Welcome to the Read A Fucking Book Club. In this thread, we are going to, get this, read books. Not interested? There's the door... er, back button.

Just so there's some organization to all of this:

1. We'll all read the same book over the course of a week.

2. We don't discriminate, we'll read trashy romance novels, fantasy books, choose your own adventure, and some ez readers so that EVERYONE will have a chance to participate.

3. You don't have to sign up or anything ridiculous like that, just check in on Friday to see what book we're reading and be ready to discuss it the next friday.

4. Speaking of Friday, that's when everything happens. A book will be chosen, we have until the following Friday to read it then we will spend the next week discussing what we thought of it... which could be just generally bashing it, of course. I'd like for all forum discussion of a book to end when a new one begins so there's no confusion when someone starts talking about Boo Radley after we've all just read Green Eggs and Ham. Feel free to message another enthusiast of your book via PM to talk about the depth of Sam I Am's character, though.

5. Books of War And Peace's length may have an extra week extension.

Hopefully, everyone's clear on what I'm attempting to do here and you're all on board. Otherwise, get out of this thread. If you're having trouble navigating the internet away from this thread, please contact your network administrator.

I'll now be taking suggestions for the first book to read and try to pick one as unbiasedly as possible.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

Ooh an online book club, sounds like a great excuse for me to abuse my sister's borders employee discount...count me in!

Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic.

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It was such a waste of everyone’s time and money that even the Tokyo stadium’s rape robots apologized– something they were programmed specifically never to do.

HCRoyall wrote:

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Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic.

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Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

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Resident Masochist & Adrenaline Junkie -I'm probably not god but you should worship me just in case-

I suppose I'm in. However I reserve the right to lie about actually reading said book if I'm totally not into it. (i.e. The Twilight series)

I also third the Colour Of Magic even though I just reread it for the 8th or 9th time about 2 weeks ago.

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Kill Whitey.

Are we reading books? I like books.

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the kid's getting old, the kid's getting old

Not really my cup of tea, but that's what this is all about, right?

Officially announcing The Colour (or Color)of Magic by Terry Pratchett as our official first RAFB Club book. I'm announcing this a day early because I may not be available tomorrow.

You've got a week (plus one day) to read this book and we'll begin discussion on the 24th. Please don't begin discussion until then to avoid spoilers and whatnot.

If anyone wants to post the "official" plot summary, feel free. I say official because I've already found one that made me feel as though I read the whole book and I am already spoiled.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

attitudechicka wrote:

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If anyone wants to post the "official" plot summary, feel free. I say official because I've already found one that made me feel as though I read the whole book and I am already spoiled.

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what a wonderfully brilliant thread. I'm in. 

i have just downloaded the colour of magic to my kindle, so i vote for that :)

You know its a going to be a good book when your hooked by the first page :) ive somehow managed to avoid Terry Prattchet, so this is a really good discovery for me.

You don't know what you're missing Mr. Mallone...

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Kill Whitey.

I'm in! My husband and I tried to start an IRL book club last year, but it failed in it's infancy because he chose a book that no one could bear to read, despite its Pulitzer win. 

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Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over - an analyst and a therapist. The world's first analrapist.

little_kitty wrote:

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he chose a book that no one could bear to read, despite its Pulitzer win. 

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Dropped the ball this week. I look forward to the next one

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Resident Masochist & Adrenaline Junkie -I'm probably not god but you should worship me just in case-

Lord_Vodek wrote:

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Dropped the ball this week. I look forward to the next one

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I'm not G'ing anyone AFB.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

Hi guys! Time to discuss!

I haven't recieved any suggestions for our next book. If I don't recieve anything of quality by this evening, we're all reading Bad As I Wanna Be, the Denis Rodman bio. Yeah, it could be THAT bad. Although, I'm sure there's an interesting chapter about dying your hair with koolaid, right?

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Mediocrity at its most average.

attitudechicka wrote:

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Hi guys! Time to discuss!

 

I haven't recieved any suggestions for our next book. If I don't recieve anything of quality by this evening, we're all reading Bad As I Wanna Be, the Denis Rodman bio. Yeah, it could be THAT bad. Although, I'm sure there's an interesting chapter about dying your hair with koolaid, right?

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The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud.

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Resident Masochist & Adrenaline Junkie -I'm probably not god but you should worship me just in case-

Liked the book that much, huh guys?

This is a great discussion.

I couldn't get through the first chapter. This book did not capture my attention. I did try to read it, but even the introduction left me confused. I was hoping that if I read further I would understand better, but I guess I got impatient.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

Hell of a book club you guys have going on here.

Great job!

attitudechicka wrote:

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Liked the book that much, huh guys?

This is a great discussion.

I couldn't get through the first chapter. This book did not capture my attention. I did try to read it, but even the introduction left me confused. I was hoping that if I read further I would understand better, but I guess I got impatient.

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So I'm gonna go ahead and say that spoilers are not OK? I'll try and keep my contribution to the first chapter then.

. . .

Wow, nothing interesting happened in the first chapter.

Twoflower's insatiable curiosity and optimism makes a great driving force for the story, and Rincewind's unapologetic cowardice pairs well with his inability to escape his obligations to Twoflower to create some hilarious moments.  I can't really state any examples though, since none of them happen in Chapter One.

Anyways, this book is simply loaded with very smart parodies of common fantasy, social and religious tropes.  The whole "disk on the backs of four elephants on the back of a turtle" thing is, for example, an exaggerated parody of Chukwa, the World Turtle of Hindu mythology.  Rincewind's inability to learn new spells is a joke on, among other things, the work of Jack Vance, whose Dying Earth series used a method of spellcasting that maintained spells were tangible entities unto themselves, and took up physical mass in one's memory.  And the sources which Death, Kring The Magic Sword and Cohen The Barbarian refer to will of course be painfully obvious.

Later books in the series are a little less high-brow with the references.  Examples include The Truth (a parody of the development of tabloid journalism), Moving Pictures (an obvious farce on Hollywood) and Guards! Guards! (a medieval-style send-up of cop movies like Dirty Harry and Action Jackson).  It gets a lot easier to read Pratchett's work once you force yourself to get familiar with the setting.

But hey, people like what they like, nothing to be ashamed of.  I do however suggest that we all first take the time to state our personal genre preferences so we don't get another week of "the first chapter didn't keep my attention"  Aside from farcical British fantasy and sci-fi, the only other books I like are either written by Vonnegut and Palahniuk or have swashbucklers in them.  For that reason, my vote is for either Invisible Monsters, Breakfast Of Champions or The Scarlet Pimpernel.

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"He was cursed with a horrorshow of a face, like Guiseppe Archbold doing a study of mollusk tumors."