Wow, good response so far. I think we have enough interest to try to decide on a single book.

Some people have suggested single short stories. I think that’s too little. If we take a a few days or a week to read a short story, then talk about it, then repeat the process, I think it’ll feel too much like school. Collections would work well though

Aside from that there hasn’t been anything I’m against. Some people want something comedic and fun and a few want something a little more srs. Let’s try a good middle ground. Something easy to read, but with some meat so we have something to discuss.

I don’t know how we’ll decide, maybe another poll or maybe we can reach a general agreement. For right now, just try to think of one book you want to talk about or you can just agree with somebody’s suggestion. Post it and keep in mind things like price and availability.

ALSO, describe the book. Pique people’s interest.

Remember, it’s okay to suggest books you haven’t read but want to. Even if we pick it and it turns out not to be good, talking about why things don’t work can be as fun as talking about things that do.

For now, I’m going to suggest The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. It’s around 200 pages and it’s about a woman who’s named the executrix of an old boyfriend’s estate. Soon, she gets caught up in a world of secret societies revolving around an underground postal system. It’s hard to explain, but it’s interesting. Since it’s Pynchon it shouldn’t be hard to find and Amazon has a lot of used copies for under $4.

EDIT: The way I explained this makes Lot 49 sound like some kind of gayer Dan Brown book. It’s in the middle ground between Dan Brown and Umberto Eco. Conspiracies, paranoia, secret societies mixed with LSD, Maxwell’s Demon, and at a few points the book switches to the script of a Jacobean revenge play the main character watches. It’s heavier and smarter than Dan Brown, but lighter and easier to read than Umberto Eco.