What books do YOU wish your book club would read?

Stolen shamelessly from MyPeopleConnection Book Clubs:

What books do you wish your book club would read?

I'm an English major if that expains anything, and I'd like to read more classics! I have no interest in the new fiction that everyone is reading. How boring. I'm also madly in love with YA lit, so it would be great to read more of that. Also, non-fiction. Personally, I don't read a lot of non-fiction, so it would be great to be exposed to it in the book club.

I'm with you, tuna. Although I'm not sure if your 'classics' are the same as mine! I would love to read more Hardy, Austen, Dickens and the like.

What about you? Which authors are you drawn to?

Hi Claire-

I think I would like to read all those books I feel like I "should have read". Even though I have a degree in English, I still have missed out on a lot of classics.

Here's my list:
- Madame Bovary
- Something by Austen other than Emma
- 1984
- Anna Karenina
- Grapes of Wrath
- Vanity Fair
- Gone with the Wind

Some books that I love, that I would love our book club to discuss:
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- Tortilla Curtain
- Flower Drum Song
- Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

I've been keeping track of the books I've read for two years now, and I've always participated in the 50 or 100 book challenge, but I think I may do something different next year. I'd like to focus on all those books that I've always wanted to read, versus focusing more on the number. Hopefully, I'll get to a lot on my list!

What's on your list?

We have a couples' book club - named Gin and Phonics - that has a goal of reading "all the books we should have read in high school (or did and can't remember)". So far we've actually managed to read a few classics... including Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged!!!) and Catcher in the Rye. It's been really fun.

So happy to see I'm not the only one with an old-fashion streak. I've just bought Crime and Punishment. I'd also love to read more Dickens and maybe even Shakespeare (it's so embarrassing when you didn't pick up allusions...). I also like to discover classics from other countries like Goethe, Cervantes or Borges. Do you know any really great Asian classics?

I personally love Flower Drum Song and The Good Earth and consider them classics.

Murakami is contemporary, but he's one of my favorite authors. You should check him out.

If my link works, here's an amazon.com reader list of Asian Fiction:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/REZWO917AHVG9/ref=cm_lm_srch...

Hey tuna, I've read everything on your list! But I've only read one on your 'books that I love' list! I own Tortilla Curtain but haven't gotten to it yet. T.C. Boyle and I went to the same college. He graduated the year before I got there, though. My favorite of his books that I've read so far is World's End: a novel. (Sorry, I had to add 'a novel' or the touchstone would have pointed at a Sandman book!) I also adored The Road to Wellville.

I was a double major in college, Math and English, but I did my grad work in English only.

I agree completely with those of you who'd like to read more classics. My Book Club has been selecting such rubbish lately! One of our upcoming books is Blowing It by Judy Astley. Gaaaah! It seems that whenever it's my turn to choose, the other club members all groan because they know they're going to be forced to read To the Lighthouse or Middlemarch. I don't read classics strictly; in fact, I like a good mix. But I do feel that our Book Club reads ought to be a little more balanced, and it always falls to me to be the "baddie."

(An ongoing problem is that one of our members balks at reading anything with more than 300 pages.)

miss_read, there are so many classics under 300 pages! You can recommend The Outsider by Camus, anything by Oscar Wilde, most American classics like the ones by Scott F. Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Twain and being a great fan of Canadian literature, I can recommend Timothy Findley and Nancy Huston. Aaah, the possibilities are endless... but I agree, our Book Club tends to go for the trendy books too and you wade through a lot of mediocre stuff before hitting the jack pot. After all, that's why classics are classics - they've survived the test of time!

Thanks, Cecilturtle. I did manage to get them to read a Fitzgerald last year, but most of them didn't like it. I give up. :(