Rifftrax Book Club

[FLOCK of RABID SHEEP?!?!]

i'm down for reading dune...maybe next month we can read the first book of stephen king's dark tower series, i believe it's called the gunslinger ...

[daltysmilth]

I'm still voting for Dune, because I've never read it. 

[AmandaGal]

I'd read.  I don't know about Dune though.  I've never read it nor have I wanted to.  I might give it a whirl.

[FLOCK of RABID SHEEP?!?!]

i've read dune at least 2 times as well as the entire dune series by frank herbert...another choice could be something by kurt vonnigut, jr....

[anais.jude]

i would be down with some vonnegut. we need BTA to pick a book for us so we can start reading!

what about mike nelson's books? iam getting those in the mail as we speak

[AmandaGal]

Mike Nelson's books, I'm sorry to say, don't have a whole lot of deep themes to discuss 

[anais.jude]

that is true. What do you reccomend AmandaGal?



100 posts!!!!!!!!!! Woo Whoo!

[AmandaGal]

We should eventually do Hitchiker's Guide, 'cause everyone here has read it at least once.  I like Vonnegut but I don't know what to suggest (Slaughterhouse Five is one of the reasons I don't eat meat.)  I've never read it, but I want to read "Northern Lights" due to all the Christians telling me I shouldn't go see the Golden Compass because it's evil.  I think it may be a kid's book though.

We could read Carl Sagan's Contact.  I like the idea of reading a book that's been bastardized by a movie so Dune might work (like I said, I haven't read it).  Most books would.  Jurassic Park is a fun book, for example.

Congrats on 100 posts!!

[Dim of the Yard]

I like the idea of reading a book that's been bastardized by a movie so Dune might work (like I said, I haven't read it).  Most books would.

As long as you guys decide to stay away from Eragon, I'll be with you 100% on this one, if this is the route to take.  If not, I'll be there about 76%.  Ish.

[bettertomorrowamy]

Alright, so....

1.  Dune
2.  Northern Lights
3.  Contact (I've read it)  ....I would recommend "The Dragons of Eden" by Sagan instead
4.  Eragon (just kidding) ~vomits in mouth~
5.  Kurt Vonnegut (which I would be totally down for)
6.  Stephen King

I'd like some more input, but I think something that is a little deeper would lead to much more interesting discussion, which is the whole point of a book club.  Plus I would like the book to be something that either no one has read, or something that people wouldn't mind reading over again.

I would suggest:

1.  Kurt Vonnegut (anything)
2.  "Burmese Days by George Orwell
3.  The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Phillip K. Dick

and actually I'm leaning towards 3....here is a synopsis:

It is the story of Timothy Archer, an urbane Episcopal bishop haunted by the suicides of his son and mistress--and driven by them into a bizarre quest for the identity of Christ.

Please, give us more suggestions!  I could narrow it down to five from previous suggestions, and any other future suggestions.  Then we could vote on those last five via a poll in another thread.  (Or anais.jude and I could play President and Vice President, and unilaterally decide the future of the book club.  Basically I could put all the power in my Vice-President's hands, and I could be her cheerleader.)  So, give me more suggestions and tuesday night we will vote on five that stand out amongst the rest.

[Tripe]

I'd be OK with the Orwell or the Dick (more for the Orwell frankly as I've not read that one) but here are some other suggestions:


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction, the Jewish Russian-born Némirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, months after this long-lost masterwork was composed. Némirovsky, a convert to Catholicism, began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces overran northern France in 1940. This gripping "suite," collecting the first two unpolished but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short, have surfaced more than six decades after her death. The first, "Storm in June," chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians, among them a snobbish author, a venal banker, a noble priest shepherding churlish orphans, a foppish aesthete and a loving lower-class couple, all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside, mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans. The second, "Dolce," set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation, tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers. In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest, Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides." This heroic work does just that, by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas. (Apr. 18)


Wikipedia
Gordon Comstock is a well-educated and reasonably intelligent young man possessed of a minor talent for writing. He has 'declared war' on what he sees as an overarching dependence on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called "New Albion" and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. The "war" (and the poetry), however, aren't going particularly well and, under the stress of his self-imposed exile from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, petty and deeply neurotic


Amazon.com
In his breathtaking and powerful novel that garnered nominations for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Madison Smartt Bell leaves the dark contemporary world he has so brilliantly made his own in nine previously acclaimed novels and short story collections, such as Save Me, Joe Louis. Now he turns to the past and brings viscerally to life the slave rebellion that would bring an end to the white rule of Haiti in the late eighteenth century.


Wikipedia
The plot begins when Robert Forester, the central character of the book, moves to a small town in Pennsylvania to escape from his ex-wife and city life in New York. He takes solace in secretly watching a young woman in her house through the window in her kitchen.

[anais.jude]

(Or anais.jude and I could play President and Vice President, and unilaterally decide the future of the book club.  Basically I could put all the power in my Vice-President's hands, and I could be her cheerleader.)

BTA, as assistant regional manager (assistant to the regional manager) I think a vote would be best, but another possibility would be that we have everyone's name and one person picks the book for the month. That way we can all get a taste of different books. You, BTA, would be pick the first month, I would pick the second, dalty third (in order of who expressed interest)

but def. a poll for the first month.

would you wear a cheerleader outift?

[AmandaGal]

I'd just make you guys read Tristram Shandy if you let everyone pick a book, heh.

[bettertomorrowamy]

(Or anais.jude and I could play President and Vice President, and unilaterally decide the future of the book club.  Basically I could put all the power in my Vice-President's hands, and I could be her cheerleader.)

BTA, as assistant regional manager (assistant to the regional manager) I think a vote would be best, but another possibility would be that we have everyone's name and one person picks the book for the month. That way we can all get a taste of different books. You, BTA, would be pick the first month, I would pick the second, dalty third (in order of who expressed interest)

but def. a poll for the first month.

would you wear a cheerleader outift?

Ok then, we will have a poll for the first month's book.  I will make a list of 5 books to choose from and post a link here:

http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php/topic,6201.msg174145.html#msg174145

I'll also have a poll to decide whether I should wear a cheerleader outfit later.

Then I guess we will have members decide the next book in the order that they posted in this thread.

[Tripe]

I'd just make you guys read Tristram Shandy if you let everyone pick a book, heh.

Fine by me, I love that book.