Book-a-book of the Month Club discussion

I see we just had a new member join (welcome Leah!) At the risk of being cheesy and cliche - as every book club on Goodreads has one of these - I thought it might be nice to have an introduce yourself section in case people want to share a little about themselves and what they like to read.

I am Matthew (everyone say "Hello Matthew!") - I live in Greenwood, IN - just outside of Indianapolis with my wife and two kids. I love to read and the local public library is my second home. My favorite author is probably Stephen King. My favorite generes are horror, political thriller, legal drama, mystery, some fantasy/sci-fi.

I started this book club because I wanted to find other people who like books to discuss books with!

Hey Mathew!

I am Joe. I'm a web developer. I have a morbid/dark sense of humor and am trying to find more time between working, writing a novel of my own and doing side projects for clients (more work) to read more. I'm sort of redefining the books that I'm interested in. I liked books in High School but seldom found the time for anything more than a sci-fi novel here and there. Then since college to now I've had very little time for recreational reading. If I do have time I usually find myself reading technical tutorials and concepts around better coding. I think that kind of reading is fascinating and can be entertaining, but I wouldn't use the word recreational to describe it by any means.

So Far I'm really enjoying the books that Mathew has selected for the book club. I'm also a big fan of the rather wide range to aid with the redefinition.

Hello! I'm Alex which is short for Alexandra.I live in Sydney Australia. I am studying medical science at uni full time. I work in the bakery section of a supermarket part time. I joined this book club because no one I knew here was interested in starting a book club, and I am glad I found this one. I like the books we read so far, some more strongly than others.

That about does it. :)

"Hello Matthew!" - And yes, I accept all deserved reprimands for taking so long to get to this thread!

Hello everyone else, I am Leah! I live in the tiny little town of Gardiner, Montana with my fiance, a very ornary cat and a very energetic Australian sheppar and work in the sales office for Yellowstone National Park. I have always LOVED to read but had a hard time with it for quite a while because the nearest real library is over 50 miles away. They started doing digital lending last year and now I feel unstoppable! I am open to most genres but my favorites are historical fiction, crime/mystery and YA.

Oh, and I'm terrible at softball :)

Hi everyone, I'm Penny.

I live in Arlington, Virginia with my husband and our cat, Mo. I work as a mental health therapist. I've always been a bit of a bookworm. I was the nerdy little kid in school who would read encyclopedias and dictionaries for fun. I have had a lifelong love affair with words. I'm unashamed.

I'm glad I found a book of the month club to join and look forward to reading and chatting with you all about the selections. I have a pretty eclectic taste in books. I've read a little bit of everything. I've been trying to catch up on reading some classic literature recently, and I have my eye on a few nonfiction works.

Hi... I am Vicki and I live in San Diego. I am new to GoodReads and book clubs. I am looking forward to the July book and seeing how this all works. Thanks for letting me in the group!

HI! I am Mayra and I live in L.A. I love reading. You can always catch me reading in between working my 12hr shift as a personal caregiver to an elderly disabled woman, raising my kids and taking care of my adult child (husband). lol. I am pretty excited about reading the same books as other people and being able to discuss them in a healthy manner.

Hi. I started commenting on posts and then realised I didn't join in with the cheesy introduce yourself bit which just seems rude. So . . . My name is Chris. I'm a 41 year old Microbiologist working in a Hospital and living in Wakefield in the North of England. I have always been a bookworm and love to read all kinds of books. My favourite authors are probably Iain Banks (sadly no longer with us), Murakami, Neil Gaiman, Umberto Eco, erm . . . Probably too many to mention. I'm also a mad keen photographer, another thing I've had since childhood. I have been looking for a book club for a while but all the ones in the real world seem to be interested in the kinds of books I'm unlikely to read, which is a fairly small subset of fiction but there you go. So I turned to the virtual option. Looking forward reading and discussing tons of books with like minded people.

Welcome to the group Christopher! (and to any others I have not welcomed previously - I see that my last post in here was my own introduction.) Glad to have another voice in the discussions. It is cool that we have people from all over the world in this group.

I do try to pick a variety of different types of books for this group. So, if you don't see something you like one month, hopefully you will like what we do next. I too was also having trouble finding book clubs that were not all sort of one sided (i.e. teen vampire romance, classic Russian literature, etc.). While those might be okay, I wouldn't want to only read one type of book.

Microbiologist? That is pretty awesome. I am trying to get into anything I can get at the moment so I can gain lab experience.

Hello! I'm Katelyn. My husband, daughter, and I live in Washington. I am a teacher by trade but stay home with my daughter right now and do some nanny work and tutoring on the side. I hope to own a preschool someday.

I LOVE reading pretty passionately. I am in charge of a book club here but I love being involved in more than one at a time. I looked around on Goodreads and all of the book clubs seemed so genre specific, which didn't appeal to me.

As a former elementary school teacher, I am drawn to children's literature (different than YA). If you are ever interested in doing a GREAT children's lit selection, let me know--there are tons of options. Within children's lit, my favorite genre is probably historical fiction followed closely by non-fiction and then realistic fiction. Of course, my favorite series is Harry Potter. I know it's cliche, but it's AMAZING. Other favorite books are A Separate Peace and Gone With the Wind. I love historical fiction and recently am really into non-fiction (parenting books,teaching books, and kind of pop psychology books like books by Malcolm Gladwell). Thanks for letting me into the group!

Welcome, Katelyn! I hope you do enjoy the variety of selections I pick for this club. Nothing is off limits, I just hope they all end up being enjoyable for the members.

Have you ever read The Power of One? It is historical fiction about a boy growing up in World War II South Africa. It was one of the best books I read last year.

I haven't! I will definitely add it to my list :)

Happy 2015 everyone!

Technically not really intro since I did that last year, so more of a 'hello again' since I disappeared for a while :) We moved from Gardiner to Paradise Valley which is even smaller in terms of amenities and had no internet for about 8 months....so painful! I also switched jobs so couldn't even sneak on much at work like I used to. Yuck! But now we are in the bustling metropolis of Livingston with modern internet speeds and, drum roll please....a library just down the street!!!

Looking forward to catching up and getting to know everyone who has joined since I went into internet purgatory :)

Welcome back, Leah! Yeah, I remember people sitting on my front porch because it was for some reason one of the few Wi-Fi hotspots in Gardiner, MT. (Not sure where the signal came from, though. I wasn't mine)

Glad to have to back with better connectivity! And a Library!

Hi Leah.

Hello everyone. I live in Southern California, am the administrative assistant at a synagogue and religious school. I also maintain our website and am the editor of our monthly publication My Shofar.

I am a voracious reader and always have been. I will read almost anything, but try to avoid "kissy" books. I have three children, 21, 18 and 16, who are also big readers. :D

My favorite authors are Stephen King, Colleen McCullough and Michael Chrichton.

I have a habit of rereading some of the same books over and over, especially after reading something new that didn't grab me. It keeps my "read" shelve from growing as quickly as I would like!

Welcome Kandice! And, looking back, I may not have welcomed everyone as they joined, so welcome all!

Welcome Kandice, your life sounds so far removed from mine that it makes me think. I am connected to people I could not possibly have had any connection to in the past. Hope you enjoy reading the books Matthew puts out there, 2015 is going well so far.

Christopher wrote: "Welcome Kandice, your life sounds so far removed from mine that it makes me think. I am connected to people I could not possibly have had any connection to in the past. Hope you enjoy reading the b..."

We have a love for Murakami and Gaiman in common! I actually run a book club at my local library. We meet once a month and only choose books with a movie adaptation. We read and watch. We're on our fifth year and I really love it, even though many of the books we choose are not those I would choose for myself! We try to bring food to each meeting that has something to do with the book.

Your job sounds fascinating. I've recently become hooked on Orphan Black and that sounds right up your career's alley.

Nice to meet you!

I just started watching orphan black I have been meaning to check out the comics but the series is pretty good haha

Alex wrote: "I just started watching orphan black I have been meaning to check out the comics but the series is pretty good haha"

I love comics, but haven't read and of the Orphan Black yet. The series is nothing like what I expected.

yeah I was impressed by it. we just got netflix in Australia. I dont think I would have watched it if it wasn't for that but im glad I did. was recommended to me by netflix because I like doctor who haha

Alex wrote: "yeah I was impressed by it. we just got netflix in Australia. I dont think I would have watched it if it wasn't for that but im glad I did. was recommended to me by netflix because I like doctor wh..."

That's why Netflix recommended it to me too!!!!!

haha I Have just started on Torchwood as I have not watched it all this time. Becoming very addicted to netflix very fast haha

I watched Torchwood because it was rec'd as well. Loved it! Now I'm stuck on Broadchurch because it has David Tennant and the lady that plays Gwen on Torchwood. It's very, very good.

only seen the first season of broadchurch I did enjoy it. I like to wait until the whole season finishes before I watch anything as I am too impatient once I have started watching to wait for weekly episodes haha

Broadchurch is on season 2 right now, but I am the same way. I like to wait until the entire season is available and then binge watch.

We are binge watching Night Court and Veronica Mars right now - not on Netflix, though - Old Skool DVD!

I recently binged on old school DVDs of Twin Peaks even though I realized halfway through it was available on Netflix! Sometimes there's something nice about actually inserting a tape or disc.

We binge watched castle on dvd recently haha

I have never had replies from you at this time of day. What time is it where you all are?

If you were asking me, 3 1/2 hours ago it was 7 p.m. here. 10:30 p.m. mpw.

Vicki wrote: "Hi... I am Vicki and I live in San Diego. I am new to GoodReads and book clubs. I am looking forward to the July book and seeing how this all works. Thanks for letting me in the group!"

I live in San Diego too!

ah I see it was 12pm when I asked haha 5:30pm now. I so badly want to come there for one main reason. I bet it is easy to guess why haha

My name is Richard and I live in Southeast Georgia. I teach high school literature and work part time at the local library. I joined this group because it seemed to have a wide range of choices, but was also very small as far as members. I have yet to meet a genre I dislike (well, maybe trashy romance if you call that a genre). I have way to many favorite books, but ones that hold meaning in my life are 1) Lord of the Rings, 2) Chronicles of Narnia, 3) Jonathan Livingston Seagull, 4) Sherlock Holmes, 5) Atlas Shrugged. Each of these played an important role in the development of my love for all things literature and reading.

Welcome, Richard!

I think I care too much for certain books to ever be a good teacher. I feel personally offended when someone trashes a book I love and goodness knows students tend to hate what they are forced to read!

I hope you enjoy it, though. :D

Hey Kandice! Thanks for the welcome! I do enjoy being a teacher. There are certain books that I love and hold close to my heart, especially those that should be considered canonical. However, I want my students to be able to voice their opinions. So my basic rule is they can't just say they hate something. They have to articulate why specifically, and it's boring or stupid are not acceptable answers.

It has really opened up some discussions in my classroom.

Hello Richard! Glad to have you along! I hope you enjoy what I try and make a good variety of books. And, glad to see that you like that this group is small. While I always hope for more members and discussion, the smaller group has allowed everyone to participate without getting lost in the shuffle.

And, if you look back through recent discussions - you will see that Kandice and I have disagreed on several titles, but we are still friends! ;)

LOL! Disagreement cements the best of friendships!

I think the world would be a really boring place if we all disagreed. I think the key to your teaching style is not allowing them to just say they hate it. That would be hard to enforce for me but I can see why it would work.

@Matthew I do like it so far. my best friends are some of the ones that I have the best discussions with.
@Kandice it doesn't always work and it takes quite a bit of training for my students to get used to. However, after a few weeks my students know I'm going to follow up anything they say with How? Why? or Show me in the text. So they either provide it before I can ask or they are preapred for when I do.

Hi Richard. Good to meet you.

Hi everyone! My name is Meghan and I live in Alberta, Canada. I'm 31 and spent most of the last 10 years skydiving, skiing and snowboarding. After a few crashes and injuries, I find myself reading a lot more now and was hoping to find others who also appreciate reading.

I was happy to find a group of this size with an interesting selection of books chosen each month. (The only other book club I have been a part of was a Mandarin/English poetry club in Beijing and it was a bit too melodramatic for my taste.) I like to mix up my palette with different genres and I typically throw Spanish novels in the mix to maintain my fluency.

I'm looking forward to discovering new books and discussing with others. Thanks for having me in the group!

Meghan wrote: "Hi everyone! My name is Meghan and I live in Alberta, Canada. I'm 31 and spent most of the last 10 years skydiving, skiing and snowboarding. After a few crashes and injuries, I find myself reading ..."

Welcome Meghan! Skydiving is one of my very favorite things to do. If I could afford it I would start every single day with a jump, but since I can’t I get a jump each year for my birthday. :D

Kandice wrote: Welcome Meghan! Skydiving is one of my very favorite things to do. If I could afford it I would start every single day with a jump, but since I can’t I get a jump each year for my birthday. :D "

Nice! Enjoy your birthday tandems- That's a great option!

Nice to meet you Meghan. The idea of skydiving scares the living day lights out of me, I am massively acrophobic. I personally like to SCUBA dive. However, we both like to read, so there's our common ground.

Hi there my name is Josen and I'm from southern Cali. (pronounced like Jasen, except with an "O"). :) I joined GReads years ago but didn't really do anything with it til recently. Out of all my hobbies reading has always been at the top. I was one of those kids who, in elementary school, waited every month for those scholastic book orders. :) I do read a lot of genres but thrillers/suspense have always been my favorite. I came across this book group and have been wanting to read all the books you guys have read so I figured this group was for me. Hope to get some really good reading here. :)

Hello, Josen! Aw, man, those Scholastic Book Fairs were the best! Thanks for joining - I hope you enjoy the books and the discussion.

Josen wrote: "Hi there my name is Josen and I'm from southern Cali. (pronounced like Jasen, except with an "O"). :) I joined GReads years ago but didn't really do anything with it til recently. Out of all my hob..."

Welcome! I'm from San Diego, so we may be kind of close.