South Shore Readers discussion

What books would you like the group to read in 2017? Post your ideas here. We will vote at the meetings.

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General guidelines: book should be available in paperback and be under 400 pages.


Our selections for the year are....
January: Night Film
February: Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
March: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
April: Moonglow by Michael Chabon
May: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
June: Heat & Light by Jennifer Haigh
July: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
August: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
September: Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
October: American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
November: Made for Love by Alissa Nutting

This post reserved for the running list of suggestions.

Fiction
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty (GR Choice 2016 winner for Fiction)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (GR Choice 2016 winner for Historical Fiction)
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
The Mothers by Brit Bennett(NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Loner by Teddy Wayne
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
Mischling by Affinity Konar
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy


Something spooky
Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
It by Stephen King
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Neverland by Douglas Clegg
Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay
The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith DonohueThe Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness


Short Stories
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi (Short story collection) (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)


Non-fiction
I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)


Longer Reads (500+ pages)
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson 496 pages (NPR best books for book clubs 2016)
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - 1088 pages avg good reads rating: 4.32
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - 720 pages avg goodreads rating: 4.26
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber - 500 pages avg goodreads rating: 3.67
The Rainbow by D.H Lawrence - 544 pages avg good reads rating: 3.66

From the New York Times "20 Knock-Your-Socks-Off Novels over 500 pages":
Letting Go by Philip Roth - 630 pages avg good reads rating: 3.67
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James - 741 pages avg good reads rating: 3.8
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon - 776 pages avg good reads rating 4.03 (but it definitely contains Nazis.)
Underworld by Don DeLillo - 832 pages avg good reads rating 3.91
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas -1276, pages avg rating 4.2
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet - 973 p, avg rating 4.28
The Mists of Avalon 876 p, avg rating 4.11
Vanity Fair 867p, avg rating 3.75
Shantaram 936 p, avg rating 4.25

I look forward to getting involved in 2017. I am reading Heat and Light by Jennifer Haigh. it's great and seems like it would lend itself to a book club discussion.

Kate G wrote: "I look forward to getting involved in 2017. I am reading Heat and Light by Jennifer Haigh. it's great and seems like it would lend itself to a book club discussion."

Awesome! We hope to see you at a meeting soon!

Ok, everyone, we should start posting some ideas for February and March books. The general page length guidance for our regular reads is now longer than around 400 pages.

Seeding the list with some ideas from some of the Best of 2016 lists:

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty (GR Choice 2016 winner for Fiction)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (GR Choice 2016 winner for Historical Fiction)

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (GR Choice 2016 winner for Memoir)
Heat & Light by Jennifer Haigh (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
The Mothers by Brit Bennett(NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi (Short story collection) (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)
Moonglow by Michael Chabon (NPR best books 2016: book club ideas)

For Longer Read Contenders:
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson 496 pages (NPR best books for book clubs 2016)

I'd like to add The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney and Boston Girl by Anita Diamant.

I think there were others from the list, I'll go back and check:

I have a bunch of lists going all over the place-I'll just leave some right here:

When I was at the library they had a display of books you should read if you liked "Stranger Things." Not sure how good they all are but since I was obsessed with the show...

-Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Who wrote Let the Right One In
-The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (I thought we read that one together but I don't see it on the shelf so I must have read it with my other book club)
-My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
-Neverland by Douglas Clegg
-Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay
-The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue
-American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
-It by Stephen King
-Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Some other ones from the lists you guys posted:
-Loner by Teddy Wayne
-Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
-The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
-Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
-Mischling by Affinity Konar (Ok, yes, it's about twins in Auschwitz who are part of Mengele's experiments but I feel strangely compelled to read it!)

I also wouldn't mind reading something else by the guy who wrote A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman or by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You just want to scare me, don't you. IT still gives me the shutters.

We did read The Girl with all the Gifts and I just read Ready Player One.

We picked our next two books today...
February: Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
March: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

More ideas

-Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
-Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I've been eye-balling Station Eleven.

Sounds intriguing to me.

I like the sound of Station Eleven, and I vote for American Elsewhere for our October read. It sounds sufficiently spooky. I would like to remind the group that I have a spectacularly bad track record for choosing books.

Maybe it's the influence of the Boston Girl, but I also vote for Moonglow at some point this year. Heat & Light also looks like an interesting novel. I might read Commonwealth, but I'd like to wait until my friend finishes it, since I trust her judgment.

My friend loved Commonwealth so I'd be up for that one and I like the idea of American Elsewhere for October!My Name is Lucy Barton sounds good too-is that already on our list?

OK, I will be editing the 2nd post in this topic to add all of the suggested books. :)

At today's meeting, we selected the next 3 books:

August: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
September: Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
October: American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett

At our October meeting we will be picking our November book and hopefully our "longer" January read.

So, think about what you might want to read!

do we have a genre preference?

We are open to pretty much anything.

You can see the 100+ books we've read in the past here:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

In general, we try to keep the regular monthly reads to under around 400 pages (with the notable exception of our current book *cough cough*). We don't have a December meeting and instead opt to read a longer book (500+ pages) for our January read.

Some of the books that have been suggested but not yet selected this year are listed in the 2nd post in this topic.

Dark Matter is a "deal" this week for $3.99 on nook or kindle. I think the deal expires tonight (10/25). I bought it anyway. I'm starting to think my e-book collection is my real retirement savings.

I would say, first, that this is a pretty good way to procrastinate at work. Second, my top picks for fiction in November, in no particular order, are The Mandibles, The Nest, Before the Fall, and Made for Love. The others are either too OBC or too likely to contain Nazis.

If we decide to go with non-fiction, I'd be happy to read any of the four identified in our list, or You'll Grow Out of It from Joanie's list.

I have to say I'm not excited about any of our January potential selections. We seem to be a little stuck in the family melodrama category. If I have to pick from this list, I vote for Portrait of a Lady. However, I'm going to poke around a little more to see if anything calls out to me.

The Bone Clocks
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Nix
The Night Manager (Yes, I'm just looking for an excuse to read this before I watch the show.)
Kraken (I'm not sure I want to read this so much as I want a reason to say "Release the Kraken!" every day.)
The Moonstone (Revisiting Wilkie Collins? I liked the Woman in White more than the general consensus.)
London Fields (Murder, sarcasm, and kooky characters? That's got Christmas spirit all over it.)

OK, that should give us enough options. These proposals came from the Goodreads 500+ list. I never realized before how hard it is to find a book with a reasonably high rating that is NOT part of a series. But again, I didn't really want to do any more work this afternoon anyway.

I think I'm getting Dark Matter too-just saw the deal. Don't know that we want to read another sci-fi-ish book right after American Elsewhere though.

I keep hearing more and more about Before the Fall but I'd be good with any of them (I already read the Nest but if that's the choice it will just mean I have more time to read Outliers which the school moms chose for November-joy)

I'm feeling the same way about January. We could pick Executioners Song again since no one read it the first time it would be new to us!

I saw that the group has already read Underground Airlines, I'm currently reading Ben H. Winters's The Last Policeman. That trilogy could be considered a winter long read I guess. Pretty intriguing read and there are lots of depict of snows in New England (not sure if that's a plus though).

There’s this list of longer books too: https://www.bustle.com/articles/12076...

Maybe we should give Denise book list making tasks to give her a way to avoid work. ;)

And I really enjoy David Mitchell (author of Thousand Autumns...) and liked Thousand Autumns as well.

Other Non-long suggestions:
The Power ( a fictional look at what the world would be like if women/girls had power)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (short, 162 pages! collection of essays about reading)

A Tale for the Time Being (sounds quirky and interesting)
Purple Hibiscus (we all liked her other book(s))
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx

LONGER READ
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Did we ever look at The Way the Crow Flies as a longer read?

Denise, Jessica: The Bone Clocks was an interesting read for me. Reviews of David Mitchell's work are sometimes polarized. But I appreciated that he doesn't take his storylines too seriously and went bold on fantasy from time to time. I almost started Slade House at some point.
Joanie, Before the Fall was a meh to me, a lot of local scenes though. I like Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx as a non-fantasy pick, just afraid it might be too depressing for a winter read. Also I will start reading Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, nice recommendation!

Eric - you're response made me laugh a little. You're talking to a book club that purposely read Doctor Zhivago and The Executioner's Song during winter breaks. We are total downers sometimes.

That being said - Random Family is too close to Townie and All Souls: A Family Story from Southie for me. If we're going non-fiction, I'd rather stick with one of the five above.

Speaking of downers - local, timely, and a new podcast coming up:
Reasonable Doubt: The Fashion Writer, Cape Cod, and the Trial of Chris McCowen

Our next 4 books are:

November: Made for Love
January: The Portrait of a Lady
February: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
March: Dark Matter

FYI - If you are in the Old Colony Library Network and use Overdrive for e-book borrowing, they have a version of Portrait of a Lady that is in the public domain, so no limit on how many people can borrow it at a time. They have split it into two volumes; I'm not sure why.