Category: Lockup Library Book Club

I’ve been locked in your heart-shaped box for weeks

Posted on by Shawshank

Ok, time for the next book in the Lockup Library Book Club. As I mentioned in a post last week, I had a dream where Stephen Ling was just a small time writer, that no one had heard of. So this prompted me to push a book back, and read one of his.

The book I’ve chosen for the next couple of weeks is Full Dark, No Stars. It’s a collection of four short stories – but with a bonus story at the very end, so I guess technically there’s five stories.

So, a time frame. I’m thinking a story a week, again meeting on Saturday’s. But they are short stories, so we’ll have to play it by ear. This could be a book we finish in two weeks.

It’s an adventure for sure!

If you have it, awesome. If you want to go out and get it, go for it! We start the first story 1922, tonight.

Happy reading!

You bring your knees in tight

Posted on by Shawshank

It’s the final Saturday that we’ll be talking about The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

I finished it last night. I actually stayed up an extra 20 minutes to finish the last 50 or so pages. And lemme tell you, they were page turners!

There’s some writers out there that try and rush the final third of the book, trying to tie up all the loose ends as quickly as possible.

In this book the pace didn’t seem to speed up at all, but I found myself reading faster and faster to find out how it ends.

It doesn’t end with a bang, but kind of ends on a cliff hanger! Just about 1000 pages and it ends on a cliff hanger!

I loved it.

Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun

Posted on by Shawshank

Look who’s back, back again. Book Clubs back. It’s the third week of the Lockup Library Book Club. We’re almost to the end of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I am.

The Historian chapters 41-60

Ok guys, it’s starting to get good. There’s action, in little bits, and you’re left wanting more. Is there going to be a pay off? I sure hope so. But there’s two stories going on at once, and that’s basically my modus operandi by now.

All of a sudden, boom! there’s a secret society, and that’s pretty much my bread and butter, especially after Foucault’s Pendulum. (Which by the way, y’all HAVE to read.)

This secret society is tasked with making sure that Dracula stays dead, and doesn’t hurt anyone else. Let’s just say the society does what it’s tasked with, and dispatches someone that they think will shortly be turning into a vampire.

Now, the main characters in the 1930’s are on their way to Bulgaria, and the secondary characters in the 1970’s are deep in France, looking for them? Confused? Good. Who has two thumbs and won’t spoil anything?

This guy!

Alright ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the final push now. All we have to read are chapters 61-79, and we’ll be finished this awesome vampire book. And just in time for Halloween.

Next week when we come together for the final Book Club Meeting for The Historian, I’ll unveil the next book up for the Lockup Library Book Club treatment!

Happy reading everyone.

You said you’d stand by me in the middle of chapter three

Posted on by Shawshank

Here’s what everybody has been waiting for! Help me choose my next Book Club book!* I’m going to post my bookcase, and then write out the titles of all the books per shelf (it’s easier this way) – I’m going to try and label the books that I’ve read with (r) I’ll try and capitalize all the titles.

Ok, are you ready?!

Top shelf:

Twilight (r), Twilight (r), New Moon (r), Eclipse (r), Breaking Dawn (r), Midnight Sun (r)

Second shelf:

Ship of Theseus (r), House of Leaves (r), The Goldfinch (r), Night School, Pet Sematary, Lord John and the Private Matter, The Hunger Games (r), Catching Fire (r), Mockingjay (r), Raw Shark Texts (r), Night Film (r), The Escape Artist (r), Cats Cradle (r), The Slaighterhouse Five (r), Foucaults Pendulum (r), Red Sparrow, Verses for the Dead, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows

Third shelf:

ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping, The Girl on the Train, Shōgun part 1, The Essex Serpent, Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers, Full Dark no Stars, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, NOS4A2 (r), Dreamcatcher, Lost Girls, The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Fellowship of the Ring (r), The Two Towers (r), Return of the King (r)

Fourth shelf:

Cemetery Dance, Brave New World, Sharp Objects (r), Die Trying, Sphere

* it would be wicked awesome if y’all had some of the same books, and we could actually chat about the books in the Book Club. But it’s all good, I write this stuff for me, and then for you guys.

I’m on a roll and ready to rock

Posted on by Shawshank

Welcome back, it’s the second week of the Lockup Library Book Club. We’re still reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I hope everything is going well in your reads

The Historian chapters 21-40

The action is starting to pick up a little. Our main character is with her dad, when she wakes up one morning, looks for her father, but finds a letter addressed to her instead.

“I’ve gone to find your mother…”

I was under the assumption that her mother had passed, but I guess I was wrong. So she goes off to find him. and starts her own adventure to find out her past, and the past of her father.

But the regular story from her father continues as well. By now he’s teamed up with a young woman, who says her father is Professor Rossi, the fathers advisor in university.

The mysteries continue in Budapest, and the mysteries get thicker and deeper.

What did you think of these chapters? We’re over half way through the book now. What do you hope will happen?

See you again next week!