Finishing Middlesex February 9, 2009

For Saturday, February 14, let’s finish Middlesex. Book 4 goes quickly, and hopefully should tie up some loose ends. Since the Inspector will be away, we’ll have a West-Side BBC this week. Is there any place you’ve been dying to try? There’s a possibility of meeting at Ant’s house (will know more later in the week).

For future planning, we had scheduled Edgar Sawtelle next, but the paperback version comes out in June. I’m wondering if we want to re-visit our schedule, or if everyone is ok getting their hands on a hardback or library version and reading it next?

Either way, in keeping with our “week off after finishing” strategy, we won’t meet on Feb 21. We’ll resume meeting on Feb 28 with whatever new book we choose.

As a reminder, the remaining books on our list are:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
What is the What?
Great Expectations or Bleak House

Middlesex: Book 1 of 2009 January 20, 2009

OK — hopefully we’ve all gotten a chance to actually buy or check out the book, so let’s make it official and assign an amount to be read by this Saturday’s meeting. The author has obligingly divided the book into sections, so let’s read through “Book One”, which ends at page 76 if you have the trade paperback edition.

Let’s meet at House of Commons again, unless someone really wants to meet elsewhere. I’m happy to give them our business if everyone else is 🙂

We’ll meet at our normal 10:30 unless the Inspector is volunteering. Then we’ll meet at 10:00 (but don’t come early, because the tea shop doesn’t open until 10!). Inspector, please let us know in the comments.

Opening 2009: Reading List January 12, 2009

Here’s our list of books for the first part of the year:
Middlesex
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
What is the What?
Great Expectations or Bleak House (we can vote when we get there)

Any preferences on where to meet? I thought I had a copy of Middlesex on hand, but I don’t, so I’ll post shortly how far we should read to.

If you know anyone who wants to read one of these books with us, bring them along!

Ready for Chuzzlewit via DVD, Part II? December 3, 2008

Is everyone ready for the next installment of electronic Chuzzlewit (as opposed to the acoustic version, which the Inspector and Ant are still forcing themselves to read)?

Can you all meet on Saturday the 6th, as usual?

Movie Night Recap: Tale of Two Cities November 17, 2008

Those members of the BBC who missed out on the movie night last night didn’t really miss out on much, except a lot of:

Cool Ranch Doritos
Gummi Bears
“that wasn’t in the book!”
a lot of imdb trivia such as: Chris Sarandon (Darnay/Carton) was Susan Sarandon’s first husband, and Alice Krige plays Lucie Manette well enough to later become the Borg Queen
a whole lotta giggling at Gaspard’s fabulously 80s feathered hair (I think that was the character)

It was probably a good recap of the book, but really left so much out and took so many other liberties that we had a hard time taking it too seriously. It was also really slow, so there was plenty of time for visiting, which was nice.

Continuing in our “read it to me” vein, the next meeting of BBC will be the beginning of the Martin Chuzzlewit mini-series at Kylle’s house on the 22nd at 10:30. If you need directions, contact her directly, as we won’t post her address here on the blog.

Kylle — do you want to post a list of things we can bring and then we can sign up?