Andrew’s Comments (group member since May 30, 2018)

Andrew’s comments from the Great American Read List group.

The topic for The Book Thief can be found here.

This topic is for discussion of our October 2021 group read, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

To all who voted: thank you!
To everyone: I hope you'll participate and read this selection for our book club.
For those who do: share your thoughts as you read, please!
Spoilers are allowed; add a considerate warning if your comment includes any so members have the option to skip.

A few notes on this book:
* It came in at #14 on the final Great American Read list.
* It has a 4.38 average Goodreads rating.
* It was published in 2005.
* There's a movie adaptation, from 2013, starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

This poll ended in a three-way tie. I think we will just set up those three books as the group reads for Oct, Nov, and Dec, as follows:

Oct - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Nov - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Dec - The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

I'll create topics and post links in a bit.

The winner of this poll was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I have set up a topic for the series here.

This topic is for discussion of our October 2021 series group read, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

There are seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia series:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. The Silver Chair
5. The Horse and His Boy
6. The Magician's Nephew
7. The Last Battle

The Chronicles of Narnia series came in at #9 on the Great American Read List. The books were originally published in the 1950s.

I read One Hundred Years of Solitude in college, and loved it.

I haven't read enough Hemingway. I'd like to read The Sun Also Rises at some point.

Overall, I've been staying away from longer books and classics lately. I haven't had the energy for those. I have a bunch of Great American Read books that I just haven't gotten around to yet.

Thanks for posting the polls. I haven't read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe since i was a little kid. Might be interesting to read it again.

And I also set up the topic for Gulliver's Travels here.
(Goodreads was giving me some grief about posting that topic for some reason, but it eventually let me do it.)

This topic is for discussion of our August 2021 group read, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

To all who voted: thank you!
To everyone: I hope you'll participate and read this selection for our book club.
For those who do: share your thoughts as you read, please!
Spoilers are allowed; add a considerate warning if your comment includes any so members have the option to skip.

A few notes on this book:
* It came in at #75 on the final Great American Read list.
* It has a 3.58 average Goodreads rating.
* It was published in 1726.

I set up a topic for The Giver series here.
As Bridget mentioned, we're just setting up one topic for the whole series.

The last series we were reading, by the way, was the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. I just set up topics for the last two books in that series:
* A Feast for Crows - July/August 2021
* A Dance with Dragons - Sept/Oct 2021
There hasn't really been any discussion on those books, but I figured i might as well set up the topics for them in case anyone wanted to use them.

This topic is for discussion of our July 2021 series group read, The Giver by Lois Lowry.

There are four books in The Giver series.
1. The Giver (1993)
2. Gathering Blue (2000)
3. Messenger (2004)
4. Son (2012)

A few notes about The Giver:
* It came in at #44 on the Great American Read List.
* It won the Newbery Medal in 1994.
* It was adapted as a movie in 2014, directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges.

Since the poll ended in a tie between A Prayer for Owen Meany and Gulliver's Travels, we will make Owen Meany our July book and Gulliver our August book.

The topic for Owen Meany can be found here.

Thanks for voting & I hope a few of you will try one or both of these books!

This topic is for discussion of our July 2021 group read, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

To all who voted: thank you!
To everyone: I hope you'll participate and read this selection for our book club.
For those who do: share your thoughts as you read, please!
Spoilers are allowed; add a considerate warning if your comment includes any so members have the option to skip.

A few notes on this book:
* It came in at #26 on the final Great American Read list.
* It has a 4.23 average Goodreads rating.
* It was published in 1989.

This topic is for discussion of A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.
It is the fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Topics for previous books in the series:
1. A Game Of Thrones
2. A Clash of Kings
3. A Storm of Swords
4. A Feast for Crows

This topic is for discussion of A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin.
It is the fourth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Topics for previous books in the series:
1. A Game Of Thrones
2. A Clash of Kings
3. A Storm of Swords

I read Catch-22 some time ago, and liked it a lot. (I haven't tried reading the sequel, Closing Time.)
I have a copy of the graphic novel adaptation of The Giver that I've been meaning to read.
I'm pretty sure I've read Tom Sawyer, but it would have been a LONG time ago. I remember owning a copy when I was a little kid, and I'm pretty sure I read it. I'd like to read it again. (Or read it for the first time, if I'm misremembering...)

I finally finished this. My review is here, though I couldn't really bring myself to write a long review, so there's not much to it.
I'd started reading this back in April, then lost interest for a bit, and just finished it up over the last few weeks.
I did enjoy reading it, and it left me with a lot to think about.

(Oh, and I just realized that I misspelled "Gray" as "Grey" in the title of this discussion thread, and in the first post, so I've fixed that. Sorry!)

Thanks for posting the polls. As usual, I'm way behind in my reading, though I did finish a couple of books today.
Of the books on this list, Heart of Darkness is the only one I've read. It was quite some time ago, but I remember it being very intense and dark. (It's also pretty short though!)
I've never read Gulliver's Travels, but I think I'd like to.

We have a tie for this poll, with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon both receiving four votes. So we'll make Rebecca the May read, and Swan Song the June read.
The discussion topic for Rebecca can be found here, and the one for Swan Song is here.

Note also that I just created a topic for A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin, the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, here.

Thanks to all who voted. I hope some of you will choose to read one or more of these books and post some thoughts.

This topic is for discussion of our June 2021 group read,
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon.

To all who voted: thank you!
To everyone: I hope you'll participate and read this selection for our book club.
For those who do: share your thoughts as you read, please!
Spoilers are allowed; add a considerate warning if your comment includes any so members have the option to skip.

A few notes on this book:
* It came in at #94 on the final Great American Read list.
* It has a 4.28 average Goodreads rating.
* It was published in 1987.
* It won the Bram Stoker award for best novel in 1987 (shared with Stephen King’s Misery).