New Meeting Day

Our still-without-a-name Book Club, will now be meeting the second Wednesday of every month at 6pm instead of the third Wednesday.

Next Book Pick

April chose the book for our next meeting: Watership Down by Richard Adams. Although we’re currently out of stock, we should be getting some in the store soon. More information to come soon.

For our next book club meeting, we chose People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.  However, since it just came out in January, is only available in hard back and we don’t have any in stock at the store, I would like to suggest The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  It sounds like a similar “Da Vinci Code”-type of story, we already have a few in stock and we can order more in paperback so nobody has to spend $25+ to get a copy.

I just looked up a description of it online - looks like it fills the bill for vampires, too.  Didn’t Sharon ask for something with vampires?

The first book club discussion took place last Wednesday the 18th with the usual suspects: Tim, Tina, Rachael, and I. Sam was also present, but chose not to participate. The book we discussed was “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein. There was some lively debate about the language and characterizations that the author chose, but ultimately I do not think anyone present had a favorable impression of the book. I think we all agreed that the book, originally published in 1961, probably contained some radical ideas in its day. However the book did not age well with the changes to society in the past 47 years. What was probably tantamount to heresy in 1961 barely raised an eyebrow in 2008. While the book started with an interesting concept with a nice mix of characters, the story appears to lose its way halfway in, causing most of the characters to become listless and, according to one source, downright preachy. Overall the book was not rated highly, and probably did not start the book club with as much enthusiasm as originally hoped. Sam, however, did enjoy being petted.

The book that was chosen for July is “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. Published in 2005, this book tells a story of a young girl living with a foster family, from 1941-44, in Molching, Germany, a village outside Munich and home to the Dachau concentration camp. Mostly, it’s a book about books and the power words have to shape our world: they’re capable of creating a vision of a better world - or quite the opposite.

Here Be Books placed some copies on order which should be in shortly. I certainly hope more people will join us for the meeting in July. We need more people to help choose a name for our band of book vagabonds, but mainly offer other opinions and insights. We also need much help on choosing what books to read next. We are hovering between “depressing” and “puff” in our choices, so we really need more people to suggest books somewhere in the middle. So come on down to Here Be Books on the 16th for some pleasant conversation, or at the very least, pet Sam. He really enjoys it.

We recently had a request by Jason, one of our customers, to start a book club. I’d been kicking the idea around for awhile, so quickly agreed.

Time and Place

Here Be Books
3rd Wednesday of each month at 6:00 pm

Theme Still Under Consideration

Jason, Rachael and I, the only 3 members so far, have discussed the following themes/names:

• Eclectic Reader’s Book (ERB) Club: anything goes.
• Movie and a Book (MAB or MAAB) Club: we watch a movie, then read the book it was based on, or vice-versa. This would cover all sorts of genres, from historical to sci-fi to thrillers…
• Any ____ Genre (I’m trying to get Arrgh or Arr or Arrg - you know, to go with the bookstore’s theme)

Any ideas? Clearly we’re going for an eclectic selection of books from all genres, including: sci fi/fantasy, general fiction, mystery, thriller, historical, etc.

Interested in joining? Give us a call (Tina or Rachael) at Here Be Books. (843) 695-1498. You can also register for an account and post a comment to this blog post as well to share your ideas.