The #spbkchat list: Book Groups

Not a very long list this week. For the first hour or so, we mostly talked about book groups themselves. Whether we belong to any groups. What we like, or don't like, about them. And those of us in a book group shared our experiences. But then, of course, we did move on to books, those that we'd read for a book group, and some that we think would make for good book group discussions.
So, here's the list:

Books

Eat, Pray, Love
The Handmaid's Tale
The Kite Runner
The Jane Austen Book Club
Mao's Last Dancer
Water for Elephants
The Help
Lord of the Rings
Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
The Shipping News
Suite Francaise
Kokoro
Tiger Mother
State of Wonder
Bel Canto
The Slap
Mister Pip
The Tao of Pooh
Never Let Me Go
When We Were Orphans
The Remains of the Day
An Artist of the Floating World
Still Missing
Never Knowing
The Sea

Authors

Annie Proulx
Natsume Soseki
Ann Patchett
Sheila Jeffreys
JR Ward
Chevy Stevens
Nick Hornby
Kazuo Ishiguro

Links

Why so few men join book groups (Booklist Online)
Goodreads
Tim's (@timjonesbooks) Book Group - Books we have read so far


Image source: Printable Book Club Templates

The #spbkchat biography/autobiography list

This week's chat was all about people's true stories - biographies, autobiographies and memoirs.


Your list:


Titles:
Holidays on Ice
Life of James K Baxter
Hachiko: A Dog's Tale
Persepolis
Heaven's Coast
Famous Builder
Ghostworld
Prick Up Your Ears
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Following Foo
The Last Lecture
a child called it
Always Looking Up
Eat, Pray, Love
Marley & Me
Bitter Fame
A Geisha's Journey
Wild Swans
Angela's Ashes
Anything Goes
I Am What I Am
Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother
Tears of the Desert
Halfway House
Borrowed Time
Becoming A Man
Last Watch of Night
Motion of Light on Water
Scar Tissue
Bright Shiny Morning
The Bride Stripped Bare
Wheel of Time (series)
The Praying Mantis
Patrick White
Rebecca West
Walk With Me
Vita and Harold: Portrait of a Marriage
Hitching Rides with Buddha
Siren
Kathleen and Frank
Christopher and His Kind
Lions and Shadows
A Million Little Pieces
Your Voice in My Head
Lunch In Paris
Almost French
Suite Francaise
Your Voice in my Head
Glass Castles
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Long Walk to Freedom
Rage to Live
The Hours
Affection
Under the Tuscan Sun
Mao's Last Dancer
Latitude
The Unforgiving Minute
Unbroken
Me

Authors:
David Sedaris
Laurie Notaro
Gervase Phinn
John Larkin
Frank McKay
Mark Doty
Paul Lisicky
Terry Zwigoff
Alison Bechdel
Anne Stevenson
B D Wong
Jung Chang
Frank McCourt
John Barrowman
Bryce Courtenay
Amy Chua
Paul Monette
Michael Jackson
Sheila Rowbotham
Walt Whitman
Murakami
Samuel Delaney
Lynley Hood
Anthony West
H G Wells
Jeremy Coney
David Marr
Victoria Glendining
Nikki Gemmell
Nigel Nicholson
Will Ferguson
Tara Moss
Christopher Isherwood
Virginia Woolf
Anh Do
Samuel Delaney
Dawn French
James Frey
Ishmael Beah
Sarah Turnbull
Emma Forrest
Jeanette Walls
J G Ballard
Malcolm X
John Waters
William Faulkner
Richard Nixon
Mary S. Lovell
Krissy Kneen
Dava Sobel
Harry Rickett
Arnold Zable
Sidney Poitier
Katherine Hepburn
Rob Lowe

Links:
http://www.inspringitisthedawn.com/2008/09/geishas-journey-my-life-as-kyoto.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_memoirs
http://marianne-elliott.com/writing/

The #spbkchat general chat list

This week's #spbkchat was a general topic, free-for-all chat, and they're always interesting. The discussion seemed to focus on Jane Austen and re-reading, but there was definitely a lot going on!

On to the list:

Titles:
Harry Potter (series)
Game of Thrones
True Blood (TV series)
Rome (TV series)
Didius Falco (series)
The Dead Travel Fast
Coming Home
Anna Karenina
Guilty Pleasures
Matthew Bartholomew (series)
Amelia Peabody (series)
Saturday
The Shattering
Persuasion
Miles Vorkosigan (series)
The Fix
Sharing Knife (series)
Pink Carnation (series)
Ulysses
Everything Begins After
The Tiger's Wife
Very Bad Men
Dark and Hollow Places
Divine Misdemeanours
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Black Painted Fingernails
The Dark Enquiry
A Song of Ice and Fire (series)
Angry Management
Zombies vs Unicorns
The Lake
Iron Fey (series)
The Reading Streak
Luxe (series)
Sense & Sensibility
Persuasion
Emma
Pride and Prejudice
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The Book of Tea
Girl in the Steel Corset
Rebecca
Northanger Abbey
Unsticky
Howards End
Malazan Empire (series)
Under the Banner of Heaven
Billie's Kiss
Daylight
Black Oxen
The Vintner's Luck
Emergency Sex and other desperate measures
Dreamhunter/Dreamquake (duology)
Wolf Hall
Lord of the Rings
The Dark is Rising
A Little Princess
100 Years of Solitude
Gavel
Caleb's Crossing
Ye Gods!
Faust Among Equals
Expected Someone Taller
Wish You Were Here
The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Hawaiian Surfing: Traditions from the Past
Part-Time Indian
The Restaurant of Love Regained

Authors:
Lindsay Davies
Steven Saylor
Laurell K Hamilton
Ian MacEwan
Jane Austen
Lois McMaster Bujold
Nick Earl
Julia Spencer-Fleming
James Joyce
Simon Van Booy
Thomas Hardy
Shannon Stacey
A Lee Martinez
Steven Herrick
Deanna Raybourn
Chris Crutcher
Haruki Murakami
Gail Carriger
Julie Kagawa
Alice Ozma
Yasunari Kawabata
Natsume Soseki
Kady Cross
Yukio Mishima
Endo
Anthony Trollope
Jasper Fforde
Terry Pratchett
Tom Holt
Sarra Manning
Brontes
Dickens
Ian Wynne
Geraldine Brooks
John R.K. Clark
Sherman Alexi
Ito Ogawa

Links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8623588/Chick-lit-doesnt-damage-its-readers-itjust-makes-them-raisetheir-standards.html
http://mel-xinyi.livejournal.com/49138.html
http://tonysreadinglist.blogspot.com/2011/07/tonys-month-of-rereading.html
http://catherine-haines.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/whichreadfirst.png

Myths and Folklore #spbkchat

Another lively discussion on Thursday discussing Mythology and Folklore. I have tried to divide the list up into different sections, but if I have anything in the wrong section I apologise!


Maori folklore

The Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

Australian


Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn (Australian indigenous folklore)
Mulga Bill's Bicycle
Man From Snowy River (australian mythology)

Greek mythology

Ransom by David Malouf (Greek)
The Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner (Greek)
Percy Jackson series (Greek)
Troy by Adele Geras
The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter (Greek YA)
 Tina Folsom's A Touch of Greek 
Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia
Goddesses' series by Clea Hantman
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Philips.
Sherrilyn Kenyon (paranormal romance with Greek mythology basis)

Japanese

Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn (Japanese)
Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Akinari Ueda (Japanese)


Arthurian

Helen Hollick's Arthur trilogy (Arthurian mythology)
Sir Gawain,
Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart,
TH White's Sword in the Stone
The Nargun and the Stars by Patricia Wrightson

Fairytale retelling

In Sleeping Beauty's Bed by Mitzi Szereto (fairytale retelling)
Ruth Manning-Sanders (retold folklore & fairytales. http://bit.ly/qxzqYU) 
Bettie Sharpe (romance, Fairytales retelling)
Beauty by Robin McKinley;
 Angela Carter (fairytale retelling)
Catherynne Valente (Orphan Tales)

Vampires

Bram Stoker's Dracula
Anne Rice (vampires)

Native American

 Patricia Briggs(Native American mythology)

House of Night (Native American mythology)

 Ilona Andrew's Kate Daniels  (Native American mythology)

Others

The Owl Service by Alan Garner
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Wagner's The Ring
Ye Gods! by Tom Holt
Djinn Rummy also by Tom Holt
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Dream Hunters

The Mabinogion


Sheri Tepper.
Traci Harding's Mystique Trilogy
Le Guin, enjoyed her Orsinian Tales
THE DARK WIFE by @sarahdiemer
Eleanor Farjeon's The Little Bookroom


Terry Pratchett
Tanith Lee did dark Tales by Sisters Grimmer
Jules Watson's retelling of The Swan Maiden(Celtic)

The Secret History of Moscow" by @esedia (Russian)

Rosa And The Veil of Gold by Kim Wilkins (book 3), Autumn Castle (explores fae mythos) & bk 2 is Giants of the Frost
Nicholas Stuart Gray -  The Seventh Swan



Useful links:
Canongate Myth series - http://www.themyths.co.uk/

YA books drawing on mythology - http://www.readinasinglesitting.com/2010/06/23/list-young-adult-books-drawing-on-greek-mythology/

TV Tropes - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Bowdlerise/MythAndLegend

Kay's Librarything list - http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JKayJones

Next week: General chat!