You definitely make it sound all positive lol

Thank you, that sounds equally logical and stupid.

Now do Needful Things

Fair enough lol

Honestly, I understand feeling paralysed with indecision so much! I am the absolute worst when it comes to making decisions, and yes, even when it comes to selecting what to read. But by having an already-made TBR, it makes life easier for me.

No. I just have shelves and piles of books. Oh, and boxes, but I'm getting some new shelves so I'll get the books out of the boxes and onto the shelves and hopefully reduce the piles as well.

Are kiwis not ambitious? Dishonest? Obsessed with status? TBH most of what I know of kiwis is from flight of the Conchords. And yes, they are the antiGatsbys 😄

i do an 'up next' list. i choose 5-10 books from my massive TBR and load them to my tablet as the next ones i will be choosing from. it does make the selection process less overwhelming and allows me to finally get to those books that have been on my list for years.

I have to agree. i have my tree books and i have a scribd acount, a kindle, i discovered gutenberg and the way back machine-whew!! if i don't choose them ahead of time i get paralyzed with indecision. i have recently learned a little python and i wrote a randomizer book program. so now i just push enter, and the computer pops out a book in my database:)

No problem. Good luck with the discussion.

Uh, yes, they're fantastic. In fact everything he wrote is amazing.

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The people editing stuff out of his stories to create outrage and sell more books should be shot out of a cannon into the sun by the way.

I'm a Kiwi and to me it's very American. Especially for something set in the 20s. There's no way you could misread Gatsby as a Kiwi

Apparently it’s because it’s the English version of the French name Saint-Jean which is pronounced similarly. That combined with regional accents in England changed it to Sinjin over time. (Even knowing that still upsets me. I too was pronouncing it wrong for way too long).

I am American but I do have friends from other countries, and I think that's a great question. As far as I can tell, Gatsby is much closer to American values or what America represents to people in other countries where they feel weighed down by societal rules and structures (e.g., caste system) that do not provide them a way to escape out of their position in life and realize their dreams.

As a Canadian who had to read The Great Gatsby in English class as a teen....I do think it does a great job of depicting American values/ideals. And I did not like the book at all. :P

Glad to read someone else who likes this one. I went through a pretty heavy King phase a few years back and not only was this one of the ones I enjoyed the most , it was one of only a handful that I went back and read again. Really enjoyable for me both times !!

I know what you mean, "Something is missing," like the spark that was there in the original is gone.

-Rochester's wife is Jane's double -Is The story has a semi-happy ending or is it happy?

I like this! Thanks for some good discussion topics!! I kind of want to see what everyone thinks Rochester's justification for locking her up, instead of sending her away, or back to her family.

How much of Jane Eyre was influenced by the debate of equality between sexes that emerged at the end of the 1700s?
For a bit of context Mary Woolstonecaft aka Mary Shelley’s mother in her philosophical paper Vindication on the rights on women in 1792 argued “that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.”

Is the treatment of Bertha a woman with mental health problems cruel even by the standards of the 19th century? Debate Rochester’s motives in locking her up.

Also a good book to read that tells the story from Bertha’s perspective and gives her a voice is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

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Lucy's father wrote the definitive biography of Joyce, too.

There's a link there, or some sort of something anyway.

I cannot explain, I can only pass on this cursed knowledge as it was passed on to me.

If you're in the UK world of books has free delivery and good prices for second hand books

I mean, yes? I know it's okay to not like a book. That's... literally what I opened my comment with? It's okay if you don't like a book.

It's absolutely okay for people to not like books that we like. You don't have to think the book is good. That doesn't make it "a hoax," and, personally, I don't think it's particularly productive discussion or particularly civil to launch into a hyperbolic screed about "what the fuck is this shit?"

To be honest, the whole complaint mostly reads like sour grapes (I mean, really "how dare you?" to the author because they published something you don't like that got critical acclaim?) or like "I don't get this work, so there's something wrong with everyone who did get it," which kind of says more about you than about fans of the book.