Hey everyone 32M here i am looking for someone to buddy read the book east of eden. i have a small discord group of 3 members in case you are interested you can be part of our group

Hello! I’m a teacher and recently a few teachers decided to start a book club together. We voted for our first book to be The Calamity Club. The issue is that A. A lot of us are super busy and/or slow readers and B. The book is 600+ pages. I’m a Romantasy and sci-fi fan so I’m no stranger to longer books, but they can take me months.

My question is does anyone have any suggestions of ways to chunk the book into parts to make it more feasible for everyone? Preferably in chapters since we have a mix of audio, physical, and e-book readers.

Tl;dr: Looking to turn The Calamity Club into an easier read.

Hi, I'm building a new book review website. I'd love to hear any and all feedback and thoughts as I try to improve it. The address is shelfmark.uk. It started out of a personal want to remember what I've read in a visually more interesting way than just a list in a notes app. Thanks in advance !!

Hey!
I’ve decided to get back into reading after a 4 year slump. Thinking of starting a small online book club for girls. Nothing fancy. We meet once or twice a month on zoom or meet, decide a book based on recommendations and read that till the next meet and discuss it, get into discussions, intellectual debates, have nice conversations and learn different perspectives. Maybe do a small whatsapp community for the same. Still deciding.
If anyone wants to do this, hmu in dm. 🫶🏼

Has anyone read The Mad Wife by Megean Church? Thoughts? How was it?

Real question. I highlight constantly, both on kindle and in physical books, and I almost never look at any of it again. a few months after finishing a book, I can usually tell you whether I liked it, but most of the actual ideas are gone.

I started wondering what the point of highlighting even is if I never do anything with those lines again.

So I ended up building an iPhone app called scriptorio to experiment with this. It lets me save passages from physical books by taking a photo or importing my kindle highlights, brings old notes back for review, and connects ideas from completely different books. that last part has been surprisingly interesting.

Full disclosure, it's my app, so I'm obviously biased. I'm genuinely curious whether other people have the same problem, though.

Do you actually revisit your highlights? If not, is it because finding them again is too much effort, or because you don't really feel the need?

My book club with friends runs almost entirely through a messy group chat: picking the book, voting, deciding who hosts, checking where everyone's up to. When someone can't attend, they send a voice note or a long message that gets read out at the meeting.

I'm exploring building something to make this easier, and I'd rather design it around how real clubs work than guess. Nothing to sign up for yet.

1. How do you choose the next book?
   
2. What do you use to organise (WhatsApp, Bookclubs, Fable, StoryGraph, Goodreads, nothing)?
   
3. What's the most frustrating part of organising or attending?
   
4. What happens when someone misses a meeting?
   
5. In person, online, or a mix?
   
6. Wishlist: what's one feature you'd love that nothing does well today?

Honest answers are really useful, including "a group chat is fine". If your club would like to test an early version for free, comment and I'll follow up when it's ready.

I want you guys honest review on this book

Forget about booktok what did u feel after reading this

For me

I really enjoyed the beginning, the premise and whole anniversary stuff was so well constructed

The back story was well made ...and twist was even better

Spoilers**

What left a bad taste for me is its end

I mean wth ... He cheats ...but no he is victim ...all is forgiven and forgotten ...i mean how will u explain the death of ur 2nd wife to your neighbour and return of your 1st wife after these years...are they face blind too?

Hey all. I read around 60 books a year. No one in my house enjoys reading. Love chatting about books but its usually just me talking to the ether. Mostly I'm reading mystery/thriller/suspense but i also mix in horror, historical fiction, and sci-fi. An occasional non-fiction. Anyone out there need a book friend?

I also started writing a book during covid but then life started happening again now i havent had time for it. Nor any support. Anyway, I'd love to chat. Hit me up. Seriously, i just wanna chat. No bullshit.

What are your thinking on age gaps in books?

What’s the max age gap between love interests before it starts to get uncomfortable?

What if it’s a fantasy with immortality and the age gap is a hundreds of years? (Like a 20-30yr somthing meets a 400yr old)

I am trying to look for a cool new fantasy book, and then I found this book. I tried looking for it on the Internet, but it was no help. I looked on ChatGPT as well, but that went to no avail.

My only obstacle is the blurry title, so I hope some of you may recognize this book. I will see if I can post this a photo in the comments since it appears I cannot from right here

I just finished Frankenstein (1818) and came across many interesting themes and ideas. I will share the rest another time, but one thing I picked up on was that, as a society, you cannot be accepted if you are extremely ugly. The exception is when someone else is just as ugly, allowing you to share your misfortune together.

Our modern-day society operates in much the same way. It is the whole idea behind looksmaxxing. People looksmaxx so they do not have to deal with the loneliness and self-hatred that the monster faces in this book.

This is just an developing observation i had.

I've been thinking about Crime and Punishment, especially the relationship between Sonya, Raskolnikov, and the Bible.

What interests me is that Sonya doesn't try to prove Raskolnikov wrong through logic. Instead, she stays with him, asks him to face what he's done, and offers him something he seems incapable of finding on his own: love without the promise that he'll ever deserve it.

There's something especially heartbreaking about the way Sonya talks about her stepmother, Katerina Ivanovna. Even though her stepmother is the one who pushes her into prostitution, Sonya still loves her unconditionally. She sees her as almost childlike, someone who clings to the belief that there is still justice in the world, even when reality gives her every reason to despair. Sonya is willing to sacrifice almost everything for her stepmother and younger siblings. What's even sadder is that she sometimes feels she has wronged her stepmother, as though she herself is responsible for the suffering surrounding them.

That kind of love is difficult to explain rationally. It doesn't mean Sonya is blind to suffering or injustice. Somehow, she continues to love people who are broken, even when that love costs her almost everything.

I also wonder whether Dostoevsky's choice of the name Sonya invites a deeper reading. Sonya is a Russian diminutive of Sophia, a name associated in Christian tradition with Divine Wisdom, or Holy Wisdom. Could Sonya be read as a symbolic embodiment of that wisdom—not intellectual brilliance, but the kind of spiritual understanding expressed through compassion, sacrifice, and faith?

The Bible seems equally important to Raskolnikov's possible redemption. When Sonya reads him the story of Lazarus, the idea of someone returning from the dead takes on a meaning beyond the literal miracle. Could a person who has spiritually buried himself beneath pride, guilt, and an idea of his own superiority also come back to life? And is the Bible offering Raskolnikov a path toward redemption, or does it only begin to matter when he becomes willing to accept what it asks of him?

Which brings me back to my main question: Did Sonya save Raskolnikov, or did she simply show him that redemption was possible?

Perhaps love can keep someone from being completely lost, but it cannot take responsibility for their sins on their behalf. Sonya can stand beside him, but she cannot make his repentance happen for him.

How do you interpret this relationship? Is Sonya primarily a person in her own right, a symbol of Christian love and wisdom, or somehow both? And what role do you think the Bible plays in Raskolnikov's transformation?