I have always hated the Book-of-the-Month club. Super-expensive, only selection is what's on the New York Times' bestseller list. That's fine if all you're interested in is the Da Vinci Code. BTW, I actually read the Da Vinci Code--I usually hate those Tom Clancy-esque pseudo-intellectual thrillers, and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum covers the same subject matter and was much better--but my husband was reading it on the plane and I started looking over his shoulder and all of a sudden I was reading it too and then all of a sudden I had finished the book. It was like eating a bunch of candy bars, it felt good going down but I was sick afterwards; the characters and dialogue are atrocious, the trivia was fun to read. What was good about reading the book is that it actually led me to another book by the only author of historical fiction (another genre I usually hate) I ever read: Margaret George, who wrote the following excellent books: Mary, Queen of Scotland & the Isles, Memoirs of Cleopatra, and the book the Da Vinci Code led me to, Mary, Called Magdalene.
Anyway, there are a lot more book clubs out there that are not like the traditional BOMC. (Although I think most of them are owned by BOMC. And by book club I'm talking about a place to get books, not Oprah and her friends sitting around gossiping about some Nicholas Sparks piece of shit. I hate that kind of book club mostly because I hate talking to other people about books. Mostly because I don't give a crap about other people's opinions on books, with the exception of certain journals--which I'll get to in the next post--and literary criticism that is art in its own right. And partly because I hate talking to people in general.) What's great about book clubs like Quality Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Children's-Book-of-the-Month Club, and Readers Subscription are that you can do all of the administrative work online now, you no longer have to send in the cards. Also they are starting to each come out with interesting new editions of classics and have a much better selection in general. The other book thing that I subscribe to is Library of America, which just has great editions of American classics. I get one in the mail every month and it is nice to be surprised.
Anyway, there are a lot more book clubs out there that are not like the traditional BOMC. (Although I think most of them are owned by BOMC. And by book club I'm talking about a place to get books, not Oprah and her friends sitting around gossiping about some Nicholas Sparks piece of shit. I hate that kind of book club mostly because I hate talking to other people about books. Mostly because I don't give a crap about other people's opinions on books, with the exception of certain journals--which I'll get to in the next post--and literary criticism that is art in its own right. And partly because I hate talking to people in general.) What's great about book clubs like Quality Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Children's-Book-of-the-Month Club, and Readers Subscription are that you can do all of the administrative work online now, you no longer have to send in the cards. Also they are starting to each come out with interesting new editions of classics and have a much better selection in general. The other book thing that I subscribe to is Library of America, which just has great editions of American classics. I get one in the mail every month and it is nice to be surprised.
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