The winner is...

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao! Start reading!

Should we have kind of a structure as far as postings/discussion? Of course, people should feel free to be able to post whenever on whatever, but maybe we should have some kind of plan so that we stay on course and have more of a discussion than we did for Atonement.

What do you think?

my vote...

ladies, i'm actually so excited about this e-bookclub. linds, i never thought i would see the day you became an IT fanatic! alright, i have to say i'm having a hard time deciding between Pollitt and Diaz. both books sound interesting, but i think i'm most attracted to "The Brief Wonderous Life" because of it's discussion on multiculturalism (maybe i'm a bit biased :-)) so, i guess that's my vote.

Decision time! Vote 2008!

Okay, so we've discussed our options here, and it also seems like people are excited about all three of our choices: Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. All being great choices, I think we should aim for reading all three - although I'm sure there will be more books to add to our list. Now we just have to figure out the order. Shall we take a vote?

Even if you don't mind which one we read first, can everyone just choose one (even if it has to be at random...draw from a hat if you'd like)? Or from those of you who judge a book by its cover, see above. After we hear from everyone all of the members (and I am not averse to harassing those who have not yet voted), we will tally them and hopefully there will be no ties. In the case of a tie, since I do not know how any of those novels begin, we will choose the one whose first letter (of the text, not the title) comes earliest in the alphabet. Does this all seem fair? Man, democracy is a lot of work.

My 2 Cents

Well i am encouraged by the newfound enthusiasm to keep this little project of a multi-city virtual book club alive! and i love everyone's suggestions. Now, in the spirit of honesty and democracy (and not just to be contrary), i'd have to say that my first choice would be: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, a book I have heard a lot about and am very excited to read. That being said, i am a major Virginia W fan and would happily read or re-read anything of hers and Erica's non-fiction selection sounds great too! I guess i would say that a contemporary novel would be my #1 right now, and then i think we could move into the classics and non-fiction reads. but i am open and know that we should make a decision soon. Oh, and Rakiya, i am glad that you are now a member. For more reference on this book club, please see Office Episode, Branch Wars, featuring the original Finger Things Club, the inspiration for this esteemed group effort.

Welcome Rakiya! And now for our next book...

I would like to extend a hearty welcome to Rakiya, who has just recently joined our prestigious and exclusive book club. She is lucky enough to have joined just in time for the commencement of our second book.

If you have been following along with the blog discussion, the upcoming line-up that we seem to be leaning towards is To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf next and then Learning to Drive And Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt. It seems that these would make good companion and complementary pieces. However, we are a democratic book club, and I welcome everyone's opinion on our next selections. What do the rest of you think? Does this sound good to everyone? Anyone have any issues or other suggestions?

Hi, my name is cb and I am a reader!

Okay, I am for the first time checking into The Finer Things Book Club though I have been a member according to my profile since March 2007 so I have had an awful lot of time to think about my first posting on a book we are reading together...except that I never got past about page 4 of our first selection, Atonement, and not due to it not being engaging from the opening lines but more because the obsession with things political has consumed my reading of late including a must-read book that I highly recommend to all, John Dean's Broken Government, as well as Hillary Clinton's Living History (that is not a political pitch for votes but just an explanation of the books I have been reading that have distracted me from Atonement) and Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine...but I am still circling around in chapter 2 of that book, I think it is going to have to wait.  SO I am most definitely ready for relief and a novel sounds just perfect...

So I think Erin has made a particularly impassioned and strong case for Virginia Woolf...especially your description of Mrs. Dalloway including "a shell shocked veteran of WWI whose presence haunts the novel" that has absolutely reignited by my desire to read that book. I am also a big admirer of Virginia Woolf based solely on To The Lighthouse which I read in college and was mesmerized by, and recently, had purchased Mrs. Dalloway and was admittedly unable to get past the first chapter, I just couldn't and Erin has given me new hope to persevere. And Lindsay says she has not yet read a single Virginia Woolf novel and has wanted to so that obviously must be remedied.  So I say we go for Virginia Woolf and I would go with To the Lighthouse because I think it is a masterpiece and is engaging from the opening lines and would be the best pick if you had the chance to only read one Woolf book I would hate it if someone had never read To the Lighthouse.  

I also like to suggest Bella Abzug because Laura gave this to me as a gift this Christmas and I am planning to read that next (upon finishing Living History) and I can't wait to read it and continue my current obsession with strong, determined women of conviction and action...but I also think To the Lighthouse is a book I can read for our club and at the same time start my read of Bella....So I am sticking with my pick for To The Lighthouse.  And, I think my feminist obsession right now could be well met by Erica's book suggestion so I could go with that too and something humorous could be just what we need right now to balance all the serious activity of electing our next President!!!!  

Here is a preview that aptly combines in one paragraph my current reading with future reading, it is the last paragraph of Bella, Hillary Clinton speaking of Bella:

"As I travel around the world. . . I am always meeting women who introduce themselves by saying, 'I'm the Bella Abzug of Russia,' or 'I'm the Bella Abzug of Kazakhstan,' or 'I'm the Bella Abzug of Uganda.' Now what these women are really saying, whether or not they wear the hat of an advocate like Bella, is that they, too, are pioneers, that they are willing to take on the establishment and the institutions of their society on behalf of the rights of women, but not just that, on behalf of what families need, on behalf of peace, on behalf of civil society, all the many and varied causes that Bella stood for throughout her long and active life. . . She liked to say, 'First they gave us the year of the woman, then they gave us the decade of the woman.  Sooner or later, they'll have to give us the whole thing.'  She never stopped fighting for 'the whole thing.'  So when women around the world say to me, 'I am the Bella Abzug' from somewhere, I know what they really mean is that they'll never give up."

Another suggestion

Yeah for the book club blog! My suggestion for our next book (or a future book) is Katha Pollitt's "Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories" which is a book of short stories about Pollitt's own life. It's very funny and it allows for deeper discussions of feminism.

My Suggestions

All three of these suggestions happen to be by Virginia Woolf. Why? Because she's "the greatest author ever to walk this Earth" *
*According to Erin, February 14, 2008

If you STILL want to know why. I would first criticize you for asking so many damn questions, and then I'd tell you this: Nobody does it like Virginia. Her stream of consciousness brings me near tears. In all of her books there comes times when I have to set down the book and just let my brain go over the beauty of her words. She makes you want to write, live, be British, go to a Lighthouse, or transform from man to woman over centuries.

Now the suggestions!

1) Orlando -- My first Virigina Woolf experience. It was junior year and I was doing a presentation on her for British Literature. My only exposure to her was through the wonderful movie and book "The Hours." Reading summaries of her most famous books, I immediately knew I HAD to read this one. It sounded farfetched with its magical sex change half way through and Orlando's immortality, Also wonderful about it: it is a love letter to Virginia's friend/lover Vita Sackville-West.

2) Mrs. Dalloway--I read this on the way to France. At first I didn't like it as well as Orlando, but then everything changed. This is my favorite novel. Seemingly mundane, all about an older woman planning a party, it also features a shell-shocked veteran of WWI whose prescence haunts the novel. I have never seen the streets of London, but through Virginia's words, I have lived there. "What a lark! What a plunge!"

3) To the Lighthouse-- The Ramseys are even more intriguing seeing that they are based on Virginia's parents. It is a portrait of family, of loss and love, of mortality. The second half of the novel astounded me. I am also reading this for my British Literature class.

New book?

Well I don't know how well you all considered this went this first time around, considering we didn't have much discussion and who knows who will actually read this and when, but shall we keep this going and move on to another book? I think it does help in applying more pressure to actually read and finish a book.

Erica, I know you had a suggestion. I forgot the name, but it had to do with driving and feminism.

I have a few books from Christmas/my birthday that I'm planning to read soon that might make good choices too. They include: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders (a book of essays) and Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (that one is huge).

Thoughts?