Book hunting for 2015

A work in progress

Before the year ends, the book club finalizes its lineup of the books to be discussed for next year. But for this year, I believe we just set a record. For the first time, we've picked the books for 2015 in July! And to think we still have 5 months to go before the year ends!

Technically, we select only 10 books instead of 12. Our book discussion for January is sort of a show-and-tell of our best and worst reads for the past year. And then we reserve one month to talk about a recent publication (i.e., something published within that year).

Out of the 10 books for 2015, I found 4 novels in my shelves: Galbraith's The Cuckoo's Calling, Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, and Pratchett's Hogfather. It looks like 2015 will be heavy on novels and fiction for us! Woot, woot!

There are still 2 more books that I know I have somewhere—Levithan's Boy Meets Boy and Smith's I Capture the Castle. I can't even remember if I loaned out these books. Argh! I just have to keep looking then. They're probably in a corner, gathering dust bunnies.

I do know that I have to hunt for a couple of titles: the Super Freakonomics business book and a locally published title, which I haven't seen in bookstores lately. Here's hoping that it's still in print. I don't want to break tradition. I've been doing this book hunting thing for 5 years now.

Even though I've already read 6 out of the 10 books for next year, I'm still feeling excited about the book discussions. Most especially for Boy Meets Boy, which is the first time that the book club will discuss an LGBT-themed work.

So now the book hunting begins again. Ah, these are the moments that make life worth living.

What I've been reading recently (in pictures)

Almost 4 months ago, most of my pics on Facebook were food pics. Then this happened. So good-bye, cupcakes! Good-bye, deep-fried pork belly! Good-bye, bacon and butter!

Then I realized that I still have been posting pictures on my Facebook account. But this time, they're all about the books that I've been reading. Not a bad trade-off, I think.

So I'm sharing them with you, dear reader. They're not technically selfies, as I forced asked a colleague at work to take them. Sometimes, it's good to ham it up for the camera, no?

D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love is a favorite read.
And The Rainbow is actually it's prequel.
Brangwens, we meet again!

I love them Russians. I feel that Dostoevsky is the most Russian of them all.
I've read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
I loved both. And I'm loving The Idiot.

I've never read H. P. Lovecraft, much as I love horror.
Unfortunately, I had to drop The Call of Chthulu and Other Weird Stories.
I just found it too, well, weird.

Rachel Joyce's Perfect is alnost a perfect novel, if ever there was one.
It's a heartbreaking read about familial bonds.
I'm a fan!

Robert Rodi writes hilarious gay-themed novels.
Closet Case is no exception.
I found it a bit dated though, but it's still enjoyable.

How about you, dear reader? What have you been reading?

When we spent one day in prison

Last weekend, the book club met to talk about our book for August, which was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I love Russian literature (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are two of favorite writers), so I was prepared to really like this. But Solzhenitsyn's novel caught me off guard. It was something very un-Russian in terms of character and plot.

I'll write a full post about the novel soon. For now, I'll tell you about what happened last weekend. As usual, I had a grand ol' time with the Flippers as you can see in the pictures below. All pictures have been taken by R., who is the best photogapher ever!

This is my copy of the book. Of course, it's a Penguin. Hehehehe.
To its left is the bookmark given away during the discussion.
To its right are sugar packets, which were part of the "parcel" giveaway.

Arthur did a wonderful job moderating the discussion.
I don't think he had any questions prepared beforehand.
Arthur makes moderating look so effortless!

Angus, a member of another book club, joined us during this discussion.
Here he is comparing differences of translation of two editions.
I hope we get to see more of him in the next discussions

There were plenty of lighthearted moments during the discussion.
And to think that the novel's about a day in the life of an inmate!
Here, Sheila and Gege share their thoughts about this "depressing" book.

The parcel was a key element in the novel.
Arthur made his own version of the parcel that he gave to all attendees.
Inside the parcel were witty items such as fake tobacco (tea leaves actually).

And here I am again hamming it up for the camera.
Hey, I won something for being the first person to arrive at the venue!
Actually, I was just really hungry, and I wanted to eat right away.

R. and I came in matching T-shirts.
I didn't think anybody noticed as the print was very subtle.
We had to ask someone to take this souvenir shot.

The Flippers!
It was one of the most insightful discussions that I've ever participated.
And I believe most of us liked the novel as well.