Comments/posting

Hey all! I posted my response as a 'comment' on "I Am Melinda Gilbert" not a new post, but if it's better to put it in a new post let me know :) Looking forward to hear what everyone has to say! -D

I am Melinda Gilbert

First off, I hope everyone's close to finishing. Here are a few questions I thought it'd be interesting to explore, regarding the text.

1. Did this remind anyone else of Penn? Of certain frat houses at Penn? Of certain people at Penn? I feel like it must be a universal college thing, but it's still strange how it's set so close to Philadelphia and is SO reminiscent of Penn. I forget what the main walk through campus is called, but it sounded suspiciously like Locust Walk to me. =)

2. What do you think were Wolfe's main critiques of our generation?

3. How do you feel about where Charlotte ended up? How she got there? Is she an admirable character, despicable, realistic, etc.?

4. If anyone else had read any other Tom Wolfe (whose most popular work is most likely The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), how do you think this compares?

So, let's do this!

Shall we begin?

Hopefully everyone who is interested has had a chance to at least look at the blog. I know Brigit wanted to submit a suggestion, Shadow of the Wind, I believe. And Jasmine sent one out earlier too, although I no longer have that e-mail (I'm an obsessive compulsive e-mail deleter - nothing personal). If there are no other suggestions, then I would go out and get a copy of I am Charlotte Simmons and start reading. Hopefully we can start a discussion at the end of the month. A lot of the descriptions etc. remind me of Penn, so it's a little trip down memory lane (I'm fairly certain that the author visited while writing this book, the fictional university the story is actually set in is supposed to be in Chester, PA). Anyway, I just think you'll all enjoy it. Does anyone know about Amy Woodbridge? Does she need a copy sent to Japan? I hope we can actually get it started this time. Please post as much as you want on this blog, I feel weird monopolizing it! Thanks, M.

Great Idea!!

I wanted to read I am Charlotte Simmons too, so I think that is a great idea. I have other ideas too, but they can wait for other times since you already suggested this book (which i heard is really good btw). Also, the blogging idea is wonderful. We just need everyone to sign up for it. :) Until we figure out what works, I think we are going to have to play all of this by ear. I think that 2 weeks is plenty of time, but we will see if we end up needing longer. Are we going to try to do one a month? I think we could handle that. Thanx Melinda for setting this up!
and P.S. this is my first time blogging too!!!

Yay! This is my first time blogging :-)

Book Club in 2007 (for real)

OK, so I figured that maybe the best way to do discussions for the book club would be in a group blog format, that way our inboxes won't get all crowded and you can read them/add comments whenever you want. Several books have already been suggested, and I'd actually like to add "I Am Charlotte Simmons" by Tom Wolfe to the list (not terribly intellectual, but great fodder for discussions/reminiscing about college, morality, etc). It's somewhat long, but a very easy read. So anyway, I would suggest starting this endeavor by everyone who has a suggestion for a book posting their suggestion and we will pick one on January 14 - in order to read by the end of January (I think 2 weeks is a reasonable amount of time) and then begin discussing in February. BUT I'd also like to solicit recommendations for how to run this thing - as I have no more experience/authority than anyone else with book clubs, any contradictory suggestions on how to run said book club would also be greatly appreciated. I just wanted to offer a starting point. Hope everyone had a very happy New Year! And for goodness sakes, let's get our noses back into the books in 2007!