Book Club Discussion for October 2025
Added 2025-10-18 20:15:48 +0000 UTCDear Book Club Readers ---
You've been having such an incredible reading year, and should be proud of your reading accomplishments. It would be so wonderful to hear about the books you're enjoying at the moment.
Your comments in in the book club continue to reveal your deep love of great literature, and we would love to hear about how your reading is treating you right now.
So, tell us what your October has been looking like.
What are you reading at the moment?
Let us know anything that's on your mind, your literary loves, and anything you wish to share or sharpen your thoughts about.
Author details
Seasonal reads
Areas to explore
Your current Big Read
Complementary art forms
Questions about literature
Favourite lines and passages
Things you're finding difficult
Things that are giving you joy
Rewarding literary rabbit holes
Musings, notes, and marginalia
Things you want to recommend
Resonant character descriptions
General life updates (we're interested)
This is the place to put anything bookish you like, and get other readers weighing in on your thoughts!
Our wonderful Book Club community continues to be a literary oasis thanks to your thoughtful appreciations of the Great Books.
So thank you so much for being a part of the family, and I hope your month continues to be filled with exciting bookish adventures.
Happy reading!
Comments
Last book I read was Han Kang’s Human Acts. Harrowing event that needed to be read. Characters were well drawn and gives a picture of the events much better than reading the newspaper accounts.
Esmeralda
2025-12-06 15:09:05 +0000 UTCJust read Han Kang’s Human Acts. Harrowing event that ned
Esmeralda
2025-12-06 15:05:37 +0000 UTCHi friends, Help! Has anyone here read Mark Danielewski? I read House of Leaves some time ago and found it darkly fascinating but also so very depressing and disturbing. It actually started to affect my life and I decided it was in the interest of my personal health to discard it even though I was very near the end. I was speaking with a customer at my cafe about reading and he claimed House of Leaves to be his absolute favorite ever book. It made me revisit the author to see if 7 years time would change my experience with him. This time however I noticed that my library had 5 volumes of The Familiar (the author says it will be 27!!!). For some reason they attracted me and I checked all 5 out. I am halfway through the first volume and it is already maddening to me. It has a dizzying amount of narratives that are all in different fonts and language styles which as of now do not interact. Only two of those narratives make any sense to me and I feel like it is intentional. I think I am done trying with this author yet I feel guilty because I think there is a story I want to read buried somewhere in all that and I also fret that perhaps I am just not brilliant enough to grasp the whole sphere of the project. Plus I am very irritated that the pages are all super thick glossy paper so the book feels like it weighs 20 pounds for no good reason. Has anyone any experience with this author?!
Lily
2025-11-20 20:29:53 +0000 UTCI just read Jane Eyre as well and loved it, particularly in the light of having just read Rebecca. I realized that years ago I had started it and put it down. Having the lectures helps me to enjoy books that I may not have appreciated otherwise, as will be the case with Emma :)
Shana Z
2025-11-10 17:40:59 +0000 UTCAfter reading Rebecca I went to the back catalog and read Jane Eyre for the first time & throughly enjoyed it. After finishing the Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, I picked up Percival Everett’s James. I’m 9 chapters in and it’s so good.
Dayna
2025-11-09 23:03:20 +0000 UTCI’m still trying to finish Book 2 ( of 3 ) of Demons. I even had to put on hold other books on Russian History and Literature ( The Icon and the Axe, 5 volume biography of Dostoevsky ) because I don’t want accidentally read a plot spoiling literary discussion ). Demons comes so highly recommended by life long readers and even some Philisophy oriented YouTube channels I want my first reading to be spoiler free. I would definitely read the Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, if possible even reading Notes from the Underground and the idiot first. You start to get used to Dostoevsky but Demons comes at you with a vengeance with even more characters and many more story lines from the characters’ pasts that practically requires you go back and read Demons all over again. There’s more unreliable witnesses and unstated information and motivations you have to figure out for yourself but it’s all been rewarding. I have an abridged Russian-English Crime and Punishment I can switch to when there have been too many character and plot points to keep track of in Demons. Demons practically takes 500 pages just to get a good sense of what this complicated group of inter generational characters are about. In fact that’s part of Dostoevsky’s point he is making his “the sins of the fathers” contributes to the twisted destinies of the following generation.
Jack King
2025-11-08 20:53:30 +0000 UTCI found this bookclub to help unpack The Brother's Karamazov. I'm loving the lectures and should finish the novel next week. This is my first big book, ever, and I'm excited to start reading with you all soon.
Jack
2025-11-04 20:48:51 +0000 UTCYes, I love my Kobo Libra. I only use it though if I can't find a copy of a book with a decent font size of if it's late at night and I'm tired.
NicoleA
2025-11-02 02:55:52 +0000 UTCHi Sandra! I haven't lived Rebecca as much as I did the first time. Never too old!
NicoleA
2025-11-02 02:53:33 +0000 UTCWhy not indeed!
NicoleA
2025-11-02 02:51:13 +0000 UTCTrying to finally finish Little Dorrit, after abandoning it for about a year! 200 pages left, I'm determined to see it through - especially before the Seasonal Read. Picked up a biography on Queen Victoria which I've been enjoying so far. I've finally decided to immerse myself in all things Victorian era - definitely my favourite era for literature and architecture, so why not become an expert once and for all?
Candy Zoccoli
2025-11-01 11:05:51 +0000 UTCFinishing Canterbury Tales, waiting for Dickens announcement and curious about how to read Finnegan’s Wake.
Karen Doran
2025-10-31 14:06:50 +0000 UTCI enjoyed rereading Rebecca and reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers in October. I am starting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, followed by Hesiod’s Theogony if I can fit it in, then Emma and Dickens!
Mary French
2025-10-29 13:00:14 +0000 UTCI’ve read Anna Karenia, Blood Meridian 2x, Rebecca (of course) second time and No Country for Old Men. I was moved by the last one more than I expected, especially since I had seen the movie not long ago. I also read many Comments. [Do I belong here? I am new and feel out of place.] Didn’t anyone not go gaga over Rebecca? I even watched the old Hitchcock flick to try to muster more enthusiasm. Additionally I tried to watch two more contemporary Rebecca movies but couldn’t stand the casting so gave up quickly. I’ve almost finished my second read of Jekyll and Hyde. Also rewatched the 1940 movie with Spencer Tracy. I hope I’m prepared for the coming lecture and responses. (Maybe I’m too old for this group.)
Sandra D’Onofrio
2025-10-27 18:45:31 +0000 UTCI finished Rebecca VERY fast, and have read a lot this month (is it the cold? I think it’s the cold.) So far, I’ve read Rebecca, but also Something Wicked This Way Comes, eight hundred million manga volumes (that’s akin to my book pub food I swear LOL), Strange Pictures & Strange Houses, and I finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Now I’m planning on reading more manga (lol) as well as Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde before we start Emma! This will be my third reread of Emma and I am very excited. It’s my favorite Jane Austin work. Also, if any readers want to weigh in: I got a Kobo Libra Colour and I LOVE IT! It’s the perfect blend between analog and digital that I’m really enjoying. Any other Kobo fans out there?
Katie
2025-10-26 23:40:26 +0000 UTC
