MESSAGE BOARD

The message board is for use by members to post general messages to the group, such as links to new group threads, announcements, questions, offers, invitations to local discussion...etc.

Because these links are such a nice resource, I'll repost them from last year:

Julie_in_the_Library posted a link that was very helpful in explaining how to achieve certain effects in your posts, like inserting images, etc.

The New How To Do Fancy Things In Your Posts thread

Which also pointed to:

The HTML help wiki

I was just browsing them and learned several neat tricks.

Thank you.

As everyone compiles their best of lists and stats for 2023, I did the same for Club Read as a group, and compared it to 2022, my first year as admin. The stats were remarkably similar.

Club Read 2023 (2022)
Members: 170 (160)
Watchers: 25 (30)
Topics: 170 (169)
Messages: 21,001 (23,121)

We had members from at least 15 countries and 20 US states (not everyone chooses to share where they are from or to officially become a member).

I like that members tend to come back year after year with some turnover for fresh blood. I also like that the group is not growing significantly, as I think the intimacy of Club Read is one of its attractions. Large enough to have diverse readers and lively exchanges, but not as overwhelming as I find 75 Books to be.

>4 labfs39: that’s pretty amazing, actually, how similar those two years were.

>5 dchaikin: We are nothing if not consistent.

Does anyone know how to un-hide a thread? I've hidden What are you reading now? by accident and would like to have it back!

While you are in the thread: there is a button that says "Unignore this topic" (top right on desktop, bottom of the page on mobile).

If you do not have the link, go to your ignored Topics: (Talk -> More -> Ignored Topics - direct link: https://www.librarything.com/talk?mode=more_ignoredtopics ) and click on the plus sign in the last column OR open the thread and follow the first process.

>8 AnnieMod: it’s back! Thanks, Annie. I used the link (and found a whole list of ignored topics, who knew?) as I didn’t have (or couldn’t find) the “Unignore this topic” option.

Looking for inspiration for you 2024 reading? Here is this year's Hope to Read Soon: A Tribute to rebeccanyc: https://www.librarything.com/topic/356951

I've had one person inquire, so just to let people know: I got a really bad cold midway through last week that, due to complications from my chronic illnessess, involves fluid in my lungs and other misery, so I haven't been doing anything but sitting on my sofa watching TV for four or five days, other than a trip to urgent care.

I'm feeling a lot better now, though not totally out of the woods, and I definitely plan to continue posting and be back in everyone's threads soon.

Oh Im sorry youve been ill! hope your are better soon, come back when you are ready.

>11 Julie_in_the_Library: Yikes, take care, Julie. Feel better soon

>11 Julie_in_the_Library: Take care of yourself and rest as much as you can -- I'm sure you are already doing all the right things.

I hope you get better soon, Julie, so sorry you're going through all that.

>11 Julie_in_the_Library: Oh no, I hope you feel better soon!

Not sure where to post this, but I think it could be interesting to some here. The University of Chicago Press free ebook for this month is The Tiger in the Attic. Here is the book's description from the e-mail I got:

In 1939, on the eve of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, seven-year-old Edith Milton (then Edith Cohn) and her sister Ruth left Germany by way of the Kindertransport, the program which gave some 10,000 Jewish children refuge in England. The two were given shelter by a jovial, upper-class British foster family with whom they lived for the next seven years. Edith chronicles these transformative experiences of exile and good fortune in The Tiger in the Attic, a touching memoir of growing up as an outsider in a strange land.

In this illuminating chronicle, Edith describes how she struggled to fit in and to conquer self-doubts about her German identity. Her realistic portrayal of the seemingly mundane yet historically momentous details of daily life during World War II slowly reveals istelf as a hopeful story about the kindness and generosity of strangers. She paints an account rich with colorful characters and intense relationships, uncanny close calls and unnerving bouts of luck that led to survival. Edith’s journey between cultures continues with her final passage to America—yet another chapter in her life that required adjustment to a new world—allowing her, as she narrates it here, to visit her past as an exile all over again.

The Tiger in the Attic is a literary gem from a skilled fiction writer, the story of a thoughtful and observant child growing up against the backdrop of the most dangerous and decisive moment in modern European history. Offering a unique perspective on Holocaust studies, this book is both an exceptional and universal story of a young German-Jewish girl caught between worlds.

>17 FlorenceArt: cool! I got the book - easy peasy. Are you reading it?

>17 FlorenceArt: Thanks!

>18 dianeham: Probably not, memoirs are not really my thing. I should probably get it though, just in case. I have a collection of those free ebooks, some of which I read and enjoyed, but many are forgotten on my hard drive. This one really sounds like it could interest several CR members. I hope you enjoy it!

>17 FlorenceArt: Thanks so much for this. Would you mind if I reposted this in the Holocaust Literature group?

>21 labfs39: Of course not!

>22 FlorenceArt: Thanks! I downloaded a copy too.

>11 Julie_in_the_Library: Late to the well wishes, but I hope you're feeling at least a bit better by now, Julie.

I hope this is within the scope of this thread: this is a query for a book including a specific scene.
My mum is setting up a small show about women's lives and remembers a story she read about a pregnant woman working in the fields, giving birth, wrapping the child and tying it in her back, and resuming work. She would like to find a book with a similar scene. She thinks the one she read happened in Africa but she's not looking especially for a book set in Africa.
The book would have to be written in French or translated to French as she doesn't read English.
If anybody has any suggestions it would be great! I'll crosspost this to the Global Challenge group.

>25 chlorine: You may also want to post in https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/724/Name-that-Book for identifying the book itself - there are some people who help there that can find a book seemingly from a clue like "it had a flower on the cover" and your description is a lot more than that.

And then you may want to post request for recommendations here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23175/Book-Recommendations-Requests

>25 chlorine: well it sound a lot like the good earth im sure that scene is in there. I suspect it would be translated in French

>27 cindydavid4: That very well might be it, this is very probably a book my mom has read!

>26 AnnieMod: Thanks for the pointers! I'll check with her if this is the book pointed out by >27 cindydavid4: and if not I'll post where you suggest!

>25 chlorine: I agree with cindydavid4, I'm almost certain the scene is from The Good Earth.

>27 cindydavid4: >29 janoorani24: My mother confirms that it is indeed The good earth, thank you very much!

>30 chlorine: and what do we win, Johnny? (From old tv show the price is right) happened to see an updated version and wow the cosstumes look straight out of Hunger Games),

ps. glad I could help :)

>31 cindydavid4: The price is right brings me way back! We had a French version that we watched back in the time.

Emile Zola Group Read of Les Rougon-Macquart

Tess/Tess_W is leading this new group read that may be of interest to some of you, and she asked me to cross-post about it. She writes:

I’m so excited to be reading Zola’s “masterpiece” with friends. Sometimes it is difficult to interpret Zola, and other readers’ insights really add understanding. I will pattern this group read after a couple of others in which I have participated.

Here is the time schedule (Zola’s reading suggestion):

September 2024 The Fortune of the Rougons
November 2024 His Excellency Eugene Rougon
January 2025 The Kill
March 2025 Money
May 2025 The Dream
July 2025 The Conquest of Plassans
September 2025 The Ladies' Paradise / The Ladies Delight
November 2025 Pot Luck

More to follow as we progress!

There are some joining who are ahead of this schedule. I encourage you to join in the conversation when you can!

Some off-topic nonsense. Every year, the Bulwer-Lytton Prize is awarded to novels with the worst opening lines (it's meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, not nasty). You may find the name familiar: Bulwer-Lytton wrote a novel that began "It was a dark and stormy night....".

Here's 2024's winning entry list. https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2024

I think this one, from the romance category, is my favourite:

If broken hearts were made of simple syrup, and shattered dreams were made from white rum, and agony and despair came from ¾ ounce of lime juice, freshly squeezed, and three mint leaves respectively, then Mary Lou just served up a mojito cocktail straight from the ninth circle of hell when she told Ricky the baby wasn’t his.

Edit: Just to clarify, these aren't actual lines from novels. "Founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels."

>34 rv1988: I love it! And am also relieved to know that this is not a real, published opening line...

>34 rv1988: Hilarious!

>34 rv1988: Always such a fun contest. Thanks for posting that great sentence - I may never look at those ingredients in the same way again!

>34 rv1988: Just what I needed this morning. I particularly liked the science fiction ones. :-)

>38 labfs39: "The representatives of the Galactic Explorer Chronozinium committed quite the faux pas among the ghosts when they landed their zincodozerite powered inter-dimensional cruiser in the pages of the haunted house novel after mistranslating the term séance fiction." That's too good for this prize, I would unironically read that book.

There used to be a prize in Australia given out by the Melbourne Age newspaper. The goal was to write a short story in the style of any well-know author. I remember my mum entering the competition with a Patrick White parody. She didn’t win but it was a fun competition.

>40 kjuliff: …which of course reminds us of the famous (but apparently true) anecdote about Graham Greene winning second prize in a New Statesman competition to write a Graham Greene parody, in 1949: https://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/12/11/not-myself/

The Free e-book from Chicago University Press for September is From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America by Kimberly A. Hamlin

Download link here.

From Eve to Evolution provides the first full-length study of American women’s responses to evolutionary theory and illuminates the role science played in the nineteenth-century women’s rights movement. Kimberly A. Hamlin reveals how a number of nineteenth-century women, raised on the idea that Eve’s sin forever fixed women’s subordinate status, embraced Darwinian evolution—especially sexual selection theory as explained in The Descent of Man—as an alternative to the creation story in Genesis.

Anybody know what’s wrong with librarything? Every book looks like this

A book that I just read and listed on my thread The Heart of Summer (Finfarran Peninsula #6) by Felicity Hayes-McCoy seems to have been conflated with book 7 The Year of Lost and Found. There is only the one touchstone for both books. Is there someone to notify to correct this? I'm not comfortable messing with the cataloging here.....

>44 WelshBookworm: Fixed. And I added both to the series while I was at that.

We have a Combiners group to post into when something like that happens (although everyone is welcome to fix on their own as well). But if you are more comfortable posting here or pinging me directly, that also works.

>45 AnnieMod: Thank you. But the record for The Year of Lost and Found still shows the book cover for The Heart of Summer. Book #8 The Bookseller's Gift is being released on Oct. 17...

>46 WelshBookworm: Covers can take a few days to sort themselves out and if someone added a book with the isbn of the other, they may still stay forever. The books are separated - now it is up to the site to sort out its caches.

>46 WelshBookworm: PS: Also - make sure you are not clicking on an old link - these will always show parts of both books because of how URLs work around here. I just gave the covers another nudge and they seem pretty clean to me but if you still see them mixed, give it sometime or post the link here to see what exactly you are looking at (see the note about old links - workID/bookID mismatch essentially.

Looking at the covers - the wrong one comes from Amazon - most likely people having added the wrong book and edited the title but not the isbn. Which will sort itself out when more copies with the correct cover are added. Meanwhile I flagged the cover - which is all we can do.

>48 AnnieMod: Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it!

Hello Club Readers,

In this season of reflection, I wanted to take a moment to thank the members of Club Read for creating a warm and inclusive environment that treats all members with respect. Some members have come to me with reports of aggressive speech in other places on LibraryThing. Some are even feeling like LT is no longer a safe place for them. One of the things that makes Club Read special to me is that it is a safe place for people to share and that members become friends, not just random creators of snarky soundbites. I am thankful to the members of Club Read for fostering an environment of respect and tolerance. Like a family, we may not always agree or get along, but for the most part we do so amiably.

I also appreciate that in Club Read, members' threads are like reading journals and posts are like group emails, not Twitter soundbites. I think this is another thing that sets CR apart and makes it work for me. I love the deliberate, thoughtful pace of Club Read in a world that is increasingly fast-paced and impersonal.

So, thanks, and happy reading,
Lisa

Agreed, Lisa! I find myself visiting other LT groups less and less, so I am sad to hear that there are groups that are less welcoming.

I think we hit a great balance in Club Read of sharing some of info about our personal lives, but keeping most of our talk book focused.

Thanks for keeping this group going, Lisa!

thank you lisa for all you do. I discovered a corner of the LT universe that I wasnt expecting It was not pleasant. this place here is just perfect for book lovers where conversations are civil and never dull Its people like you who make it so

I mostly visit CR on LT and I really enjoy being a member. We all get among, while our tastes in books vary.

I think it’s important that we are able to discuss more than books, and because of this we get to know each other. I’ve even had one member give me their cell number in case I need help at night due to health concerns - a this isn’t even a member who reads the same books as I do, though our tastes cross on one particular region.

Much of this must be our administrator’s doing. Yes Lisa! I know what’s involved in managing a large online group. In the early days of the internet I used to run an interactive website for expat Aussies. Once FB came along interest gradually declined, but in its heyday we were a close group and to this day old members remain friends, some visiting each other still though they live thousands of miles apart.

I’d like to thank all the CR members who have supported me in rough times. It has meant a lot, more than those members possibly realize.

Another important aspect of CR is the freedom of expresión. Posts are read seriously and this avoids misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict. And even if it there is the possibility of conflict CR members usually resolve it. Or ignore it. It never has members jumping on the bandwagon.

One final thought. I used to wonder why people got upset when attacked personally (on other sites/groups) by more than one person. I used to think, what’s the big deal. I didn’t really understand how vulnerable you can feel when complete strangers attack you personally and publicly. I think as one gets older one gets more sensitive about their public perception.

Thank you CR for being a warm and safe place in these troubled times.

Han Kang wins the Nobel prize for literature.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/press-release/

>54 rv1988: Yay!! I've read three of her books that have been translated into English, The Vegetarian, Human Acts, and The White Book, and I enjoyed each of them. The US Kindle edition of her most recent novel to be translated into English, Greek Lessons, is currently on sale for $4.99, so I snapped it right away.

>55 kidzdoc: I read that one last year (the only one of hers I read) - it was a nice love story (of a type) with somewhat of a light deep story of belonging, immigration and languages and finding one's voice.

>54 rv1988: Ive not heard about her before; guess I need to get reading

>54 rv1988: I'm so pleased! Human Acts is one of the best books I've read.

Good to know CR members enjoy her work. I haven't read any of her books yet, but that's going to change: I requested Impossibles adieux (We Do Not Part) from the library earlier today.