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The Idle Book Club 10: The Idle Book Club Returns

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The Idle Book Club 10:

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The Idle Book Club Returns

The Idle Book Club is back! After a two-year hiatus, we're ready to start discussing books again each month, with one returning host and one new one. This episode, we announce our first book: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. Then, to get back in the swing of things, we share our thoughts on two other books we've recently read: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Join us!

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So, is there any chance that we might consider non-fiction for the idle book club?

 

I lost interest in contemporary fiction, like, fifteen years ago.  Since then it's been nonfiction and non-contemporary fiction.  And beach books.

 

I'm a huge fan of the more book-club-friendly sort of nonfiction-- narrative-based, not overbearingly political, and having passed the test of time, so not too contemporary... stuff like:

 

Liar's Poker: Michael Lewis

  - he's got a bunch of books closer to the present, but that makes it harder to gauge their worth-- this one stands up, I think

 

The Soul of a New Machine: Tracy Kidder

  - such a well-told story of the genesis of a kind of computer that nobody uses anymore, and all the better for it

 

Annals of the Former World: John McPhee

  - he gets mocked by bloggers today for his New Yorker pieces about golf balls and barges, but his life's work, this book about plate tectonics, should change the way you look out the window.

 

The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-century America: Paul E. Johnson & Sean Wilentz

  - a short book about an early american religious cult, with the mother of all twist endings.  No spoilers.

 

Polywater: Felix Franks

  - the story of one of science's (many, many) exciting detours away from the road to a better understanding of the world

 

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Robert Sapolsky

  - in which a man who has spent an awful lot of time crouching on the savannah waiting to tranquilize baboons with a blowpipe takes a bit of time off to explain to you why so many of the people in your office are being such enormous jerks lately

 

Or, you know.

 

 

If it's going to be fiction, and only fiction, and that's how it's going to be...

 

Well fine, then I've got few non-contemporary books to suggest:

 

All the King's Men: Robert Penn Warren

  - probably my favorite piece of American historical fiction, telling the story of Huey P Long

 

Flashman: George McDonald Fraser

  - the first of a series of historical novels papers from the pen of Harry Flashman, the personage unjustly vilified in Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days

 

Scoop: Evelyn Waugh

  - because you might completely miss Waugh's amazing, scathing wit if you start with Brideshead

 

Babbit: Sinclair Lewis

  - again for the dry wit, but also because Sinclair Lewis should be taught alongside Fitzgerald and Hemingway, especailly Babbit and Main Street, but somehow we've got to a place where people think he wrote The Jungle if you say his name, but that was Upton Sinclair who is not at all the same person nor the same sort of writer.

 

The problem with all of these, of course, is that I have already read them, and that's no good because I want to read things that I haven't read before.  But not necessarily new things, you see?

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Well I guess I need to get a library card.

 

You didn't ask and don't need help, but I'd love an episode that covered E.L. Doctrow's Ragtime.

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If we`re talking about classics that we'd like to revisit or get around to, I'd love to hear Chris and Sarah talk about Catch-22, one of my favourite books ever. I feel like it's a good example of "heard of, but never read" because it's so weird and labyrinthine and uninviting. But it's also a really good examination of the insanity of war and it's easily the funniest book I've ever read.  Virginia Woolf, I think, would be a good one, since her novels benefit a lot from discussion. Any of her main three (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves) would probably fit.

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I'm very excited about this coming out, and feel a bit silly now that just before Christmas I went on a book-buying spree. I've already started Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter, but if anyone else is interested I also got The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Shulz. I heard one of the chapters read on the New Yorker short fiction podcast and it was great, so I'm finally getting around to reading it.

 

I'd also be up for reading any Virginia Woolf. I found it a bit hard to get in to initially, but ended up loving To the Lighthouse, and am very interested in getting into her other work.

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I'm glad this is back because as much as I like to read I often find myself doing other things with my time and whatever book is on my nightstand ends up being there for months, so a little external pressure to get through a book is good for me. Plus I get to then share my poorly worded thoughts about that book on the Internet!

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I'm about 40% through Fates and Furies. Pretty far from what I usually read but I'm really enjoying it.

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I'm glad this is back because as much as I like to read I often find myself doing other things with my time and whatever book is on my nightstand ends up being there for months, so a little external pressure to get through a book is good for me. Plus I get to then share my poorly worded thoughts about that book on the Internet!

 

Very much agreed. I fell off on keeping up with the Idle Book Club in its last iteration, but when everything was working as intended, I greatly appreciated the extra push to pick up my book. Look forward to this starting up again! My wife is also participating, so even more incentive for me to actually keep up on my reading! 

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I'm still hoping that Wolf Hall will be discussed in May as originally promised.

 

But seriously, maybe Bringing Up Bodies in a future episode? I loved Wolf Hall and the sequel has been sitting in my backlog for too long.

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I don't know that we could justify skipping books in a trilogy, sadly. I know that I will definitely be reading the third book when it comes out. Maybe I can sneak some unsanctioned Wolf Hall talk into a future podcast....

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I often find that it takes me ages to read a book, whether it's staring blankly at twitter or watching crap on TV, I just get distracted. I Just carry the book around to different parts of the house. Hopefully this will help keep me on track and also I'll hopefully read things I never would have picked up otherwise.

Enjoyed the taster/ warm up episode(especially the Ferrante part), looking forward to more.

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listening to you guys talk about Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves would be cool
currently reading rn and it does interesting things with format and multiple narratives
also it messes with genre too, starts off as academic criticism satire combined with horror and then challenges notions of genre as it progresses
plus it is a great read!

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