The Book Group Reports

Last night, The Typical Book Group got together to talk about Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst.  There were 7 of us there, and everyone had read the book, although our most timid reader skipped the "scary parts".  In fact, there are not really any scary parts in the horror movie sense in DOB, but there were times when the reader was worried that Paul would do something stupid.

One thing that we talked about a lot was why Paul, who was highly educated, didn't see more of Lexy's demons, and get her help.  We decided that Paul had co-dependent tendencies.  Mid discussion, we found ourselves confused about whether the ex-wife was an alcoholic in this book, or in 11/22/63 by Stephen King, which we discussed last month.  We even joked about changing the name of our group to "The Alcoholic Ex-Wives", which is only funny because none of us are ex-wives.   There's no need to jinx ourselves, so I don't see a name change in our immediate future.  However, the correct answer is that the ex-wife was an alcoholic in 11/22/63, and an obsessive compulsive control freak in DOB.  No danger of me catching OCD, that's for sure.

We also questioned if a person could actually die from falling from even the highest branches of an apple tree.  We realized that Lexy had to fall from a fruit tree so that there could be a plausible reason for her climb, but we couldn't think of a fruit tree that grows very high, other than a palm tree, which would be hard to climb, and harder to find in Virginia. 

Next month we are going to read The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon.

To add to this jam packed week, The Friends Book Group met tonight.  There were only 3 of us there, unless you count the host's husband and son, who also participated.  All 5 of us loved the book, which tells me that 100% of readers agree, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a great read.  We spent most of the time talking about our favorite parts. 

You might recall that The Friends Book Group is made up of people who are members of a support group for parents and friends of different learners.  At the most recent meeting of the support group, we had a speaker in to talk about cyber addiction and its effect on kids with ADHD.  This topic was completely on point for Ready Player One.  The speaker addressed the addictive nature of massively multiplayer online games.  There could not possibly be a more addictive massively multiplayer online game than the Oasis, as described by Cline.  Our speaker warned about kids who have good friends who they play online games with, but who they may not have ever met in real life.  This was one of the issues that Wade faced in RPO.  He trusted those who he met online more than his relatives, and with good reason.  Perhaps the future is bright for our kids with ADHD who spend too much time playing video games, if Cline's predictions come true.

Given the consistent low attendance with this group, I think there is a good chance that this was the last meeting of this group. I mean really, if people won't come out to discuss Ready Player One  what will they show up for?  If there is a next meeting, you can be assured that I will post about it.

Still Reading:  The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli  This one is going slower than I expected.  Hoping for it to pick up soon.

Still Listening to:  World Without End by Ken Follett.  I'm on disc 24 now - 2/3 of the way through . . . still interested.