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Home › Entertainment

Poll | 03/24/2009 11:00 pm

Calling all readers! What is your favorite book club book?

We recently launched wOw’s book club and we’re all reading Apologize, Apologize! What’s your favorite book club book?
Read more about: Book Party, Books, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Jim Fergus, Khaled Hosseini, Lisa See, Literature, Nancy Horan, Sara Gruen

38 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

joan larsen

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by.  I want to swim in the river.  I want to feel the current.

I think, as women, many of us understand these words actually written in the diary of Mamah Cheney in the earlier 1900s as she struggles to justify her secret love affair with the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The book, Loving Frank, drew me to it as a one-time almost historian of the man himself after living my childhood near Robie House in Chicago, perhaps the best known example of his work.  A weaving of a true clandestine love affair into his all too busy life in Nancy Horan’s novel, blending fiction and non-fiction together in doing so, kept me reading.

But Wright’s love, Mamah, also intrigues us as a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world, long before the feminist movement was underway.

Give me non-fiction, memoir, autobiography any day … but having said that, I found in Loving Frank facets that few know of Frank Lloyd Wright - the architect I keep on my own pedestal -  given full weight in a love story that continues to stir in my mind long after the reading. 

By joan larsen on 03/25/2009 2:36 am
JeJe De
Joan, you expressed it exactly!
By JeJe De on 03/25/2009 8:29 am
Sam Mirando

I enjoyed it too.  And I thought about it yesterday as I stood in the lobby of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, watching a pair of Tibetan chimes travel on a rail around and around the spriraling wall of the galleries, from the top to the bottom.  As the visitors took note of the intermittently chiming bells, they moved to the edge of the galleries, creating a memorable contrast against the white walls and all gazing in silence….ding, ding………………….ding, ding………………………

I am sure that, when Lloyd Wright designed the building, such a "work of art" never occurred to him, but the artist found a novel way of exploiting the building and focussing our attention on it in an entirely original way.  

By Sam Mirando on 03/25/2009 8:59 am
joan larsen
YOU have me in envy … as your description of the Guggenheim and the chiming bells is one I would like to stand and almost sink into.  Lovely and one of my always remembered places in New  York .   .   . and the sounds of yesterday make me want to once again hop a plane!  Thanks for that.
By joan larsen on 03/25/2009 9:26 am
Laurie Deer

The only book club I ever joined was Oprah’s, the book "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. It was insightful and entertaining in a way only Oprah can make it fun, especially since the book  is deep and spiritual. 

By Laurie Deer on 03/25/2009 4:55 am
Green Tears

Well, I have read many books in my life, but never participated in a book club. I can honestly say that I have never read any of the books listed in the question, so I am feeling quite inadequate today!

Although I usually favor fiction as my reading preference, I have to say that Harold Kushner is my favorite author. His writing provides excellent counsel and comfort for the journey through everyday life.

By Green Tears on 03/25/2009 6:23 am
Washington Cube

I love to read and I always have.  I would never fit into a book club.  I don’t usually like what book clubs read.  Let me amend that.  I never like what book clubs read. There are books written with lists of what to read based on some subject matter the group agrees on.  Shudder.

I list (for myself) every book that I’ve read in a given year.  I looked at what I’ve read so far this year, and the only one I would recommend is  A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White, Jr., (Random House, 2009.) Going back over the past few years, also The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, ed. by Stephen Pascal (Knopf, 2007,) and Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee (Knopf, 2007.,) Also, a wonderful book by polymathic Simon Winchester Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (HarperCollins, 2003,) one of those books where you learn just as much in his footnotes as in the text. Every time Winchester has something published, I read it.  Just now a friend said, "What are you writing about now?  "Book clubs."  Response? "You hate them and you read like a researcher." I guess they know me.

By Washington Cube on 03/25/2009 7:28 am
Sam Mirando
I’m on the road and, for light reading, I bought "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld.  Her fictional take on how and why Laura Bush married W and stood by her man is thought-provoking and reflects some of the compromises that we all make, one way or another, as we go through life.  It becomes even more interesting as we learn more about Michelle Obama and can "compare and contrast" these two First Ladies, both of whom I admire (even though I have totally divergent feelings about their spouses).
By Sam Mirando on 03/25/2009 8:47 am
phyllis Doyle Pepe
Many books are written to make people read. The best are written to force them to think. Many times book club selections are like sweet confections that satisfy for the moment. They don’t stick to the ribs nor do they qualify as well written works of literature. However–––people read for all sorts of different reasons and better to have them read something than nothing. Joan’s mention of "Loving Frank" is an example of one of those gems that one finds among the shells.  Washington C. above sounds like a serious reader who would probably choke on the brownie served at some of these book club discussions because as she says she is a different kind of reader. When one’s passion is literature in all its forms, it suffices to engage in interior monologues.
By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 03/25/2009 8:53 am
marta pont
You said it so well Phyllis.  Think reading is a private pleasure, it is one of those things I’m unwilling to share.  Needless to say I’ve never been the orgy type……
By marta pont on 03/25/2009 9:17 am
Green Tears
Marta, to me there is nothing worse than enjoying what you believe is a great book and then receiving raised eyebrows and odd looks when you express your enthusiasm. It’s happened to me more than once and I think it validates your view of reading being a ‘private pleasure’. When the ones who have given me funny looks want to know what I am currently reading my response is always: ‘just catching up on my magazines’.
By Green Tears on 03/25/2009 9:54 am
joan larsen

Phyllis - I almost let this thread go by when I heard the word "book clubs" in the heading.  I too think that reading is a private pleasure, but one that makes you think long after.  So much of fiction - but definitely not all - is "escape" literature that no longer has that appeal to me.  The idea of "learning" appeals to me more and more, but I find more often than not that the so-called best seller list (garnered from publishing firms doing heavy publicity) are not the non-fiction books I choose to read.

But, as one who always has more books awaiting me at the library (I do only reserves), I find that whether a person goes the book club route or not is a choice.  At my library, there is such an active noontime book club group that gets a bag lunch and discusses (and finds new friends in a wonderful environment) that I see this as a proven success.  Reading - not matter which way it is done - should be pleasurable and a regular part of life.  And that is the bottom line.  And,Phyllis, you are so right — it does become a passion.  I cannot think of a better word!  Joan

By joan larsen on 03/25/2009 12:55 pm
Washington Cube
Choke, Phyllis?  Leave a mess on the carpet after choking and spitting. "You want me to read WHAT?"  Seriously, I have my confections. The way the world is going, I’m just happy to know people still read these things we call books. 
By Washington Cube on 03/25/2009 9:32 am
Carol Suzuki
I’ve belonged to many book clubs.  I’m pretty picky.  I have to have a club that not only chooses interesting books that appeal to me, but the leadership is also important.  A moderator that doesn’t have the ability to bring the focus back on the book often just lets people ramble about their family vacations or about how their friend is exactly like the character in the book.  Then, there are often moderators (in my experience, most often librarians) who see a book club as an audience for a lecture on the book.  I have found the best moderator is someone who falls somewhere in between; who can keep the group focused, stimulate conversation with interesting insights and questions, and chooses book that are not only interesting but that provoke conversation.  The best book club discussion that I’ve participated in was a discussion about "The Life of Pi"… I had no idea the ending of a book could be perceived in so many different ways by so many different people!
By Carol Suzuki on 03/25/2009 10:18 am
Therese Dawe
Our bookclub LOVED "The Secret Life of Bees".  Also high on my list is "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and "Never Change".  We just read Cormack McCarthy’s "The Road" which I found dark and wonderful at the same time.
By Therese Dawe on 03/25/2009 10:33 am
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