The ones I remember from the last year:
The Time Traveler's Wife
9/11 Commission Report
Small Island, by Andrea Levy
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
King Lear

One of the columnist at our local paper suggested starting a local book club and gave her email address for those to write to her if interested - I wrote didn't hear anything and then weeks later she posted an apology-she apparently had given an incorrect email address... Soon after that she left the paper for another job and I haven't heard any more about starting one....ah the joys of small town living LOL!

Pat

Pat- Have you checked out your local library for a book club? At mine, you can sign up there and some groups meet at one of the conference rooms at the library. What about your local church? There must be some women (in my experience it's primarily women who attend these) who would be interested in joining one. If you like, I can email you the rules etc, that my group has. It seems to work well; we alternate hostessing and doing research for the novel that is chosen.

(why do I keep losing posts I am trying to submit?)

The books I remember discussing (haven't gone to several lately)

Time Travelers Wife
Fine Balance
Crimson Petal and White
Girl in Hycinth Blue
Bee Season
Kite Runner
Time of our Singing

I am more than a little frustrated with my online group. Its based out of an indie bookstore, and the members have been mostly customers, with very ecletic tastes in book. Lately tho the membership is changing - most of the old folk are missing, and the new folk want to read the best sellers. Their discussions skim the surface of the books, and they often don't get the point of more challenging books. I do think that online discussions have spoiled me tho; I find them much more interesting, with people who enjoy a wide variety of books, don't mind trying something know, and ones who can carry on a discussion for days....So I have gotten used to that, and find the RL groups wanting

I know many enjoy the friendships and socializing in the RL groups. Since that's not a major reason for me to go to a bookgroup, I'll stick with online discussions.

I've joined two bookclubs in the last year, one that has been going for years and one that has just started. If you're looking for suggestions for your bookclub, Janalyn there is another thread that I started a while ago asking for recommendations.

BC1:
Sept/05 - Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Oct - A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
Nov - Upstream by Sharon Butala
Jan/06 - The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing
Feb - The Kite Runner
Mar - Dirt Music by Tim Winton
Apr - Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
May - The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
Jun - A Blade of Grass by Lewis De Soto

BC2:
Feb/06 - A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Mar - Cane River - by Lalita Tademy
Apr - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
May - The Mayor of Casterbridge

I am member of an International Women's Club locally, and last year some of us formed a reading group, meeting every six weeks or so. Some of the choices so far were

Margaret Forster, Good Wives
Toni Morrison, Love
Andrea Levy, Small Island
Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
Kathryn Harrison, The Binding Chair
Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
Susan Fletcher, Eve Green
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

I'm about to drop out though, as I didn't enjoy the last two books at all, and the level of discussion is not what I want - I'm less interested in the 'liked it/didn't like it' and more in the 'deeper meaning', especially with books like the Schlink (which we discussed on RP more briefly, but with more really interesting contributions).

Janalyn our library has closed for two weeks to be recarpeted. I will ck with them to see if they know of a discussion group. I do know that there is an organization called Friends of the Library, not sure what they do-other than have book sales but I will ask.

I think I am really half afraid that I will get into a group and they will want to read & discuss fluff or Barbara Cartland type books-but then again I just might be unfair until I know-romance novels are my very least favorites!

Pat

>Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

I loved this book, and can't see how a group would give it a perfunctory look. But then my group did that with Time of our Singing, really leaving me speechless.

These are the selections from my other book club:

Jul 05 - The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon
Aug 05 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by Rowling
Sep 05 - Vanishing Acts by Picoult
Oct 05 - The Historian by Kosotova
Nov 05 - Wicked by Maguire
Dec 05 - A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle
Jan 06 - The Kite Runner by Hosseini
Feb 06 - Cold Comfort Farm by Gibbons
Mar 06 - Me & Emma by Flock
Apr 06 - Doomsday Book by Willis
May 06 - Tamarind Woman (Tamarind Mem outside US) by Badami

Sorry for the double post. I just remembered that I had saved this article from the Contra Costa Times which lists their book club choices going back several years. I thought they had some interesting choices and it gave me some ideas for my own club.

Times Book Club Selections
as of 1 October 2005
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)

Beginning with April 1997:
1. "The Romance Reader," by Pearl Abraham.

2. "Atticus," by Ron Hansen.

3. "The Giant's House," by Elizabeth McCracken.

4. "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," by Rebecca Wells.

5. "Maiden Voyage," by Cynthia Bass.

6. "Ugly Ways," by Tina McElroy Ansa.

1998

7. "The Tortilla Curtain," by T. Coraghessan Boyle.

8. "The Samurai's Garden," by Gail Tsukiyama.

9. "The Light of Falling Stars," by J. Robert Lennon.

10. "The Weight of Water," by Anita Shreve.

11. "Straight Man," by Richard Russo.

12. "All Over But the Shoutin'," by Rick Bragg.

13. "The Family Markowitz," by Allegra Goodman.

1999

14. "The Chin Kiss King," by Ana Veciana-Suarez.

15. "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia," by Marya Hornbacher.

16. "Caucasia," by Danzy Senna.

17. "About a Boy," by Nick Hornby.

18. "Lost in Translation," by Nicole Mones.

19. "Evening," by Susan Minot.

20. "The Museum Guard," by Howard Norman.

21. "The Girl in the Photograph," by Gabrielle Donnelly.

2000

22. "Werewolves in Their Youth," by Michael Chabon.

23. "Amy and Isabelle," by Elizabeth Strout.

24. "House of Sand and Fog," by Andre Dubus III.

25. "Tender at the Bone," by Ruth Reichl.

26. "An Equal Music," by Vikram Seth.

27. "One Hundred and One Ways," by Mako Yoshikawa.

28. "The Miracle of Castel di Sangro," by Joe McGinniss.

29. "Plainsong," by Kent Haruf.

30. "The Wholeness of a Broken Heart," by Katie Singer.

31. "Black Girl in Paris," by Shay Youngblood.

2001

32. "Water, Carry Me," by Thomas Moran.

33. "A Regular Guy," by Mona Simpson.

34. "Motherless Brooklyn," by Jonathan Lethem.

35. "The Feast of Love," by Charles Baxter.

36. "An Invisible Sign of My Own" by Aimee Bender

37. "Bones of the Master: A Journey to Secret Mongolia" by George Crane

38. "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell

2002

39. "The Death of Vishnu," by Manil Suri.

40. "The Man Who Ate the 747," by Ben Sherwood

41. "Black, White and Jewish" by Rebecca Walker

42. "The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint" by Brady Udall

43: "Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold

44: "Peace Like a River" by Leif Enger

45: "Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn

46: "Mary and O'Neil" by Justin Cronin

2003

47: "Edgewater Angels" by Sandro Meallet

48: "The Virgin's Knot" by Holly Payne

49:"The Dive From Clausen's...

Wow, there are some great titles there, and many I'd never heard of! Think its time for a trip to the library, or at the very least a few hours linking books from amazon.

>Wicked by Maguire

One of the best book group discussions I ever was in was with this book. On the surface, an interested retelling of Wizard of Oz, but as you get going, its so much more. His other ones have been ok, but none have reached this level

>"Water, Carry Me," by Thomas Moran.

Online, one of the best discussions I'd had was not this one, but by the same author 'The World I Made for Her'. Love all of his books.

Cindy, the problem with my real-life group's discussion of 'The Reader' was that everyone else just took it literally as a relationship story. They discussed it extensively, but without looking for other meaning. I enjoyed the book only when I realised that the relationship is a metaphor for the love-hate bond between two generations of Germans; something that other people on RP had also spotted.

This is the kind of book discussion that I find interesting - where one looks for something below the surface - as or on our current 'Max Tivoli' thread, where it was only in the course of the discussion that the possible homosexual metaphor occurred to me.

I have been ticked off by some acquaintances for over-analysing, though. They tell me that the dissection of metaphors and narrative devices spoils their enjoyment of books and films...

One of the things I particularly enjoy about discussing books here is the the different perspectives that people bring to the discussions. Different countries, cultures, religions, knowledge and values all add up to enriching discussions. I remember The Reader and thought your contributions, anyanka, were fascinating and added to my enjoyment of the novel. There have been some novels that I didn't like initially but they became favourites after a good discussion. For example, Blindness by Jose Saramago. Opened my eyes (no pun intended), which is always welcomed.

Cindy - we discussed Wicked several years ago and I wish you had been around then. It was one of those books that people either loved or hated.

Oh - I wonder if its the archives, I'll have to read it.

>I particularly enjoy about discussing books here is the the different perspectives that people bring to the discussions. Different countries, cultures, religions, knowledge and values all add up to enriching discussions

Yes, and I think that is why online discussions are more satisfying for me than RL ones. In local groups, esp in parts of the country that tend to be 'white bread', there isn't much diversity, and folk tend to go along with what everyone else is thinking. Online, there's at least a regional if not global element to the discussion, which makes it all so much more interesting.

>I have been ticked off by some acquaintances for over-analysing, though. They tell me that the dissection of metaphors and narrative devices spoils their enjoyment of books and films...

I partly see what they say. I've encountered some folk (esp on places like the NYT book thread) who take a part a book bit by bit. Such dissection drives me crazy. Really, sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar. But I know waht you mean. The book group that I am in now looks at me like I have three heads when I try to analyze just a bit about what the book is saying, what the author might mean. But I have to remember that everyone has different styles, and different approaches to discussing a book. The 'I loved it/I hated it' bores me to tears, but the anal picking apart of the book does too. I haven't seen that here at all. Seems to be a pretty good mix in how we discuss books.