July Book Clubs

Friday slows things down a little bit, since I don't have the school clubs, and there's more time in general for lying about reading. So what am I reading this month with my clubs?




Friday Friends Club

This is what I think of when I say "I'm in a book club;" it's the one I host most often and hate to miss. We pick books because we want to read them, and sometimes we are wrong about that but usually not.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/84655869@N08/7820440138: Carrie Baughcum

Death Cloud, Andrew Lane

This was a nice easy read about Sherlock Holmes as a teenager, learning about observation and the fun of solving murder cases and talking to girls. Since I don't remember any mention of the other kids in any Holmes story from his adulthood, I'm going on the assumption that Lane kills off all his original characters at the end of his series, so I'm trying not to get too attached. Then we read a Patricia Briggs book for August.

Tuesday Night Movie Book Club.

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We are supposed to finish Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie by next Tuesday, and I'm a bit behind. It has already led to the watching of a truly horrid film whose name I have expunged from my memory.

Vaginal Fantasy:


Rhapsody: Child of Blood, Elizabeth Haydon
A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J Maas (alt pick)
Saga, Brian Vaughan

Vaginal Fantasy calls for the most reading, with the main and the alt and the graphic novel that the local meet-up adds, but they are usually worthwhile. Especially last month, when the main was so awful that I couldn't force my eyes to read it, so I was glad to have other reading.


Sword & Laser


Time Traders, Andre Norton is this months pick, and I'm guessing it is a reread from many years ago (almost forty, probably).

June Book Clubs

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Since I'm a big list maker, alphabetizer and scheduler, along with being chronically late, disorganized and slobby, I really enjoy the idea of scheduling my reading so I finish the book club books within a week of the meeting. Of course, I often fail by months in either direction, and sometimes library constraints make it impossible to succeed, but I still like the idea of books sailing majestically on their calendar dates.


This was much looser when I could read any of the online club books at any time, since worst case I'd just have to let the podcast or video sit on my device for a few weeks or months until I caught up. But now I'm actually meeting up locally with people for those clubs, so the schedule matters. What fun!

Weekends are almost always devoted to the Tuesday night club, which works out since we usually only assign about 100 pages at a time. The kidlit book gets read ideally the week of the Thursday meeting, sometimes Thursday morning although I prefer finishing by Wednesday so I have so ideas for discussion if the kids don't bring much to the table.

The rest of the days get filled with whatever is the priority book, with my Friday club getting precedence and library due dates sometimes overriding everything else. So how am I doing this month?

Friday Friends Club

This is what I think of when I say "I'm in a book club;" it's the one I host most often and hate to miss. We pick books because we want to read them, and sometimes we are wrong about that but usually not.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/84655869@N08/7820440138: Carrie Baughcum

Our June book is Shiksa Goddess (Wendy Wasserstein), and I gave my copy away and am waiting on Paperbackswap to find me another. So that needs to happen fairly soon!  If I get it in time then it will be good and fresh for the discussion -- it will jump right to the top of the queue!

Tuesday Night Movie Book Club.

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I finished our book, The City's Son by Tom Pollock, even though officially we've got two weeks left. Our next pick is tentatively Most Dangerous by Steve Sheinkin, which is a YA nonfiction book about Daniel Ellsberg and the releasing of the secret documents during the Vietnam war. We wanted a nonfiction book as a change of pace, but went with a YA one because we didn't want to have to think too hard. I'm not sure I'll reread this as I read it a few months ago -- it's one of the Cybils finalists this year.

Talbot Hill Elementary Book Club

The last meeting is always a big party where everyone brings a book to recommend and I make my summer reading list. So nothing to read this week, but then I'd better get cracking!

Vaginal Fantasy:



Our local group skipped last month, so we have a lot to talk about. Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal and The Magpie Lord, K.J. Charles were the books for April. I've finished the first and started the second. The May books are also done.  The Silver on the Road by Laura Gilman was recommended by several people with compatible tastes and I have to say they were right -- it was a very agreeable read.  I've already read Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews; in fact I suggested it to my Friday book club and it was our last pick! So I feel like I got even more than my usual money's worth from reading that one. Also my son likes it as well. Finally the local group adds in a comic each month; this time it's Lumberjanes which I have also read in the past year. So only about 150 pages to finish this week and then I'm ready!

Sword & Laser


The May book for the next meeting is Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson and I finished that a week or two ago, so I'm in good shape. Such good shape that I may try to read some of the books I skipped over the past few months, since the library has finally decided to give them to me. A Darker Shade of Magic, by Victoria Schwab was last month's book, but the library just got it to me.  I'm about half way through All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders, which was a book from ages ago. And if I finish those I can read the books from my shelves that appeared on picks sometime last year --  City of Stairs,  Robert Jackson Bennett or  Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer.

Book Club Books For May

I'm a member of several bookclubs, as well as a follower of some internet groups that share a book each month. This means that a lot of my reading is dictated by these clubs. I aim to read at least 50 pages a day for my book club books, which means that I finish books slowly enough that I remember them well enough to discuss them at the meetings,  Obviously I give priority to book clubs I actually attend or host; the internet ones can get done when I have spare time. And if they pick popular or new books, library wait lists may mean I don't get to them for several months after the rest of the crowd.

Of course, I've just found local meet-up for the internet clubs, so oops...

I'm going to look at what I'm reading or planning to read because of the clubs I subscribe to:

Friday Friends Club

This is what I think of when I say "I'm in a book club;" it's the one I host most often and hate to miss. We pick books because we want to read them, and sometimes we are wrong about that but usually not.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/84655869@N08/7820440138: Carrie Baughcum

Quiet, Susan Caid. We figure most of us fall on the introverted side of the line, so we wanted to read a book celebrating this. And although we aren't taking it too seriously, we talked a bit about The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and decided to try that. I've finished both of these, so I'm in good shape for May. Currently our June book is supposed to be Shiksa Goddess (Wendy Wasserstein), so I can start that whenever I feel like it. I'll wait until after the meeting, because we sometimes shake things up at the last minute.

Tuesday Night Movie Book Club.

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This is another excuse to hang out with friends, virtually. We all read the same book, then start up a skype session and watch a movie, chatting over the movie about whatever strikes our fancy, including the book.

Star Wars: Verily a New Hope,  by Ian Doescher is the pick this week and next, accompanied by a movie chosen because the description claimed "it's not Shakespeare" -- and true, The Lady of Burlesque was not, and next week by an actual play, probably the Macbeth with Sean Connery in each, chosen for its short running time. I've got the next book,  The City's Son, by Tom Pollock, on my tablet but I like to read my sections on the weekend before the meeting.

Talbot Hill Elementary Book Club
This was a compromise the kids and I worked out, now that Battle of the Books is over and we can read whatever we want. Interestingly, I've only listened to the audio of The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, and I've enjoyed seeing how differently I react to text rather than voice. The rhythm seems different, because I can see all the white space around the short chapters, especially the ones that are brutally short. I don't know the next book yet, although I think we won't have one -- it will be a Summer Party where the kids get to set up most of my summer reading list.

Vaginal Fantasy:



Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal and The Magpie Lord, K.J. Charles were the books for April, and I've just got hold of them. So those are late. On the other hand, I'm very excited about the May books -- The Silver on the Road by Laura Gilman has been recommended by several people with compatible tastes, and I've already read Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews; in fact I suggested it to my Friday book club and it was our last pick! So I feel like I got even more than my usual money's worth from reading that one. Also my son likes it as well. And it's on the shelves at my local library, so I can start it soon. As I've just found a local meet up for this online club, I'm happy to see that I'll probably finish the book on time so I can go and have fun.

Sword & Laser


Ok, I'm a bit behind with this online book club, although I did track down their monthly meetup in Seattle last week since I had read one of the two books for April. I'm hoping to finish the May book for the next meeting, which is Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I've read other books by him, so I expect I'll like this one. I loved and recommended to a friend (who also loved) The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemison, which was the April book I did finish, although the library just got me the other book for April (it was a rare two-book month),  A Darker Shade of Magic, by Victoria Schwab. I'll read that when I finish the May books. Or maybe I'll read the book from even earlier that I also just got --  All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders. Or I can read the books from my shelves that appeared on earlier months picks --  City of Stairs,  Robert Jackson Bennett or  Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer.

I think I need to dedicate a shelf to book club books so I can keep them in order by reading priorities and deadlines. Hmm.

Book Clubs

I've been in book clubs for most of my adult life. I love reading, I love getting book recommendations, and I love recommending my books to my friends, even when I worry about it. So they just seem a good fit for me. Libraries usually have a club running, and many book stores do as well. Or you can start one or find one and glom onto it. I've done all of these.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/84655869@N08/7820440138: Carrie Baughcum

Friends Book Club: There's an amazing group of women who get together monthly and celebrate a book, and I usually get to host them!  We all love to read and do it for pleasure, so we try to pick books we'll enjoy. This means avoiding most books recommended for book clubs -- books full of pain and agonizing choices and dubious moral paths may make for great conversation, but we're full of great conversation on our own. We want books to bring us joy. So we read a lot of genre books -- fantasy and science fiction, with young adult, mystery, and nonfiction also welcome to apply. We have a firm rule that not wanting to read the book is not an acceptable reason for not attending; just don't read the book! (Acceptable reasons for skipping: avoiding spoilers if you loved the book but didn't finish, being really tired, annoying life interference, bad weather.) Occasionally we stretch our wings a bit and do something different; Januaries are movie nights, we have done a live Shakespeare read aloud, we did a pot luck with local food while reading Animal Vegetable Miracle, we went to a strip club... Anyway, it's the best. Current book: Radiance, Grace Draven.

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Tuesdays: I have another bunch of friends that I meet up with weekly. Well, we don't meet up, since we're in three different states, but we all hang out on our computers together. For years we played MMPOG games, but then we got tired of the game we were playing. So we tried some other games, and then we tried a book club, and that's where we are now. It's a movie/book club because we put a movie on and gossip about it while occasionally mentioning the current book. We've tried to read a variety of different things -- Lovecraft, Louie L'Amour, Jennifer Crusie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Andy Weirs. We've found some good movies along the way, although the best movies are the ones we can talk over and laugh at and riff off the books to. And since we are all home already, a little drinking is encouraged. Current book: The Book Thief, Markus Zusak. Last week we paired this with a Lego documentary. This week I think we are considering a Korean Robin Hood kind of flick. (UPDATE: now that it's Wednesday morning, I can say we enjoyed The Righteous Thief, which was the Korean Robin Hood movie we read to finish off The Book Thief, and now we are reading Jim Butcher's Grave Peril.)

Elementary: Long, long ago, while my kids were still in elementary school, I started a book club there. And I never left. As a matter of fact, it's a bit more fun without my kids, because nobody cares how uncool I am anymore. The oldest is still there in spirit, because he makes the cookies that are an important part of the event -- I bring a bunch of chocolate chip cookies and some questions about the
book. This year I've tried writing the questions on big cards and putting them on the tables the kids are eating lunch at, which  means I'm moving around to pick up the cards and talk. I think this is working. My goal is have fun and let the kids have fun. In an ideal world some of the kids come for the cookies and stay for the books, so Alexander's cookies are increasing the amount of reading in the world. Current book: Becoming Naomi Leon, Pam Munez Ryan.

Vaginal Fantasy: I'm not so much in this one as a bystander. Felicia Day (of Geek & Sundry) started a book club with her friends and they discuss their picks on youtube once a month. They pick mostly genre books with interesting women protagonists. Since I tend to like these books, I try to follow along. I sorta wish they'd have a podcast instead of a video, because it's the sort of thing that is mostly for listening. I've gotten some good recommendations, and enjoyed hearing them read some old favorites, and occasionally I even comment on the forums. Current book: The Pillars of the World, by Anne Bishop.


Sword and Laser: Another book club that I follow on the interwebs. This goodreads group hosts a podcast every other week or so to talk about a SFF book, alternating between Fantasy (sword) and Science Fiction (laser). Veronica Belmont picks the swords, and Tom Merritt the lasers. Of course, the genre doesn't actually divide up that easily, which is part of the fun. I'm often a month or so behind on these, but again it doesn't really matter. If I'm inspired, I can participate in the discussions on the goodreads forums, but if I'm not, no one cares. Current book: All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders. I'm still reading a book from a few months ago, Catherynne Valence's Radiance,  and I left a book mark in a book from last year, Roger Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs that I'll get back to one of these days. (I'm only this caught up because they read a lot of books I've already read, so I didn't reread them.)