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Traveller wrote: "I want to quickly test something. I've bust my gut today trying to make a schedule for the next 6 or 7 months that's going to suit all of us. I've arranged our "to-read" shelf in such a way that ge..."

I'm not sure this is the final version of the group's to-read shelf. In the past I've bought some of the books, intending to get on board, and other reads have gotten in my way.
I see that Jeff VanderMeer's 'Annihilation' is lined up for a January read; I'm excited about this, but I don't see the follow-up books 'Authority' or 'Acceptance' on your list.
Do you have a plan to fit these in?

We can do them if members (like yourself) want to, but our schedule is pretty full until around June.
We can schedule at least one of them for around then, and take it from there. :)

Traveller,

Thanks for putting this group together. You're reading a lot of the stuff that interests me but doesn't fit into any other genre. I have a petty complaint:

When I go to the "Groups" page and click on "more" under "My Groups," most of the groups pop up with currently reading next to them and reading next down the right hand side. They don't show up for this group, though. It would help me plan my books out and join your discussions if you could get currently/upcoming books to display on the groups page.

I hope that makes sense.

Phil wrote: "Traveller,

Thanks for putting this group together. You're reading a lot of the stuff that interests me but doesn't fit into any other genre. I have a petty complaint:

When I go to the "Groups" pa..."

Thanks, Phil. :)

That's strange, it used to do it for me. Will investigate.

Well, if I go to that page, it does show for me. It might be something to do with your settings, in how you receive notifications from our group, Phil, I'm not sure.

Here is a a screenshot of what it looks like for me:



You can view a larger version of that image here:

I don't think that's the "Upcoming" part is what he's missing. There's a "currently reading" book on your screen shot for "The Readers Review" group, but none for "On Paths Unknown".

I'm a bit surprised that all of my "Upcoming" list are for "On Paths Unknown".

Ah sorry, you are right. He does mention "currently reading". I'm trying to ease myself back into GR after an absence and there's so much to try and catch up on...

Take your time, and welcome back!

Hmm. I thought I fixed the currently reading thing a couple of days ago. If there's a gap between the end date for Calvino and the start date for Smilla, that could be it. I'm on my phone at the moment and can't pull it up.

Thanks, Ruth. :)

Amy, "Currently reading" seems fine as far as the group home page and bookshelves are concerned. Don't worry, I'm back and will do my best to catch up with everything; admin stuff first, and reading/discussions after that, as fast as I can. :)

Thanks for holding the fort so well, Amy, you're doing an admirable job, especially for someone who was just thrown into the deep end!

Thanks :)

Okay, I've fixed it now so that some of the books do show up. However:
1) It seems that one can not have more than 2 books show in that view, and we usually have 4; - no matter, I will diddle it so that our two most recent books always show there.

2) It is a rule of On Paths that our discussions never officially end; but the only way to make the books show up there, is to type in an "end date" for the discussion.

I will get around that one by temporarily putting in an end date quite far into the future, and removing the "end date" once we have made space for the next book on the "currently reading" space.

For now Fahrenheit and Annihilation are still showing; however, I will soon (in about a day's time) remove Fahrenheit and replace it with The Castle of Crossed Destinies. :)

I see that American Gods is coming up and I really, really want to do it here with others (I read it the first time years ago alone and I kept wanting to talk about with someone). However, I have fallen afoul of Game of Thrones, which has thrown my whole reading schedule to the wind. Can we set American Gods forward a few months? Selfish me, I know....

Under the circumstances, not selfish at all, Ruth! When shall we set it for? August, or later?

Traveller wrote: "Under the circumstances, not selfish at all, Ruth! When shall we set it for? August, or later?"

I'll be in the States again until Sept 1. If we wait until then, I can use my own copy and not the library's.

Okay, I see Naked Lunch is coming up and Traveller, we talked about American Gods. I still interested in both of those but ... I got sucked into the Game of Thrones wormhole and I kinda want to read book 4 before I forget 1, 2, and 3. Are postponements possible? :) (tries to look cute and endearing)

Is there a group read for The Drowned World?

Hello, all. I have a PM out to Traveller to see what she is thinking for the schedule. I will update in the next couple of days whether I hear anything or not.

I would like to, Susan, but currently lack the time! I guess we're gonna have to do the poll thing again. In a different thread, interest was expressed for : The Three-Body Problem , Memoirs of Hadrian , All the Light We Cannot See , Cloud Atlas and/or Notes from Underground

I suppose suggestions and polls based upon them, is still the best way to go for now until we can figure out a better way to do things, eh?

Nobody interested? :(

Interested? Yes! But my dream job did come through and though I could have been persuaded to read Cloud Atlas, or even more likely American Gods, again, the time in the foreseeable future just isn't there.

Ruth wrote: "Interested? Yes! But my dream job did come through and though I could have been persuaded to read Cloud Atlas, or even more likely American Gods, again, the time in the foreseeable future just isn'..."

OMG, now I have mixed feelings... wonderful news for you, Ruth, but from a very selfish POV, sad news for me. :P I really enjoyed your company here, and will miss you sorely.

All the best with your new endeavor, and congratulations! Please don't be a stranger, and do come and say hi every now and then...

I will do my best! :)

Congrats, Ruth!

Thanks, Linda and Traveller! I am really jazzed. :D

Hooray for you, Ruth! Congrats.

I am just not really interested in any of those right now....sorry.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Hooray for you, Ruth! Congrats."

Thanks! :)

Hello everyone! Group revival time! A few of us have had a lot of discussions in the Chit-chat thread recently, and we decided we only have time for short stories for the time being. We discussed various candidates, and based upon that, I am proposing the following for the upcoming month of October:

So, I was thinking, let's read a Murakami from his short story collection First Person Singular: Stories starting Fri October 1, then an Okri, Marquez or one of several Chinese/Japanese authors which I will put to the poll, on Fri, Oct 15, and then there's been a request to read a Shirley Jackson for Halloween, starting Fri October 29 ? Sound good?

If at least 2 people agree, I will send out a group message and poll by evening of Fri Sept 24.

Sounds good!

I'm tied up in a Halloween game so may not be able to read the Shirley Jackson with you all.

I have put in a reservation for the Murakami short stories at the library and it should become available on 20 Oct.

BrokenTune wrote: "Sounds good!

I'm tied up in a Halloween game so may not be able to read the Shirley Jackson with you all.

I have put in a reservation for the Murakami short stories at the library and it should b..."

Cool about the Murakami, sorry to hear about the Jackson. Maybe we can still do something halloweenish early November as well, let's see how we feel.

Ok, so one yay so far for Murakami, as long as we move it on a bit, though some people might of course prefer to start on the weekend - maybe we can do 2 while we're at it? Let's see how it goes!

All good with me. Also, a few of the Murakami stories from that collection are online, so that might help with availability, depending on what story we want to read. (Mind the New Yorker links; I think you get a limited number of free articles a month with them. Also sorry for the ugly links; GR is apparently allowed unformatted outside links only.)

"Cream"


"Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" (New Yorker)


"With the Beatles" (New Yorker)


"Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" (New Yorker)
"

Hmm, I've been told that "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" is a bit of a ghost story, so I almost feel inclined to suggest that one for after the Jackson story so that it's close to Halloween still, and then maybe one from one of his other collections that are easier to come by for Oct 1?

Another possibility is that we do The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for October 1. It's one of his more notable works, considered by himself as one of his most important, and is a long short story or very short novella. I might have read it long, long long ago, as a teenager, and from what I can remember, it should actually be very topical in subject matter what with what has been going on in the world lately.
I must just warn that, as is actually quite usual with GGM, there are a few graphic images of death here and there.

If you guys are are on board with that, it's available here though please heed Amy's warning with regard to New Yorker access, since this is also in the New Yorker.

FWIW, one can copy and paste the contents into a Word doc. Just saying. I just tested it and it works, even though FWIW, I do have my own treebook copy.

Oh, I like that idea. I'd like to try Marquez again. I didn't really love One Hundred Years of Solitude and I wonder if I didn't just read it a bit too early in life. Marquez, Jackson, Murakami sounds like a winning line up to me.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Oh, I like that idea. I'd like to try Marquez again. I didn't really love One Hundred Years of Solitude and I wonder if I didn't just read it a bit too early in life. Marquez, Jackson, M..."

I must warn you though, you'd probably hate Patriarch, unless you're willing to take the... er ugly parts with a pinch of salt and see it as dark humor/satire the latter which it of course is.

I discovered Marquez as a teenager, with Chronicle of a Death Foretold and the latter is, in my opinion, one of his most beautiful, most tragic, and most restrained works, and one I would re-read in a heartbeat if you guys would rather prefer to go that way.

...but on the other hand, if you actually got through Patriarch, it's sort of iconic, and a feather you could put in your cap, a sort of literary milestone, if you will, and I think it is also on the 1001-Books-You-Must-Read list.

Shall I put up a Marquez poll then for the 1st 3 weeks of October, a Jackson short for late October/early November, and
"Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" for either late October/early November whichever way time/availability works best for you guys?
...and Magdelanye, I haven't forgotten Ben Okri, he's still on the list!

I'm curious now about Patriarch, but Chronicle sounds lovely too. I hope everyone else has strong opinions, because I can't decide LOL.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I'm curious now about Patriarch, but Chronicle sounds lovely too. I hope everyone else has strong opinions, because I can't decide LOL."

You could always take a sneak peek at Patriarch on that New Yorker page, if you haven't yet exhausted your NYer options...

...and, while it's still there, you could always grab Chronicle here...

Thanks! (Also I see notifications are broken again! This place is really going to seed!)

Free copy of Patriarch here:

Hi guys! I'm still struggling to find a nice Jackson for around Halloween time. Most of the stories in The Lottery collection are relatively hum-drum (with a few exceptions) but I think we've already discussed The Lottery itself, so I propose that we rather do the Murakami first, if you all don't mind.

If we start First Person Singular: Stories on Oct 20/21, that should give most people a chance to get hold of it in time, and at least our main attraction there, being "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova".

Also, it has come to my attention that we've not been giving India any love, so I was thinking, later on in our reading adventures, we could perhaps go for any of the obvious ones: I suspect most of our members might already have read The God of Small Things and might not want to re-do it, but I haven't actually read it yet, so I'd be happy to do it if anyone so desires, and the same goes for A Fine Balance .
But then I also noticed this book: Train to Pakistan, and thought it might give a nice bit of historical flavor. In any case, I'd be glad for some "India" suggestions from members.

I loved God of Small Things and I might be up for a reread, but if people don't want that one, we could try The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Roy's newer book. We can always try to tackle something from Rushdie. The White Tiger also looks good.

Regarding Jackson, might we look at Dark Tales instead? Also, this article has several available online:

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I loved God of Small Things and I might be up for a reread, but if people don't want that one, we could try The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Roy's newer book. We can always try to ..."

All of that sounds good, Amy. Agreed on all the Indian suggestions.

Re the Jackson. Sure, we can have a look at Dark Tales quickly, let me see if I can find a copy.

There are a few good stories in the Lottery collection that I would like to discuss, a few of them quite disturbing, but not really in the "Halloween" sense, (with perhaps the exception of 2 stories) so if you guys don't mind, I think I'll make a thread for the Lottery collection and put it on our list, and then maybe each person can talk about those stories that stood out the most for them., whenever it suits them. We could maybe use spoiler tags or work out some plan.

I've just seen one of the very short Jackson stories being compared to Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. The latter would actually be pretty nice to have as our official Halloween story after the Murakami, since Halloween is actually a celebration in remembrance of the dead, and this is a tale about the dead, which none of the Jackson stories are, and in addition to that, it has lots of flesh on it (excuse the pun) for discussion of psychology and symbolism and so on. Also, the Poe is of course in the public domain, so very easy to obtain.

That's not to discount the Jackson stories, though, which we can always do right after the Poe? Just to give us time to get hold of them and decide how we're going to structure it.

I'm always up for Poe. Fave of faves.

Hi everyone, just a reminder that our Shirley Jackson short story discussion starts tomorrow, November 3. Quick question, have all of you interested in reading Shirley Jackson managed to get hold of Dark Tales yet, or do you want us to start with some of the Lottery stories first?

To be safe, I've made two threads, one for Dark Tales, that you can find here: /topic/show/...
...and one for The Lottery short stories, which you can find here: /topic/show/...

Hi everyone! Since Chess Story got the majority of votes (6) and Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories came second with 4 votes, we may as well do two or three of the most outstanding stories in the Rashomon collection as well.

In order to make space, I hope you don't mind if we then start Chess Story on Dec. 7, and Rashomon on the 14th or 15th.

Also, a reminder that our re-read of White Noise is starting today. Please go to the link here, /topic/show/... , from which the rest of the threads are linked. Enjoy!

Is there anything coming up for this group? I've really enjoyed reading Shirley Jackson, Poe, Akutagawa, and Zweig with you all over the last few months :) I can't tell if the forthcoming reads goodreads is showing me are really happening somewhere deep in the threads, though, or if goodreads is just showing zombie plans from the past!

I'm not sure what's current, honestly, but I don't think we actually have anything on deck right now. (We should probably clean off the zombie plans.) I think Traveller has less time to lead discussions now. I can set up threads if people have something else they want to read and someone else wants to lead. I can't promise I'll be able to participate myself; stress at work is killing my ability to sit still and read right now. (I'm still working on Zweig and Akutagawa!)

I haven't exactly been speeding my way through books, either... January is a busy time for a lot of jobs, it seems, mine included. I only finally knocked out the back half of the Akutagawa collection finally yesterday! I do hope you come contribute your thoughts in those threads when and if you can and want to, though :) I would be happy to lead a discussion, but I don't have anything specific in mind, and I'm happy to just peacefully wait for things to quiet down again for everyone!

Hi guys, I'm currently going through a patch of high anxiety with work and some extra studies I took on - Covid and it's unpredictability isn't exactly helping either. I've also been consumed with projects around my kids in my spare time, that needs to be done by the end of Jan, so yeah, all my cognitive bandwidth (and time) is being spent.

So, since you guys are also busy, how about we sit tight until February? I myself haven't even finished Akutagawa, and I still have that Proust group which I was totally unprepared for.

But I'd be quite happy for Amy to set up threads, and would be also willing to do it myself if BJ wants to lead something.

BJ, we do have a "to-read' shelf here /group/books...
, which probably needs to be updated, but I trust you'd be able to find something that fit our motto of that the book has to be challenging at some level - be it of society's norms (like gender norms, our ideas of societal justice and of crime and punishment, sanity and insanity etc, - any of our established ideas or accepted knowledge, or even just simply set in or describing a culture or setting that is outside of our normal humdrum Anglophone society, or simply if it challenges us intellectually - anything that will expand our horizons a bit. :)

Also, there are LOTS of suggestions that we still wanted to get to higher up in this thread.

Oh, and keep in mind we've decided that shorter is better for the time being, so nothing like War and Peace, or 'À Recherche du Temps Perdu, please. :P