Welcome Ladies!
Here is the new home for our book club, where we can share our thoughts and enlighten each other with our literary brilliance.
Here is the new home for our book club, where we can share our thoughts and enlighten each other with our literary brilliance.
The task at hand is to choose our first book. As suggested in my e-mail communication, we should all suggest two books by Friday 9pm (PST), which we can post in the comments section of below. Once all the suggestions are posted, we should rank the books in order of most likely to read to please incinerate. I will take care of tabulating the results and post the final selection right here, in a new blog post.
Also, don't forget to add in your preferred meeting time/day and frequency.
Feel free to contribute by posting to the blog, and adding comments.
Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement.
Looking forward to seeing all your book suggestions below!
Also, don't forget to add in your preferred meeting time/day and frequency.
Feel free to contribute by posting to the blog, and adding comments.
Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement.
Looking forward to seeing all your book suggestions below!
My suggestions:
ReplyDeleteThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2429135.The_Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo
The Road
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road
As Asma's admin, I'm posting her suggestions:
ReplyDeleteThe Girls of Riyadh
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3131339-the-girls-of-riyadh?from_search=true
The Still Point of the Turning World
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15811585-the-still-point-of-the-turning-world?from_search=true
My suggestions:
ReplyDeleteWe Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
"A remarkable literary debut -- shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize! The unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her-from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee-while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own."
The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. The city is a shell of the Beirut Osama remembers, but he and his friends and family take solace in the things that have always sustained them: gossip, laughter, and, above all, stories.
Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching stories -- of his arrival in Lebanon, an orphan of the Turkish wars, and of how he earned the name al-Kharrat, the fibster -- are interwoven with classic tales of the Middle East, stunningly reimagined. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the ancient, fabled Fatima; and Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders. Here, too, are contemporary Lebanese whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war -- and of survival."
Sara, Thank you for starting the book club and this blog. I love the background. Books...Glorious Books!
ReplyDeleteHere is my ranking in order of most likely to read to least likely to read:
1. The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapps
2. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
4. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
5. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
6. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
7. The Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My pleasure Zany!
ReplyDeleteMy ranking:
1. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
2. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
3. The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapps
4. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
6. The Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
7. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Hey, how about we appoint 10 points to each first place pick, 9 to each second, and so on. This way we can pick which book to read first.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was the idea.Once Asma and Sana post their rankings, I'll feed the data into a Excel spreadsheet, and we will have our first book! I'll message them to find out when they can do that.
DeleteWow, well the list of added books is really making difficult for me to to pick which book to top my list. I've read a couple oayf the books listed but they're good books, so much so that I own a copy and wouldn't mind reading them again!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe you don't need to create an excel list. You could just list them on the side of the blog, so we have a list of books we'd like to read in the near future.
Alright my list, here it goes (I'm sticking with the books already mentioned just in the order of preference)
1. The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapps
3. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
2. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5.The book of Negroes by Lawrance Hill (Read)
6. She's come undone by Wally Lamb
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson (Read)
8. The Girls of Ryadh by Rajaa Alsanea
Thanks Sana! I already started the excel spreadsheet for this first pick. It's close between the top three books right now, but we just need Asma to get her rankings in for finalize. I've sent her a reminder. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm actually planning to add the poll gadget for the next time we decide on our book. I will also add the list gadget, to track the books we suggest, so we don't have to sift through all the posts. I think overall, we're all on the same page for how we should structure the blog.
I looked at the Goodreads groups for book clubs, and it didn't draw me in. I feel like we might have more flexibility with a blog, but we can move it over if that's what the majority of the group wants.
I'm posting on behalf of Asma, here are her rankings:
ReplyDelete1. She's Come Undone
2. The Girls of Ryadh
3. The Hakawati
4. The Book of Negroes
5. The Road
6. The Still Point of the Turning World
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tatto
8. We Need New Names
The results are in:
ReplyDelete3rd place: The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine.
2nd place: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.
And the first official book selection for our club is: The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapps.
This was Sana and Zainab's first pick, and the book was suggested by Asma.
I'll start a new post to which we can add in our comments as we go along.
I'll set up a poll for that later in the day.
Happy Reading!
Salaam ladies!
ReplyDeleteThis blog is rather fancypants - @Sara: I'm impressed. Thought I'd make an appearance after my participation had to be facilitated by my BFFs. (A profound shukriya to Sana/Sara for putting up with my antics) I'll save my intro for my next post but just wanted to mention that the list of suggestions is pretty stellar, looks like I'm not the only one who's been meaning to get to some decent reading. @Zainab: it's a pleasure to meet you, welcome to da club. :P
Asma, you know I like my fancy pants.
ReplyDeleteLadies, I've posted a poll to vote on our first meeting day. Weekends work best for me because of work, and I'm sure it might be the same for you as well taking into consideration work schedules and baby sitting sch edules. Try to get your votes in by Sunday 12pm PST. Thanks!
P.S. Asma should be banned for using the word "da" on this blog. Take it back. Take it back!