The apathy is a choice. It's supposed to make you uneasy, and then to question that uneasiness ('hey, nothing happened, this is boring"). This becomes apparent in later chapters. I think a lot of the book is about society's reaction to horrible violence, how the latter becomes background noise eventually

Ninja edit: also, the comparison to Márquez is reaching. It's shorthand for big south-of-the-USA fiction, I guess

Same for me! We started as a group of coworkers but most of us have moved on from that job but we still have our book club.

Well books don't expire or anything so i don't think it's a big deal. Maybe just keep a TBR list instead of buying them, and waiting until your pile is reduced a bit before actually buying them. That's what I do

I've been in one for ~14 years. We have been in person except for a couple covid years when we met virtually. We have between 10-11 members always. 6ish have been around since the beginning. A few members have moved away, etc.

The way we run ours is that each member has an assigned month. You pick the book that will be discussed that month and we tell people 2 months in advance. If it is your month, you host at your house and serve dinner. (Although some host at other members houses if it is easier) Dinner can be super casual or themed or fancy.

We have a spreadsheet where we track books, each member's rating, etc. The way we pick books means we end up with very different types of books. This month we are reading a couple graphic novels, which is a first. Last month was a book on perimenopause. The books are quite varied.

The person whose month it is rates first and gives their review of the book and we go around the room and everyone rates 1-10.

Bringing notes to our book club would be totally normal and loved although there are many of us that don't do that either.

Hope that helps.

I wish I could love the library but my local one doesn’t have many books on the shelf to look at and you’ve to generally order them in and you’ve no way of knowing when you’ll get it and I think I’m too impatient to wait once I’ve decided that I want to read something!

I buy exclusively cheap used copies. If it's a book that becomes my favorite, i might invest in a nice hard copy, although this only happens with a few books

If I'm unsure of whether or not I'll like the book, i will find some online copies of it and read the first few chapters. But i tend to stick to classics so that's not much of a problem.

I prefer the 3rd option. Buying books from the op shop. I have a Salvos near me that always has a huge collection of books, from old to fairly new releases. Priced from $2 - $5. Anything I love I keep, everything else goes back to be resold. I also occasionally use the local library.

I remember liking 2666, but can't really re all any specifics about it for some reason. I have it on my re-read list.

Have you read anything else by the author? I very much enjoyed The Savage Detectives.

I’m in two meetup.com ones, and they are both pretty similar in format. I don’t think having notes is weird at all, in fact I usually do. We all get to weigh in one by one at the beginning, then after that we chat more loosely about the book, sometimes with questions facilitated by the moderator of the club. At the end we vote on what to read next. One of my 2 clubs is always virtual and the other is sometimes virtual, sometimes in person. Although I theoretically like the idea of connecting in person, I find it much easier to actually make it to the all-virtual one. I think this is partly because it’s on Monday nights when I’m usually not doing much else, whereas the sometimes-in-person one is on Saturday afternoons — honestly, I’d rather be hanging out with my partner or friends on a Saturday afternoon than hauling myself all the way downtown to meet up with strangers, especially since it’s the only day my partner takes completely off each week.

I would rent a book from my local library first. Then if I like it and want to own my own copy I would buy it. Unless it's an author I like, then I buy the book first.

Only 20-30? Some of my TBR piles are nearly as tall as me. And there's eight or nine of them.

The point of the Holmes stories was that he did take a forensics approach when the police really hadn't.

>There's no forensics in Victorian England.

Doesn't Sherlock mention at some point in one of the books being able to teat a stain on a jacket and tell if it's blood or a fruit stain? Also people have used sorts of forensics for thousands of years. Granted it being used with crime solving seems to be more recently in the past couple hundred years.. but it was definitely around in Victorian England. Also thank you for saying this cause it made me go down a rabbit hole looking it all up lol. It's fascinating

I didn't love it. Impressive writing, but often sloggy. I felt that the different sections didn't really cohere as intended for me.

What’s your take on Vanity Fair? Also Becky Sharpe?

Sometimes it works the other way. The main character is the main character because they survived the killer.

Other times it's because the killer is too attached to the main character and gives a reason like they want the MC to suffer more or they need the MC to understand why they've been targeted. In some romantic suspense, the killer doesn't plan to kill the MC, just everyone around (usually) her so she has no one else, and they can have her to themselves. Then when she doesn't cooperate, then she has to die.

Sometimes it gets kind of convoluted. And sometimes, especially in true crime cases, it can be scary how the killer formed this fantasy in their head that revolves around them getting everything they want.

I got bored after the first part, but keeping thinking I might go back and finish it. That book was originally supposed to be 5 different short novels, which I think makes a lot more sense. But since Bolaño got famous, they figured they could sell it as a "masterpiece".

This has been brought up before, although it is a valid point. It was most famously discussed in Austin Powers.

This sounds amazing. I love Susan Wise Bauer.

My cousins, wife and sister have one. We meet monthly. Sometimes none of us finish the book and we just hang out. Other times we have really good in depth discussions about the book. I like the informality of it. Plus we all make food and have a potluck too

The book club I’m currently in is with people who live in my neighborhood. We do spend at least half of the time talking about the book, depending on how remarkable it was. There’s also food and drink and bonding, because that’s a secondary goal of our meetings.

I would say anything goes. I’m a nerd and I’d love it if someone brought notes to our meeting, but unfortunately most of our books are not that deep. We choose 6 genres for the next six months and then vote for books within each genre. Verity this month made my eyes bleed, so I’m following up on my own with Les Miserables.

I would love to have a book club with fans of literature, but I’ll have to settle for online for now.

I dream of having this

Hmmm, good question. I'd say the character of Zenia in the Robber Bride brings an element of myth (she's a witch, a monster, etc.) but beyond that I'm not too sure.

Yep. Mine is run by CAE (the centre for adult education) in my city. They operate a number of groups and you just sign up for the one in your area. We meet once a month and take it in turns to host with wine and cheese. Once a year we put together a list of our desired books from their catalogue and CAE will send us something from our list every month.

It's pretty casual, but there's a range of personalities and tastes. In my club it would not be weird to have written down your thoughts. We generally don't, but it wouldn't be seen as weird.

My club has been meeting over 20 years now. The length of time we spend on the book completely depends on what’s been picked. Most we talk about the book for 30 minutes or so. Sometimes we get a pretty good discussion that lasts hours