Tuesday, October 23, 2012

10 things I learned from attending book discussions


The bargain bin at the book fair
Very, very popular destination among bibliophiles,
especially the people from the book club
  1. From the Howl's Moving Castle discussion: All Diana Wynne Jones fans are also J. K. Rowling fans, but not the other way around.
  2. From the A Good Year discussion: The key words for a large member turnout are "wine" and "food." To hell with the book discussion.
  3. From The Woman in Black discussion: Because there's the word "black" in the title, people will come in black. (Everyone wore black actually. Me? I came in pink.)
  4. From The House of Mirth discussion: Some want to be Lily Bart; others want to wring her neck. Never has a character divided the members.
  5. From the "Taming of the Shrew" discussion: To understand the play fully, it helps if you read Shakespeare's works aloud. More so if you employ a British accent.
  6. From The Game of Thrones discussion: Okay, book 1 has been around for more than 10 years, you know. It does have a small following since it's well written, but it's nowhere near as well known as, say, The Lord of the Rings. Far from it actually. To make it more popular, turn it into an HBO mini series! These days, everyone's a Stark, a Lannister, or what-have-you. Gandalf—who is that?
  7. From The Ready Player One discussion: Who knew that the '80s would be awesome in a geeky sort of way? All I remember are women with big shoulder pads and big hair, the styling of which has brought about global warming.
  8. From the Fifty Shades trilogy discussion: The books are so bad that they're actually good.
  9. From the A Short History of Nearly Everything discussion: People forget stuff they learned in grade school. Or, they just weren't paying attention in science class. Science is so cool, everyone!
  10. From all the discussions that I attended: If you say 3 pm, people come at 4. It's a mystery.

8 comments:

Orly said...

HAHAHAHAHA! This is nice! Short, straight and true!

I love it!

Peter S. said...

Thanks, Orly! :-)

gege said...

"big hair, the styling of which has brought about global warming." --- Sorry na nga, no?

We had a Taming the Shrew discussion?

Peter S. said...

Hi, Gege! Okay, apology accepted! Hehehehe.

The Taming of the Shrew discussion was done by Orly's group.

Kaz said...

Too funny...and too true. So picture me this weekend with my knitting buddies - five women, one man, plus the husband of one of the women - he doesn't knit - whose purpose is to scan patterns people have brought to share, a fondue (yes, seriously!, two small children and two cats. And then there's the conversation - aside from all the knitting-techie stuff... Oh, they're also book junkies - all of them...

Peter S. said...

What a lovely mix, Kaz! I'm sure that the conversations and the company would make for a very pleasant day!

I'm envious that you guys are having fondue!

Tina said...

Haha, this is so fun to read. :)

From all the discussions that I attended: If you say 3 pm, people come at 4. It's a mystery.

We haven't encountered this yet! Well, I always tend to be a few minutes late, but from all our discussions this year, we always seem to start on time! :) I wonder how long that will last. =))

Peter S. said...

Hi, Tina! I guess TFG is more time-conscious! Hehehehehe.