Top Ten Tuesday - Books I Read Because My Book Club Said To

Top Ten Tuesday - October 11:  All About Books You Read Because of Recommendation -- Ten Books I've Read Because Of Another  Blogger (Or Book Person) or Ten Books I Read On Recommendation From People Outside Of This Community or you could talk about recommendations of books you read from other sources -- a magazine, a podcast, a "because you read this" algorithm.

So you know I rarely just follow the prompt because 1. I’m noncompliant, and 2. I’m always completely overwhelmed by the idea of compliance. I bet those two things are related… anyhooo! I’m doing… :::drumroll::

Ten Books I Read Only Because a Book Club Made Me Do I

Turns out, I didn’t read all of these, because sometimes people in book clubs pick books that are awful. Really, truly awful… but if I only talked about books I loved, that would make a boring list, now wouldn’t it?

Here’sthe post where I make a case for having more than one book club. Please note, I’ve really only been going to the one with my friends. I have every intention of jumping back in with the Book Theives, but my other activities (theatre, voice lessons, tap class!) have really been interfering with my people time. Without further Ado!

Who Asked You by Terry McMillian: I don’t have anything against Terry McMillan. I just didn’t really know about her until EVERYBODY was talking about “getting your groove back” and I shy away from unknown to me authors with a lot of hype.  This book was pretty good about a group of women who have relationships and make decisions and mess up and the world keeps turning. I remember thinking: “hmmm… but is something going to happen.”

Wild by Cheryl Strayed: A boring woman decides to trek up the entire side of California with zero hiking training and experience. She doesn’t die despite my prayers.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce: So this old dude walks down to the store and decides to keep on walking. People start to look to him for advice and then try to get famous off him. He discovers that he doesn’t actually need all the comforts of home and that he likes dogs. That description makes it sound boring, and honestly I would never have picked this book up if not for Book Thieves, but I actually really enjoyed it.

The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett: Just no. #DNF

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg: This book is too much of a feel good Hallmark Movie moment for my cynical self to pick up on my own. But I really liked this little tale of a sickly man who moves to a small town and lets real country living, a little red bird, and a child open his life… and his lungs. This was an excellent holiday read. The discussion host decorated with redbirds and had redbird shaped cookies. Because she’s a damn nerd

There’s More to Life than This by Theresa Caputo: Not my thing. Maybe I barely tried.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker: This was a book pick for three different book clubs because of the If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book program. It’s small and quick. But this is another one of those books that seems to promise a something big and then fizzles out, like there is a build up and then a slow descent down a gently rolling hill.

Note: The #RochesterReads book for 2017 is The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld. Love!

Lamb: Christ’s Life According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal: This book, as the title suggests, is written by Biff and he and the young savior travel the world. I didn’t love this book and likely would have #DNF’d it if it wasn’t for the book club. I think it would be better for folks who know anything about the stories of Christ, because then the you’re in on the jokes.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James: I loved this book and had thought about picking it up from the library based on the cover, alone. It's setting is one of the Jamaican slave rebellions. James holds no punches with the description of slave life and this is not a light read. The writing is fantastic, though some of the folks in the group noted that some of the graphic scenes were too much for them. I'd recommend that it be sandwhich between a couple of lighter books. I really want to read the A Brief History of Seven Killings by the same author but I don't think I'm ready.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamont: I didn’t finish this book because I misplaced it before book club and am never able to finish a book if I’ve heard too much about it. Plus, most of the people in the book club didn’t care for it. I was actually liking it when I was reading it. “The Red Tent” has basically come the group’s code joke for a horrible book no one will like. This is especially interesting considering it has higher that 4 start average on Goodreads and it’s been made into a movie

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