Daphne, Dame Du Maurier: The infernal world of Branwell Brontë - Groups

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Shelfari Discussion 417 books / 1780 members / 5470 posts This group is about everything Shelfari. Let's talk about site improvements, issues encountered, and the next great feature we should build.

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NOTE: Please don't post topics not related to Shelfari features and requests in this group . They will be deleted.

Brilliant Babes (And Dudes) Who Read Selectively 647 books / 166 members / 8070 posts So, what makes you a selective reader? If you like Dan Brown, Danielle Steele, Nicholas Sparks, or similar works, you MAY not be into this club. We are a group of intelligent persons who love both thought-provoking literature and quality brain candy. Actually, I mainly started it for myself and my friends, but anybody can apply if you think you're down with the Brilliant Babes--just send someone a note explaining why YOU think you are a brilliant babe (or dude) who reads selectively. This is a super-casual group. Anybody can suggest a book to read, anybody can add books to the reading list. We welcome any and all intelligent book discussion (not to mention whining about books we hated or gushing about books we loved). And don't worry if you have a really embarrassing book on your shelves...we all have skeletons in the closet.

To ask for an invite please DO NOT use the admin message box, leave a note on the profile pages of either rob or Suze...we will get back to you as soon as we can...thanks for your patience...and if you insist on asking for an invite via the group admin message box you will be ignored...so don't. Also, please remember that, although we TRY to get to everyone's requests in a timely manner, we do have other responsibilities that sometimes delay us from looking at your shelves. Your patience will be rewarded

A note about being snobs: As hard as it is to believe, with all of the nice people here on Shelfari, we get an e-mail once every week or two saying that we are snobs. That really just depends on your definition of a snob. Yes, this is a private group. Yes, we jokingly call ourselves brilliant. Yes, we have rather defined reading tastes that cut out a lot of mass-market fiction. Does that truly make us snobs? We hand-picked many members of our initial group around what we like to read or think we'd like to read. I don't think this makes us so much snobs as "people who want to discuss the kind of stuff that they like to read and don't care to discuss stuff that they don't like to read." (shrugs) We're pretty accepting. So, before sending us mean e-mails, see above for the joining process. And just remember: If you don't make it in, you probably haven't read the same books that we've all read and we'd have nothing to talk about!

A special note from the admin: We want everyone to have a great time here. All we expect is that everyone plays nice! Good-humored sarcasm is in; putting down or harassing our members is not, and we won't hesitate to remove a repeat offender from the group.

Note on the threads: please feel free to go back and resurrect any of the earlier threads that you find interesting...

Our One and Only Love List...

Love in the Time of Cholera...Gabriel Garcia Marquez (J.M.)
Pride and Prejudice...Jane Austen (littlemom)
Jane Eyre...Charlotte Bronte (AthenasDaughter)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...Betty Smith (Dana)
A Room With a View...E.M. Forster (Kiki)
To Kill a Mockingbird...Harper Lee (unfinished woman)
The Virgin Suicides,,,Jeffrey Eugenides (ballroom pink)
Dragonfly in Amber...Diana Gabaldon (Aimeesue)
Watership Down...Richard Adams (rob)
Persuasion...Jane Austen (AvidReader)
The Once and Future King...T.H.White (Alicia)
The Sound and the Fury...William Faulkner (katie)
Gone with the Wind...Margaret Mitchell (dickensfan)
The Forsythe Saga...John Galsworthy (cubachick)
Catcher in the Rye...J.D. Salinger (gbett)
Fall On Your Knees...Ann Marie MacDonald (HemingwayHeroine)
Return of the Native...Thomas Hardy (Aaro)
Fight Club...Chuck Palahniuk (Tania B.)
The Great Indian Novel...Shashi Tharoor (ophelia)

Reading The Three Musketeers: The Serial Schedule

Part/Chapters/Start Date/Discussion Date
one/author's preface, 1, 2, 3, 4/17th May/25th
two/5, 6, 7, 8/26th/1st June
three/9, 10, 11, 12/2nd/8th
four/13, 14, 15, 16/9th/15th
five/17, 18, 19, 20/16th/22nd
six/21, 22, 23, 24/23rd/29th
seven/25, 26, 27, 28/30th/6th July
eight/29, 30, 31, 32/7th/13th
nine/33, 34, 35, 36/14th/20th
ten/37, 38, 39, 40/21st/27th
eleven/41, 42, 42, 44/28th/3rd August
twelve/45, 46, 47, 48/4th/10th
thirteen/49, 50, 51, 52, 53/11th/17th
fourteen/54, 55, 56, 57, 58/18th/24th
fifteen/59, 60, 61, 62, 63/25th/31st
sixteen/64, 65, 66, 67, epilogue/1st September/7th

http://www.strandbooks.com/
http://www.daedalusbooks.com/
http://www.hippocrenebooks.com/
http://loyolaclassics.loyolapress.com/

50 Book Challenge! 3065 books / 3096 members / 17899 posts When asked about the new Amazon Kindle product, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple computer had this to say:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Welcome to the the 50 Book Challenge, where we fly in the face of Steve Jobs.

Basically .... the challenge is to read 50 books in one year. OR ... establish a goal for yourself more or less, it's up to you, just because we say 50 books doesn't mean that has to be your goal too.

Start a thread, WITH YOUR NAME IN THE SUBJECT OF YOUR ORIGINAL POST, and log your books. It is a very good idea to bookmark (when in your post, add it to your internet browser's favorites) your post for easy location for future updates. Things move quickly around here.

If you haven't been keeping track of the books you've read, start when you join.

Thanks for being here and have fun. If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to contact me.

The books we loved in 2007:

1. Harry Potter the final - 15 votes
2. The Kite Runner - 12 votes
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns - 11 votes
4. Twilight - 5 votes
4. The Thirteenth Tale - 5 votes

With 4 votes each:
Water For Elephants, The Road, The Red Tent, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Middlesex, Eat, Pray, Love

With 3 votes each:
Eclipse, My Sister's Keeper, Suite Francaise, Shadow of the Wind, The Lovely Bones, Jane Eyre, His Dark Materials (plus 3 honorable mentions), The Glass Castle, Girl With the Pearl Earring, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

With 2 votes each:
19 Minutes, Black Swan Green, Dogs of Babel, Heart-Shaped Box, In the Woods, Into the Wild, Kafka on the Shore, On Chesil Beach, The Book Thief, The Memory Keepers Daughter, The Stolen Child, No Country for Old Men, Marley and Me, New Moon

Anglophiles Anonymous 567 books / 82 members / 8369 posts

Please note: This is a private group, mainly to keep out lurkers and tittlebats. If you’d like to join, please do not email the group administrator. Instead, do leave your card with Mrs. Danvers, along with a note on her page, explaining why you’d like to gambol amongst us and what you’d bring to the conversation in terms of your obsession with all literary things Angl-ish.

Much Prized: The ability to write a coherent sentence, an appetite for stimulating intercourse and a deep and abiding love of British literature. The possession of a ridiculous British alias is much admired.

Much Frowned Upon: Lurking.

A Message from The Most Hon. The Marquess of Manleigh:

“I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me or differ from me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of the gastric juices and prevents my sleeping at night.” -- A sign at the entrance of Renishaw Hall, home of Sir George Reresby Sitwell

Dear Besotted Reader of British Literature,

Allow me to introduce you to our little circle, an oasis for those of you out there who suspect you’ve been born in the wrong country. You pale, lost souls who wish you could pepper your prose with spellings like “civilised” and “sense of humour” without eliciting raised eyebrows. You who stare at the clock wistfully at 3 pm and bemoan the fact that no steaming pot of tea and scrummy comestibles are nigh. You know who you are. You find yourself spending inordinate amounts of time reading Brontë, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Woolf, Waugh, Mitford, Wodehouse and basically any other writer with a British accent. You curse fate because you weren’t a member of the Bloomsbury group. To your chagrin, you’ve never found a body in your library. You long to find others of your ilk, soul-mates with whom you can prattle on about British literature, poetry, cinema and telly without receiving blank stares in return. My dears, you are not alone.

Step into the drawing room and tell us all about it. Would you like one lump, or two?

Cordially yours,

Terence ("Tinky") Egbert Ethelred Edward George Kitty Carlisle
1st Marquess of Manleigh, 14th Viscount Manleigh, KQHB (Knight of the Queen's Handbag)
Manleigh Hall, Studleigh-Under-Dureth, Sussex

Current Group Read:

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Our Group Reads (To Date)
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark
Atonement by Ian McEwan
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Shelfari: The Site for Books & Readers

The infernal world of Branwell Brontë

by Daphne, Daphne Du Maurier

Overview: Groups