Slaughterhouse 5

Since many of you voted for Slaughterhouse 5 last month, we've decided to go ahead and discuss this classic on either Wednesday, January 5th or the 12th. Let me know which day works better for you guys, and feel free to suggest a venue. Happy Holidays!!!

First Edition cover, courtesy of Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slaughterhousefive.jpg].

Was This NOT The Right Thing to Read?

On The Bro'd

Discussing On the Road

I hope everyone is enjoying On the Road so far! Our discussion will be two weeks from today on Monday, December 20th at Post Pub at 1422 L Street. According to the yelp reviews, they have some decent beer specials. I'm thinking we'll meet around 5:30pm.

In honor of our December birthdays (Dee's on the 14th and Kyle's on the 22nd), I will bring cupcakes to share. =)

Post Pub is close to both McPherson Square and to Farragut North metro stations.

Email me if you have any questions. Happy reading!

On The Road

First printing cover-art from Wikipedia [Source]

I think everyone already knows this, but just for consistency's sake (viva the blog!) I'm pseudo-officially announcing our next book (to be discussed in early December).

Ladies and gent's grab a copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac and happy reading!

(Sorry, this one's not on Gutenberg, but here's the Kindle Version and the iBooks Version.)

Short story: success!

Lame play on words: fail! Anywho, yesterday evening's book club meeting was a great success and I wanted to thank all of you who were able to make it. 'Good call' award goes to Kyle for suggesting Commissary as our meeting place - the comfy chairs and happy hour selections were awesome and the cozy atmosphere in the lounge area was very conducive to our little book club discussion. Some of the highlights: chatting about the mysterious death of Poe, Amanda's enthusiasm about the chairs, and Daniel and Kyle's comical retelling of Hopfrog (describing the king as "fat Ashton Kutcher.")

We bounced around a few ideas for our next book selection, and we've narrowed it down to two books. Please email me with your preference and I will alert the group of the choice that got the most votes =)

• On the Road
• Slaughterhouse Five
  

Wikipedia's Take on The Count

Our next meetings

Hey guys!

Two questions I want to ask the group:

1. The Count of Monte Cristo is long. Really long. Some of you have contacted me stating that Oct 19 won't work for you, and I don't think any of the rest of you will have finished the book by that date either. I want to give everyone time to finish the book, but I don't want to postpone the meeting if no one plans on actually finishing it. Please let me know if you would like to a) have the meeting as scheduled, b) move the meeting to the Monday before Thanksgiving, or c) postpone indefinitely and decide date when we meet to discuss the scary stories.
2. Does the evening of November 2nd work for you guys to discuss the scary stories for an hour or so?

Please leave your answers in the comments section. I appreciate your input =)

The Count of Monte Cristo

By the way, Book Clubbers, here's the link to the Project Gutenberg page for The Count of Monte Cristo.

Happy reading!

Hallowe'en Book Club Shorts

I don't want to steal any thunder from The Count, but it sounds like the general consensus is that people would like to know what the short stories are going to be for the special post-Halloween Book Club meeting (date: TBA; sometime in the first week of November). Anywho, without further adieu, I propose:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Muders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allen Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher*, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Masque of the Red Death*, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Tell-Tale Heart*, by Edgar Allen Poe

The Cask of Amontillado*, by Edgar Allen Poe

Ligeia**, by Edgar Allen Poe

and

Hop-Frog***, by Edgar Allen Poe (I've never read it, but it was brought up at bookclub, so what the hell, let's do it!)

If you think this is too many, let me know (or just read whichever ones you feel like, because that's totally cool too), and if I've left out a Poe favorite, or another macabre classic that you hold dear, throw it in the comments and we can change this list up. Otherwise, happy (early) Hallowe'en!

* All four of these are in Project Gutenberg's The Works of Edgar Allen Poe -- Volume 2, so if you prefer them in a format other than HTML, you can use this link to go to the main page for that compilation, download it in your preferred format, and then read the four stories from there.

** Ligeia is in Project Gutenberg's The Works of Edgar Allen Poe -- Volume 3, so again, if you want a different format, use this link.

***Hop-Frog is in Project Gutenberg's The Works of Edgar Allen Poe -- Volume 5, so again, if you want a different format, use this link.

Tomorrow's meeting!

Just wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow evening we will be discussing Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird while drinking beer at the Brickskeller on 22nd and P. The meeting will begin around 5:30pm, but I think a few of us will be there ahead of time to try and secure some seating.

Also, a few of you suggested The Count of Monte Cristo as our next classic, so that will be the book we discuss next month. Because it is quite lengthy, I thought we might have our October meeting towards the middle of the month rather than the first week. I'm tentatively thinking Tuesday 10/19 would work well, but let me know if that doesn't work for you. This way, we will have just enough time to read a scary short story or two around Halloweentime and then discuss in early November.

On a final note, if there is ever a book chosen that you absolutely do not want to read, feel free to skip that month. We are pretty laid back and no one is obligated to attend every discussion. You will not be kicked out of book club if you miss a meeting!

Sweet Meeting!

This is late, but we had a great meeting last week. A number of people picked up on the bromance between Holmes and Watson. I drank a few beers and made my bus from the Pentagon at 7:20. Welcome to all the new people (who were cool) and I hope you come back.

We are all set to discuss To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee's only novel) on Tuesday, September 7 at the Brickskeller. See you THEN!

Wednesday's meeting

For those of you who are joining us Wednesday to discuss The Hound of the Baskervilles, I wanted to let you know that the discussion will take place at the Luna Grill on Connecticut Avenue in Dupont. I am going to try and get there around quarter to five to make sure we'll have enough seating for everyone who can make it, but we'll actually begin the discussion at around 5:15pm. So that I know how many seats to reserve, can whoever is all coming let me know? Either comment on this post or send me an email at tallulahtiley@gmail.com.

See you Wednesday!

Poll Vault

Ah, that's good wordplay.

Now that that's out of my system, let me know if you have problems with that poll. It won't let me vote, but maybe it's just me. I'll try to fix it, but maybe it will be best, if you can't get it to work, to just leave your vote in comment form on this post.

The contenders are (in no particular order):

1) The Big Hunt (Dupont Circle): Name aside, this place is pretty cool; they have an excellent selection of beers on tap, and their happy hour is $2.50 Rolling Rock, Bud Light, Lite Ass Brew & Bad Ass Amber, $3 rail drinks, $1 off all other drinks and draughts, and half-price burritos on Wednesdays (the bean and rice one is pretty good, for what it's worth).

2) Luna Grill and Diner (Dupont Circle): It's a really cool place, and the food and drinks are affordable and delicious. I know that they have Samuel Adams Summer on tap, and that the (veggie) burgers are great, and big. I just really like the atmosphere, and I think it could be a nice quieter place to have a Book Club meeting.

3) James Hoban's (Dupont Circle): It's a big place, which is good because you know you'll be able to get a table. Also, if it isn't 100°, they have very ample outdoor seating too. They also have Guinness (natch'), and that's a good enough reason for me.

Happy Voting!

Our next meeting: Wednesday, August 4th

I hope that you are all enjoying The Hound of the Baskervilles, and that you are looking forward to next month's book club meeting. We've picked the first Wednesday in August to hold our meeting and it will likely begin between 5 and 5:30p.m. somewhere around Dupont.

If you have a suggestion for where we ought to hold the meeting, please let me know. If the weather is nice, it would be wonderful if we could find a place with ample outdoor seating that isn't too loud. Daniel will put a poll up in a few days and all the members can vote on the location of our discussion.

Finally, Dee suggested that we read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird next month, as it is the 50 anniversary of the book coming up this Sunday. I haven't read the book since high school, and I think it's a great idea. What are your thoughts?

Joan of Arc is One Bad-Ass Beeyotch

Greetings, fellow book-clubbers!

I hope you are all enjoying this lovely weekend. Whether you'll be cheering "Hup, Holland, Hup!" or "Viva Espana!" at your television this afternoon, I trust you'll enjoy the World Cup final as much as I will.

So, it's been entrusted to me to "recap" our Very First Book Club Meeting! We met at the lovely M Street Bar & Grill (I think that's what it was called, right?) and we discussed our Joan of Arc/Mark Twain musings over a pitcher of sangria. For the record, I would like to motion that all future book club meetings involve alcohol. What's that, it's been seconded? Great, let the motion pass!

Instrumental for book discussion.

Although some of us didn't actually finish the book (I'd like to take this opportunity to employ a very Professor Umbridge-like "Hem, HEM"), we still managed to have a fairly productive discussion. John even bookmarked pages and made a compelling case for the tale's consistent allusions to a play: it was in three acts, and Twain consistently used language such as "The stage was set..." (John, I'm sorry for not doing justice to your enlightened analysis - if you have questions, I suggest you put them to him directly!)

We did a lot of talking about how, to be frank, it got kind of annoying how Twain's narrator was all "Oooh, Joan, you're so AWESOMEEEEEEE like omg!!!1" We get it, she's pure, she's righteous, she's radiantly beautiful. Listen, Mark Twain, we get the feelings of guilt and inadequacy from our mothers, we don't need you chiming in too. Seriously, every time the girl made a basic leap of logic, everyone goes, 'HOLY SHIT HOW DID YOU DO THAT WITH YOUR LADYBRAIN?!"

Mesdames et Monsieurs, I have concluded that one... plus one... is actually two!! Bow before my genius.

We discussed this fascination with basic rational thought. For example, at the beginning of the book (which is all that some of us actually read) the narrator gives us this whole bit about how everybody knows that dragons have gold and blue scales, and some people believe that they're actually just gold, but how dumb is that, amirite? There's also a bunch of this business with L'Arbre Feé de Bourlemont: the narrator berates people for believing in something with no evidence, while simultaneously revealing that he has no evidence for his own beliefs save the hearsay of previous generations. We discussed how Twain poked fun at religion here, and yet seems to hold Joan in high esteem for her loyalty and unswerving devotion to her faith. Thoughts?

(PS, I am in no way doing justice to our actual discussion, if there's stuff I really missed in my sarcastic summary, please leave it in the comments below!)

One thing we all agreed on was that Joan, schizophrenic or not, was a fucking badass. Girl is a teenager, and leads her country to the kind of victory it will not see again for... well, let's not talk about that, actually. Point is, she's the youngest person in the history of EVER to do something that cool, with no training, relying solely on her charisma and her faith in her own abilities to get shit done. RECOGNIZE.

Finally, we also had an interesting discussion on the death penalty. Yeah, I don't know either.

Moving on!

Some time at the beginning of August, we will meet to discuss the Hound of the Baskervilles, which I am SUPER PSYCHED about! I started reading on Project Gutenberg (see Daniel's last post), and let me tell you something: I fucking love Sherlock Holmes.

"Yeah, I'm Sherlock Holmes, bitches. I will smoke my pipe, solve your mysteries, and still have time to bang your mom before lunch."

I'm currently on Chapter 4, and let me tell you - this shit is awesome. It's only 4 chapters in, and dude has already made everyone else look as dumb as Sieur Louis de Conte and smoked "an incredible amount of tobacco." Nice.

Currently, I am enjoying this awesome book whilst drinking some Earl Grey tea, with milk of course. It makes me feel so erudite I can hardly stand it. I propose that we all get bubble pipes for our next meeting.

Let me point you to a couple more things that may heighten your enjoyment of this book. First, to get in the mood, last night I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie, with Robert Downey Jr. Personally, I love that now I picture yummy Ironman whenever Holmes is totally owning Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry.

And Jude Law. Did I mention Jude Law? Mmmm.

I'd also like to bring the awesome Kate Beaton to your attention. She writes amazing comics, mostly history and literature oriented. She has a couple on our original bromance:
Also, try this one. Awesome!

Okay, I will leave you to your Hound of the Baskervilles reading, but I hope you're loving it as much as I am! Looking forward to discussing with you all soon!

Announcing Our Second Book

As we're all wrapping up Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, I am pleased to announce our second Classics Book Club Book, The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Once again, this book can conveniently be found online at Project Gutenberg in HTML, Plaintext, EPUB formats and other formats, as well as at your local library. Happy reading!

First edition cover-art from Wikipedia [Source].

Information about our discussion (venue, date, time, etc) to follow, but we're thinking sometime during the week of August 1st! If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section.

iBooks Ahoy!

Just a brief check-in post to see how everyone's reading progress is going. If you think you'll need more time before the first meeting (June 30th, somewhere), please let us know (I might, if I don't pick up the pace)! Also of note, if slightly off-topic: iOS 4 has been released as a free update, so anyone with an iPhone 3G, 3Gs, or a 3rd Gen (and I think 2nd Gen too) iPod Touch can now get the free iBooks App, and by simply downloading the two "volumes" of Joan of Arc free from Gutenberg (in EPUB format), adding them to your iTunes Library, and synching it to your iOS 4 device, you can read Joan of Arc wherever you go! It's a little screen, but still, if I'm not sure I'll have time to read, and I don't want to lug a big hard-back library book, I can still get a few pages in as long as I have my iPod. Technology! Also, many of Project Gutenberg's free classic books can be found in the iBooks store and downloaded directly onto your iPhone/iPod Touch, or into iTunes.

Book-view, with bookmarks, highlighting, and notes available.

And look at these page-turns! You can see the text through the iPage of this iBook!

Library-view (mine's looking a little barren)

More free Gutenberg books in the iTunes store, available
directly to your iOS device!

Project Gutenberg

Hey all! I wanted to drop a quick note to supplement Danielle's post. Basically, the deal is that there's this really cool website called Project Gutenberg, where there are lots of free "Electronic Books" (or eBooks, to you Myspace usin' punk kids). It's a great source in general, but it will be especially awesome for all of these classics that we'll be reading, because most of them are out of copyright, and on that site in HTML, EPUB, PDF and some other formats too. Our inaugural book, Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain, is on there, if any of you kids want to read it online. I for one am reading a copy from the library on the bus, and then reading the online version during breaks at work! Anywho, check Gutenberg out, and happy reading!

A different kind of Guttenberg project, involving a racially insensitive Fisher Stevens and Ally Sheedy.

Welcome to the classics book club!

Our first book is Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and we will be discussing it on Wednesday, June 30 at a place in DC!