We had very different reactions to the final volume of this book, but none of us got what we were expecting when we set out to read "The Once and Future King."

Links

"The Candle in the Wind: Book 4 of The Once and Future King" by T.H. White

King Arthur Book List - https://libcat.arlingtonva.us/MyAccount/MyList/29971

• Pete – Recommends Digital Magazines, free with your library card
• Megan - "Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism" by Seyward Darby, "The Cruel Prince: Folk of the Air Series, Book 1" by Holly Black and the audiobook of "Dolly Parton: My Life in Lyrics" by Dolly Parton
• Jennie - "The Liar’s Dictionary" by Eley Williams and "Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Love and Longing" by Anya Von Bremzen

Upcoming Books - Our next book is the classic western “True Grit,” by Charles Portis. If you would like to make a suggestion for future reading, use the form on the library website.

In volume 3 we get Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. We get Arthur and Guinevere, and Lancelot and the love triangle. In this episode Jennie, Megan and Pete talk about pride and sin, and where to find Arthurian retellings in modern literature.

Links

"The Ill Made Knight: Book 3 of The Once and Future King" by T.H. White

• Pete – “Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-hour News” by Lisa Napoli
• Jennie – “Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop” by Roselle Lim
• Megan – “What we don’t talk about when talk about fat” by Aubrey Gordon, “Secrets of a Summer Night” by Lisa Kleypas, “Midnight in Chernobyl” by Adam Higginbotham
• Alex - “Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn

Make a reading suggestion for future episodes.

This section introduced new characters, and established important plot points, but it’s only about 100 pages long, and Jenny describes it as “whipplashy” because it jumps around from place to place. Is this the result of White's radical rewriting and editing between the original version in “The Witch in the Wood” and the omnibus version? If there are any T.H. White scholars out there, please let us know! 

Links:

"The Queen of Air and Darkness: Book 2 of The Once and Future King" by T.H. White

• Megan – “House of Earth and Blood” by Sarah J. Mass 
• Pete - “An Agent of Utopia” by Andy Duncan
• Jennie – "When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain" by Nghi Vo

Jennie takes us on a tour of medieval English history, as seen through T.H. White's creation of King Arthur's childhood, with many spoilers.

Links:

• Megan - Audiobook of “A Promised Land” by Barak Obama
• Pete – "Tanking to the Top" by Yaron Weitzman
• Jennie – "A Criminal Magic" by Lee Kelly and "The Forgotten Kingdom" By Signe Pike

Jennie, Pete, Megan and Alex explore what makes this classic of gothic horror so horrible. Standard warning for many spoilers and some bad puns.

Links:

• Jennie – “The Twisted Ones” by T. Kingfisher
• Megan – “Me: Elton John Official Autobiography” - audiobook ready by Taron Egerton  and “First Comes Like” by Alisha Rai
• Pete – Twin Peaks 2017

We wrap up the final part of Frank Herbert's "Dune," find out who is reading "Dune Messiah," and discuss the David Lynch film (because you really have to).

Links:

• Megan is reading “Song of Wraiths and Ruins” by Roseanne A Brown and “I’ll Be the One” by Lyla Lee 
• Jennie recommends attending the Library's Escapism Book Club, and is reading "Dune Messiah"
• Pete recommends David Lynch's memoir, “Room to Dream” and “The Only Good Indians” by Stephen Graham Jones

This week Jennie, Megan and Pete travel across the sands of Dune, and explore Paul's version of the Hero's Journey.

Links:

• Jennie - Listening to the Dirt Cheap podcast.
• Megan - Reading "Normal People" by Sally Rooney
• Pete - Reading Rural Noir by authors like Donald Ray Pollock, including "Devil all the Time," and "Winter's Bone"by Daniel Woodrell

Welcome back! Over the next six weeks, or three episodes of the podcast, we’ll be reading - and librarianing the heck out of - the first book in Frank Herbert’s epic Sci-Fi series, Dune. We chose Dune in part because it’s getting a lot of buzz, first-reads, and rereads this year, due to the new feature film coming out in 2021.

In part one of Dune, Megan can't pronounce any of the made-up names, Pete reminisces about his dad reading Dune when he was a kid, and Jenny muses on Cold War politics.

What have we been reading?

Megan

• "Spoiler Alert" - Olivia Dade
• The Ravenels series - Lisa Kleypas

Pete

• "The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood" - Sam Wasson

Jenny

• "Priest of Bones" - Peter McLean

As you might have noticed, the podcast has been on hiatus for a while. Not only have we been busy running a library during a pandemic, but we ran into a lot of technology problems trying to produce a podcast while teleworking. But we worked through those issues, and now we’re ready to bring you the return of the Big Book Club Podcast! We’ve made changes to our original planned reading schedule, and to the episode format, but our goals are still to read and talk about books, and to be a book club for people who don’t have time to join a book club.

What have we been reading over the past 9 months? A lot of series...

Jennie –

• Ben Aaronovich -  Rivers of London series
• "The Women in Black" - Madeline St. John

Pete –

• Discworld series by Terry Pratchet, including "Moving Pictures" and "Carpe Jugulum"
• The Witcher Saga series of books by Andrej Sapkowski
• Dresden Files series of books by Jim Butcher

Megan –

• '"Lost Girls: an Unsolved American Mystery" – Robert Kolker
• Once Upon a Con series - "Bookish and the Beast"  – Ashley Poston

What is the Big Book Club Podcast? What makes a Big Book? How is this version of the Big Book Club different from the previous one? Jennie, Megan and Pete are here to explain!

Upcoming books:

• February - “Ayiti,” by Roxane Gay
• March - “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley
• April - "Children of Blood and Bone" by Tomi Adeyemi
• May - "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier
• June - Romance 101
• July - "Milkman" by Anna Burns
• August - "Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller
• September - "Leviathan Wakes" by James A. Corey
• October - Horror 101
• November - "There, There" by Tommy Orange
• December - Book to Movie Adaptations