight was centered on the old books, except the mention of Anna Karenina. I don't know what I'm trying to prove, though, because we all probably know that's how it should be.

Re: The End of Icy Sparks imgoingdowntown June 18 2004, 18:14:55 UTC

I guess I forgot about the P's'nw'd B'bl' being in the club. If you count Cry, the Beloved Country, I guess that makes two. I mean, isn't everybody reading past AP English summer reading books to gain insight into the selection process?

Even if I'm beating a dead horse, I think the new ones have some sort of Oprah jacket that comes off, but as for the old ones, I'm not sure the sticker is meant to come off.