Interesting lists! Just as a comment a local school board member in a nearby suburb tried to have the following titles banned from the local highschool: Beloved, Slaughterhouse 5, and The Awakening (one of my all time favorite books ever!) It appears that some people would choose to make all our decisions for us! (and our children)

I would like to join a book club. I am an avid reader, but have seriously slowed down my reading tremendously over the past few years. Now I maybe finish 1 book per two months, though my shelves are filled with books I haven't even read yet.

I find that reading a book or watching a movie, I remember where I was when doing so.

I finish Memoirs of a Geisha in my hotel room in Europe. yay!

I've been jotting down your suggestions. Thanks!

I'm not in a bookclub, but I have to put in a vote for The Kite Runner. I am reading it now and it is excellent! I am a big reader, and this is one of the best books I've ever read.

I always like to see what other groups are reading - here's our list since we started in late 2003:

Life of Pi, Yann Martel.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Sijie Dai
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
Brick Lane, Monica Ali
Three Junes, Julia Glass
Middlesex: A Novel, Jeffrey Eugenides.
Empire Falls. Richard Russo
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Waiting by Ha Jin
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
The Blind Assasin - Margaret Atwood
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon
Property by Valerie Martin.
Runaway - Alice Munro
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
Crescent: a Novel - Diana Abu-Jaber
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War - Sebastian Faulks
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -Time by Mark Haddon
The Time Traveler's Wife - by Audrey Niffenegger

Group favorites have included Middlesex, Life of Pi and Interpreter of Maladies. It seems each year we read classics like Augie March and then don't really enjoy them. Funniest meeting ever was after we read the Piano Teacher - none of us knew what it was about when we chose it, but we all got a pretty vivid lesson about the seamier sides of Vienna.

Each December our Book Club has a Christmas party and we vote for our book of the year.
Winners so far are -
1)Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke (absolutely superb, can't recommend it highly enough)
2) Small Island by Andrea Levy
3)His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
4) The Magus by John Fowles

My group (in NYC) has read many of the same. Some group favorites
include The Kite Runner, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Winter's Tale by Mark Helperin.
Escargot - did your group like The Memory of Running? We had the author, Ron McLarty come to our meeting, as I've known him for years. It was a treat, as we all enjoyed the book. (But, please feel free to say you didn't!)

Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>1984 George Orwell (OK)<

One of the greatest novels of the 20th century and it gets an "OK" rating. This speaks volumes about the poster.

I'm sure the critique concerning the "Da Vinci Code" would be "ABSOLUTELY THE BEST NOVEL OF ALL TIME" from this person.

Book Snob

Gosh, Book Snob - this was one of the most enjoyable threads I have read here - until you hopped in. Find a Da Vinci thread and post there!

I am not a member of a book club, but read about 2 books a week. Recent hits have been:

Truman Capote: Answered Prayers
Herman Wouk: the Winds of War
Toby Litt: Finding Myself
Aida Yuen Wong: Parting the Mists: Discovering Japan And the Rise of National-style Painting in Modern China (academic and extremely well executed)
The Pilates' Primer: Joseph Pilates (this one is more a practice manual/life philosophy thing and I really enjoyed it)
Currently I am reading Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything is Illuminated and am enjoying it.

Hello all. Schuler, tell me the ages of your intermediates. I know we have a summer reading list for our highschool students, and I'd be willing to bet those books might do. By the way, do you have a school web address? I spent an hour this morning reading about the Swiss education system reforms (to come?) (at Swissinfo and Swisspolitics), and also visited an education website to see if I could comprehend the way the school system is set up. (Couldn't) Would love to ask you a couple of questions, but would bore the heck out of folks here. Thanks, folks, for the good reading tips. Exotic settings and gritty characters? Try the James Lee Burke books set in Louisiana. J.

Hi J,

My students are adults. Between 25-75. I teach evening classes.

My son will be learning English next year. He'll be in the third grade. It's a new program here. He'll learn French in the sixth grade.

This is a great list, I'm saving it. I've read and loved many of the books mentioned.
I'm not in a book club but my friend recommended a book from her club recently, Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. I've listened to it this week as I've been redecorating my office. Whew, I can see why it made good fodder for her club- it's eye opening disturbing.
Now, I'm on to The Passion of Artemisia, very good so far.
I've got Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz going on in print . I'm about to quit that one and find something lighter. Maybe it's time for a Janet Evonavich.

I apologize. I had too much to drink. Maybe I should read "A Million Little Pieces"?

Two suggestions for you, schuler, for different reading ages: Our 13-year-olds are reading "When the Legends Die" by Hal Borland, about our native Americans. Juniors (16-ish?) are reading "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. I've e'd our Lit. teacher to ask what her campus book club read this year, and I'll pass along any suggestions she might care to make. 25 to 75 probably represents a vast range of interests. Good luck. Tony Hillerman (Santa Fe) or Carson McCullers? J.

Thanks J. Do American teachers concentrate on American authors? I can imagine it's the same way in England.

We've read Penguin Readers (adapted to their level) Snow Falling on Cedars, Prince of Zenda, Pride and Prejudice and now I'd like to choose an unabridged book. I've read the Kite Flyer and thought the vocab wasn't too difficult.

Smnovella - I have to say that we have the same sensibilities about those two "novels". Cabo

L84SLK,
I love Eva Evanovich?....I read all her books..She is such a funny writer I laughed when she described what is like to be a Trenton Jersey girl.You cant help to giggle while reading her adventures as a Bounty Hunter..

I really enjoyed The Passion of Artemisa, great book.

Have you read Leonardo Swans? I cant remember the author's name, but is about Ludovico Sforza love's life.
Ludovico was Leaonardo patron while he was the ruler of Milan.

At this moment I am reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovosky,is about WW2 when France was occupied by the Germans.

Schuler, 11th graders do concentrate on American literature, but 12th on British. J.

Sculer, I used to be an English teacher--years ago when I first graduated from university. Maybe I can help you?

I taught American Literature to my freshmen, British Literature to my seniors. Sophomores read World Literature in my former school district.

If you can tell me what your students have read previously, I could gauge what they could handle. I really don't know what "upper-intermediate +" means.

Twiggy