Book Club - April 4th 2010

Our goal for this evening was to read the first 8 chapters of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for tonight's meeting. Luckily that is only 36 pages. We all have lives and a couple of us are college students with a lot of other books on our to read list. 

We had a lively discussion based on some questions put together before hand.

• How did the ladies describe Mr Bingley when they spied him from the window the first time?

• How did Lady Lucas describe him?

• From what you have seen of him so far what is your opinion of Mr. Darcy? (Forget the original book) How has he been described by the other characters?

• What do the characters call the zombies? Do we know why this is?

• How many variations of Elizabeth's name have we seen so far? How else is she referred to?

• How many characters have we been introduced to so far? What are their names?

                (Hint: We came up with 23)

• What fighting styles have been mentioned so far?

               (Hint: We came up with 5)

We also did an activity where we each re-wrote the notes on page 25 and 26 using more modern language.

Here are the original notes:

The first note is to Miss Jane Bennett from Miss Caroline Bingley

MY DEAR FRIEND,
If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me,
we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives,
for a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without
a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this, provided the
road is free of the unmentionable menace. My brother and the gentlemen
are to dine with the officers.
Yours ever,
CAROLINE BINGLEY

This second note is from Miss Jane Bennett to her sister Miss Elizabeth Bennett

MY DEAREST LIZZY,
I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be
imputed to my being set upon by several freshly unearthed
unmentionables during my ride to Netherfield. My kind friends will
not hear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my
seeing Mr. Jones-therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of
his having been to me-and, excepting a few bruises and a minor
stab wound, there is not . much the matter with me.
YOURS, ETC.

How would you write either/both of those messages today? Feel free to add yours into the comment thread where ours will be going.

I chose Jargon 2006 Pinot Noir for tonights meeting because what better wine could I have picked to start this book club with. Jargon noun - any talk or writing that one does not understand. Our goal with this book club is to gain a better understanding of some of the books that we read.

It gets even better. When I went to Jargon Wines home page they had this lovely little question. "Have you ever found yourself in the wine aisle, paralyzed, practically zombified by all of the choices, fancy packaging, critics’ ratings and pretentious wine-speak?"

Personally I am not a huge fan of red wines. This one had me pouring a second glass. I will be re-stocking it in my wine rack the next chance I get.

None of us ladies claim to be experts on either wine or literature we're just going to tell you what we like or don't like as the case may be. This is our twice a month meeting where it is okay to show up in sweats and no makeup and just be ourselves.

Two weeks ago when we discussed setting up a book club we had Pure Evil Chardonnay (link not available at this time) and Vampire  Cabernet Sauvignon wines. I don't remember the years but if I find out I will update this. (Sorry Michelle the Chardonnay really is out of stock if I find it somewhere I will let you know.)

My two favorite places to get wine in Boise are CostPlus World Market  and the Boise Co-Op.  Both of these locations have an excellent selection and CostPlus seems to get the Vampire and Evil wines in for Halloween.  Tip: Start asking early when they will be getting the shipments in.  The Vampire wine disappears from their shelves quickly.

The ladies that drank the wine this evening promised to put their thoughts in the comment section below.

For our next meeting we are reading through chapter 22. We will also be writing  2-3 quotes on 3x5 cards. (quote on the front, speaker and page number on the backside)

Good Books, Good Wine, Good Friends
What Could be Better.

Books, Books, and More Books

Anybody that knows me knows at least one thing about me...I read. A lot. I keep telling myself that I need to "improve" the quality of books that I read. I keep telling myself to grab a copy of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy or Paradise Lost by John Milton. Then I go and look at the lists of "Classic must reads" and realize that I read most of the classics on there as a teenager. Mark Twain, Jonathon Swift, Nathanial Hawthorne and Charles Dickens were some of my favorite people growing up. I could disappear for hours in one of the many wonderful worlds they had created. J.R.R Tolkein enthralled me long before Peter Jackson brought those epic movies to the screen. And no matter how good the movies are no true justice can be done to the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series. The limits of film just can not do true justice to a child's imagination. The White Witch in my imagination looked nothing like Tilda Swinton.

Now one would hope that a young tweens seeing these movies would have rushed out to get the books and read them before the remaining movies made it to the theater. However, I know in my daughters case that didn't happen at least not with Lord of the Rings. I bought her the books and made them available to her but she had no desire to read them. One of these days I might just ask her why. I had been reading the Chronicles to her since she was a toddler. I guess I just figured that Tolkein was somebody that you had to read yourself to truly appreciate.

The Harry Potter series probably brought more readers out into the open than any other book series lately. I found the series shortly before the third book came out. (Thank you to the unknown clerk at B&N for recommending it). At the time my daughter was six and we read the stories together. For her seventh birthday I gave her a hard copy of the third book. By the time that the fifth book came out I had to buy two copies. We each finished them quickly (me within 24 hours) her a couple of days but neither of us wanted to wait for the other to finish before we started.

What this blog post was initially going to be about was the high price of books. When I started reading my mom allowed me to purchase one book a month. My choice was the Narnia series. Cost $1.95 each. That was kind of a stretch on my parents budget because they also had to buy my little sister and brother a book as well. My dad let each of us kids buy 1 comic book a month usually in the 50-75 cent range. The rules were that it had to be a #1 or part of a limited series.

Now you can rarely find a paperback for less than $7.95 and hardcovers are usually around mid $20s. So I scrounge the bargain bins looking for books. Here I can find hardcovers for around $7 and trade paperbacks for around $5. Even that can get spendy. Used bookstores are great but you have to know what you are looking for or be willing to spend hours looking (They charge 1/2 pub price and usually credit you 1/4 pub price for trade in).
Favorite used/new bookstore would be Rediscovered Bookshop @ 7079 W Overland Rd, Boise, ID 83709. My other favorite is unfortunately no longer there. The owner decided to retire and enjoy life more. I miss the German Shepard that kept her company in the shop every day.

Thrift stores used to be good. You could pick up 3-4 paperbacks for a buck. Then they started charging based on the publishers price. Now you were back up to $4 for a recently published book. While Silhouette and Harlequin made great filler books in the 5/$1 price range I have no desire to pay $1 each for them.

Yes I have heard of that wonderful thing called the Library!.(Boise's library is officially titled as Library!) However I really suck at remembering due dates for both books and movies. Late fees will kill the convenience factor for me.

Ebay is great for buying a "lot" of books. 10-30 books in a box but sometimes I only want about 5 of those books (the price still makes it worthwhile though). Recently I found a better option. For me anyway. This way I can build my wish list of books and if someone has the book I really want I get an email asking if I still want it. Yes sometimes the wait is long but I love receiving a book in the mail and unwrapping it knowing that I have my entertainment set for the evening.

Here you post books that you are willing to mail to someone.(Mailing costs you postage - about $3 per book) and you "order" books that you would like to receive (this doesn't cost you postage) When I posted my first 10 books to my virtual bookshelf they gave me credits to use. Each time I mail a book I receive an additional credit. So instead of the normal 2 or 3 books for 1 book that used bookstores offer it is a straight 1 book for 1 book trade. (Exception for audio books which cost 2 credits each (of course you get 2 credits if you send it back out)



So go forth and read. Expand your horizons. The words on paper only encourages your imagination. Watching that same story at the movies or on tv limits you to another persons imagination.