I'm in one now and have been in a few. The "formalness" varies. Most that I've been to have a "host" that person usually has a few questions that the group answers. Some people use notes, so it wouldn't be weird to bring them, some people bring the book with sticky tabs or highlights, others just show up, sometimes people haven't read or finished the book, it's all OK.

I encourage you to show up and see if the group has a vibe you enjoy. When it comes to meet up I often "try out" groups and just show up to see if I feel like a fit for the group.

Really depends on what you mean by “toughest”.

For me, it would be The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I was doing a buddy read with a coworker and it was incredibly boring. I could only read it in 70 page chunks before I’d doze off.

Honestly I have a huge set of stacked TBR second hand books I picked up over the last three years. So I limit myself to visiting bookstores solely to find new books by authors I am willing to buy new, or to look at books I may be interested in taking out from the library. Books are my weakness, I can’t live without them but keeping the TBR in very plain sight has helped me avoid too much temptation. I’ve never had these many books waiting to be read but also knowing that I have that many waiting for me to enjoy has been one of the bright spots of the past few years, I have to say.

Oh, I read and finished this one, but purely out of spite by the end. Some books you just can't let win.

I just got back from book club! Ours had a moderator that asks us at the start how we felt about the book and usually we can just chat about it from there but she also has backup discussion questions in case conversation stalls. We usually talk about the book for the whole 90 minutes. No one in our group brings notes but that would be cool! It’s pretty informal.

>I don’t think I’m a slouch in reading books that can drag, lesser Joseph Heller novels, Murakamis 1Q84 are books that I have deeply enjoyed, but every time I pick up 2666 my brain begs me to put it back down. Clocking in at 1000 pages the book is purportedly about a mysterious serial killer in Mexico and a meditation on the nature of evil but if in my 300 pages of reading I’ve come across that I’d be hard pressed to tell you how.

Well the dryness may actually be the translation. I found him detached but not dry, not as if I were reading a history book, more almost hmmm, like a legend or something, glimpsed from old newspaper lines, a clouded view into something that leaves out as much as it takes in.

I think this perspective is most obvious when you get to the part with the Hungarian Fascist guy. To me, this was the lynchpin of the book. That despite the debonair and suave exterior that someone like your professors have, there is a rage and brutality that lurks within them, that makes them not unlike the very suave Hungarian fascist, who also has his own concealed rage. They have that thirst in them, even when they hide it. It is this kind of person who is somehow coddled and nurtured by the world, until he or she can come forth and make that rage bloom in some kind of act.

This thread is already getting a bit spoilery for OP, but the repetition is the point. It makes you numb and desensitized to something that you should not look away from. If you didn’t know, this really happened.

Buying. It allows me the freedom to fix my home up anyway I choose.

I happen to be lucky enough to have a pretty sweet library near my place.. and they sell decent coffee too. Usually I just take a book along and read it there.. I can also browse around when I get bored or take a break. I haven’t been doing it much recently, but if OP can find a library/cafe nearby where they can read and also browse books (some cafes have that apparently) then hopefully they will resolve your problem :)

I read all day long. In between chores, at appts, on lunch hour, waiting for my husband ot get home, at least 1.5 hrs before falling asleep. I’m pretty much reading 10-15 minutes at a time all day. All ebooks on phone and kindle. I belong ot a book share service and kindle unlimited so I can download as many as I want.

It really depends on the book club. I am in one with a group of friends. It is always a mix of what did we think of the book and what is going on in our lives. This last week our meeting was almost entirely about the book, just because we read a memoir of someone who faced a lot of challenges and there were a lot of heavy ideas to address. We were all really engaged in the topics addressed in the book. Other times, nobody really has a lot to say about the book, so it's mostly a social occasion. As an individual I find you can say as much or as little as you choose, without dominating the discussion. Like no one will mind that you have notes, but also no one will expect that you have to have them.

I recently went to a silent bookclub that I found through Meetup. In silent bookclub everyone is reading their own book and there is some social time after. Nearly all of the conversations I had in the social time were about books, but not about any specific book.

During the height of the pandemic, I went to two zoom bookclub events (also found through Meetup) and mostly the topic stayed on the book or on books with similar themes. I think when you don't know the people in the club personally, you might be more inclined to stay on the book topic (as opposed to general socializing). I also realized zoom bookclub is not for me. I prefer in person.

I allow myself 1 book when I go to the store for a random trip. Going to the bookstore is therapeutic to me, but it's not satisfying without walking out with at least 1 book. I also have this weird thing where I feel guilty walking out of stores empty-handed.

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I have not read his other books, but from what I’m hearing here Savage Detectives may be just the place go start!

Don't quit your day job yet, your trolling lacks bite.

i prefer checking out from the library unless i am positive i will love it. when i purchase books i put too much pressure on myself to finish it even if i don't like it. with library books it's easy to DNF and i won't feel bad about wasting my money!

To be honest it could be the translation. I’ve read a lot about how that can effect readings (Kundera writes a lot about this) and often in 2023 us english speakers are pretty blessed with quality translations. But Bolaño does sort of come off as unbearably dry and I wonder if that’s not got something to do with his style being washed out in translation.

So my book club is made up of friends, we talk about the book for about ten mins and then spend the next hour basically catching up on our lives.

Book Club is an excuse to recommend stuff to each other, drink wine, and eat desserts…

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I watched good morning America or one of those shows during lockdown, and I swear they had a guy on who had the exact same books on his shelf that I do, in almost the same order. It wasn’t just like The Power Broker with it’s clearly identifiable title either. He had a graphic novel of slaughterhouse five next to the paperback, a bunch of pretty obscure European history books, the same set of authors for fiction. I never felt more basic.

Ugh, am I your guy for this? I go "ugh" cos I also floundered mid-2nd book (I bought 2666 as a 3 vol paperback box set) and am not particularly trying to get back into it. I can count on one hand how many times this has happened to me when reading a novel I began with the expressed intention of uncovering greatness. I've finished & enjoyed various Pynchons (Gravity's Rainbow is still on the list however), Infinite Jest, and others that required tenacity. I've never found Murakami to require tenacity, I consume his writing like so many boxes of Pocky... 1Q84 included. It's about time to reread it. Anyway, PM if you're interested in exploring the idea of a ZBC.

Re 2666, I agree with one of the comments above saying that it's character driven, I was hoping to uncover more focus on indictment/skewering of society-at-large, if not sly satire á la Pynchon, by the rough midway point. I put the book down under the impression that this characters were completely unrelatable to me and, though try as I might, I could not invest in them as they slogged through their existential crises and/or banal minutæ. I get the feeling that Bolaño does have a point, however--as in, some thread to lace together the dissonance of the professors' mundane European lives and the nihilistic bloodshed in Mexico, to form a cohesive posit through startling contrast... or soooomething... And at the same time I get the suspicion that I may not have the patience to uncover it. I hate that! Boo, Bolaño, booooo! LOL

Are you reading this in English? I think it's legitimately better in Spanish.

Bolaño builds terror through menace, that is what the book is thematically about.

Evil, terror, menace, and violence that swirl and congeal, and as soon as you look at those things and try to examine them, they dissipate. But, the inability to measure or understand the menace, the evil, the conspiracy, the blind but morbid workings of society, in no sense means that it is somehow not real or dangerous.

Rather it is like being in a dark room, trying to find the monster, knowing one is there, and watching him occasionally do his thing in very dim glimpses. Also, this is somewhat a test of your sanity, as is the case with "Tercer Reich".

Sorry mate, was just trying to troll you a bit. The Emu gave it away.

I usually use the library to read them the first time. Then, if I like them, I add them to my wish list, and I’ll start looking for them when I go to any locally owned used book stores, and pick them up that way.

Not far off. Admittedly it's a bit of a shit avatar. New Zealand is not actually a hemisphere but I am in the same one.