Boulder Book Club discussion

Here's a great link to some potential reads for next time!

But in all seriousness, who would be interested in something by Murakami (maybe "Wind Up Bird Chronicle" because I have a copy) or Roberto Bolano ("Savage Detectives")??

I could get into this; I wouldn't mind reading back into the space-race era with some camp/pulp fiction. I'm especially compelled by anything with a Frank Franzetta cover (Mark clued me into him):

http://media.photobucket.com/image/fr...

Oh, you were joking...

Actually, Gina, my house is decorated with framed Frazetta prints, including one of the Egyptian princess that shows up first on your link. And I've become obsessed, lately, with old science fiction, which you could probably guess from my book reviews. So I know that my link was a joke for this group, but it was not a total joke for me (although many of the titles made me snicker). I keep thinking that I should read through the Hugo Award winners from the beginning, but I have never made a serious resolve to do so.

Speaking of Hugos: another novel I'd like to read is China Mieville's "City and the City." So please add that to my list of suggestions for our distinguished club.

John Carter of Mars is coming to the silver screen this fall: maybe we go with Edgar Rice Burroughs!
http://fan-tas-tic.com/wp-content/upl...
...very racy.

I love ERB! I just read "A Princess of Mars" last year, and "Tarzan of the Apes" a few years ago. I thought "Tarzan" was especially good. ERB was such a gifted story-teller.

When I was a teenager, I think I only read the Pelucidar series (don't ask me why I latched onto that one). Back in those days (the '70s), ERB paperbacks with Frazetta covers seemed to be ubiquitous. They are minor collector's items now.

Changed the thread topic to match the others (sorry, my ocd is strong today). :)

This could be really fun -- maybe each of us could read one pulp-y novel and write a review/synopsis! There's gotta be a ton of cheesy movies to watch too! Also, if those of us (ahem Mark and Will) want to read one a day, then they can post a whole bunch of times while those of us who are slower readers could post one or two :)

I like pulpy! I just picked up a copy of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

"Read your own" = no shared experience. :(

Very true...Hmmm, maybe we could pick 2 or 3 -- one 'main' one, and a few others to compare/contrast?

I have a new idea for how to select the next book, and I like it because it gives each individual club member more power than voting. The idea is this: each member gets a turn at selecting the book. This means we'd have to create a list of members' names and cycle through it. We could generate the list any number of ways, but once it's created, the list is fixed (except to add new members). For example, the list could be alphabetical by first name or last name (this wouldn't do me any good either way); or we could do it by seniority (i.e., old folks first, because you never know when we are going to breathe our last); or use ascending or descending street addresses; etc., etc. Any takers? Or are we committed to voting?

It used to work more or less like that when we first started -- I preferred it that way.

@Adam, I didn't mean to rain on the multi-book idea: it could work! Maybe a dramatic reading from each choice?

@Willi: I liked that too. There was a major food fight over it though. Some feelings hurt.

The primary issues with the list seemed to be two-fold: a sense of obligation and pressure from the people less inclined to choose or suggest, and a sense of boredom and bad directions from those less inclined to follow an other's whims. We definitely have a few dominant personalities who pushed books even in months not theirs and that caused a lot of bristling.

Oops! I didn't know that I was re-treading old ground. It sounds as though the club has already deliberated on the book selection process and voting is the preferred way. Which means it's unlikely that this debate can be revived. My apologies to anyone who stayed up all night cursing me and my atavistic ideas.

It's really sad, however, that there's nobody to chew out when the book sucks!

I'm sure you can revive the debate! ...less sure anything can be accomplished.

We've seemingly devolved into a society of heavy participants and lurkers who don't really participate or even vote (just like real democracy!) so maybe something that teased shy people out of the corners would be good...?

Open discourse is welcome, we just wanted to warn you that some people may have prepared statements ready for a dressing down.

Last night, I pulled out my copy of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," by Murakami. I had forgotten that this was such a long book. Nowadays, I'm reluctant to start any book that's much over 300 pages. This one's over 500, so I'm not sure that I would be able to finish it unless it's an excellent, effortless read. I'm not as easy to please as I was in my younger days, so reads like that are an extremely rare occurrence.

This prompted me to consider, with great seriousness, what book I would choose if, by some stroke of fate, I had sole responsibility for choosing the next book for this club. I began to sweat bullets. A la Peter Parker, I thought: "with great power comes great responsibility." I thought that I had better make a very wise choice. I thought that it would be better to choose some old, familiar classic, which had already knocked my socks off, rather than take the risk of getting chewed out for picking something unfamiliar and dangerous, like "Boneshaker."

After much deliberation, I came up with a main title and an alternate title. Here they are: the featured selection is: "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler" (Calvino); the alternate title is: "The Man Who Was Thursday" (Chesterton). I guarantee that these books will knock your socks off, unless you are zombies. So please, put at least one of those titles on the next ballot! (Unless the club already read them, of course.)

I wiki'd "If on a Winter's Night" and I'm intrigued. It sounds almost like an interactive story. I was reminded a little of "Cloud Atlas" - not that they're especially similar. But I must admit - ever since watching "The Neverending Story" as a kid, I've had a thing for attempts to break the wall between the writer and the reader.

Could be fun!

(I didn't read the whole wiki. There are usually spoilers.)

Winter's Night has my vote!

I've already read Winter's Night and generally feel that without an intense multi-week class on it, I don't think book club can really do it justice. I spent a third of s semester in college on it and I'm not sure I fully understood it.

Whoa, a book that challenges Ben and has Cimmeria in it!
Cimmeria, as all pulp readers know, is Conan's homeland, so it can't be all THAT fancy! I'd be down. One suggestion, we could postpone it a month, do a month of Conan (or other airheadedness) first, with planned intellectualism to tide us over the first harbingers of winter. Just spitballin' I'd be up for anything.

Ben has just proved that college can ruin anything.

BTW I have been reading "a Princess of Mars" and find it so chauvinistic, lurid, juvenile, republican and infantile (some of those words may be redundant) that I'm embarrassed to have suggested it. Fortunately, there's a companion novel by Edith Rice Burroughs that's eerily similar, only the hero is a heroine!

It's not "The Moon Maid," is it?

A Princess of Mars Rethroned

I've got to read your messages more carefully! ("Edith" . . . wtf!)

Well, it does have an attractive cover, so it must be good!

I have heard from a bazillion other people that the Savage Detectives is good and it's been on my list for a while. Also on that list are The Corrections by Franzen, Lolita (yes, really, i haven't read it yet), Satanic Verses, Infinite Jest (NOT a good idea for a bookclub book...too long!), and 50 millionbilliontrillion others.

Though I believe that The Princess Bride would ultimately end with more tepid debate than most and could be easily turned into a movie night.

Those things said, I will read just about anything, but can't promise I'll actually finish anything since The Handmaid's Tale was only 300 pgs and I was only halfway through it when we "discussed" it. (almost done now...the movie was awful.)

Ok I am now reading another, rather obscure ERB tome on Mars. It's a bit off the genre, or perhaps I should say, a bit further on in the general direction...

"The dark southern Barsoomians suffered from a diabolical evolutionary turn, in that their population was limited not by resources or will, which were plentiful and savage enough, but by the basic ability to foster each generation. They, my beautiful Deja Thoris shyly whispered, could not mate, or could happily enough, yet entirely without the effect for which such intimacies are intended! No child, no spawn, no egg would result. Unless, that is, they mixed their essence with that of the thant, six-legged feline predator not unlike the big cats on my beloved homeworld. The fearsome thants in this region of Barsoom being similarly afflicted, were always amorous, but also equally carnivorous and thus problematic in the extreme. Only the bravest warriors even dared attempt to mate and these were unsuccessful as often as not, and dead into the bargain. So vital the precious fluid that it could be used directly (the usual means when slave girls were available, since less dangerous for the suitor) or imbibed by the warrior who thus invigorated would be rendered temporarily fertile. As such Thantsperm, when it could be had, was cherished and exchanged as a gift of the highest possible value."

Wow!

Hmm, a closer reading, this is another "knock off" not by ERB but some fan group, and a fringe one at that. There is a whole genre of "like Burroughs only more so" fiction, apparently.

I assume that you read that apocryphal passage in an unpublished (but recently discovered) manuscript at the ERB archives, during your recent trip to Tarzana, California. It's quite possible that the MS was yet another Mark Hoffman forgery.

I knew that you were big on ERB, but I didn't realize that you had made it into the "inner circle" of ERB scholars.

Yah those guys are pushing the ERB envelope beyond where he'd have dared. Fun though, & if juvenile, well, like he wasn't?!

Ok, I am gonna name my next beer, a fine light pilsner, after this passage from the story. It'll be called "Thantsperm."

Doubtless it will have a creamy head. (Gag! Blech!!!)

You've finally crossed the line, Krebs!

(This post removable upon request.)

(Apologies for duplicating a g+ post...)

No, that line can't be crossed. Beer, you see, is the quintessential male product. Remember "Guiness Makes Strong!" - do ya? These images speak directly to the male ego. Asahi "Supah-Dry" with a sweaty boxer on the ad & etc. The St. Pauli Girl, the superbowl clydesdales, Need I Say More????

Apparently.

I shall release a line of beer marketing so hyperbolic, that it makes the Swedish Bikini Team appear the creation of a wilting librarian. "How?" you dare ask? "Such a diabolical plan is inconceivable!"

I do not think that word means what you think it means. I shall use...

F r a z e t t a.

Think Molly Hatchet, think Tarzan, think Dejah Thoris. Yes, that's right, all your beer money are belong to me.