I am a fan of Oprah's book club

[Cortez The Killer]

I have read a few very good books that I was either aware or unaware at the time were recommended Oprah's bookclub. I then found myself at the website of Oprah's book club looking for recommendations on what to read next.

Oprah and I have a common taste in books, which kind of surprised me at first, because I thought her book club would just recommend books about a woman's "coming of age" or some kind of new-age spirituality.

But a lot of them are enjoyable for anyone, like The Road (cormac McCarthy) and Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) Great character development, intriguing stories, and some interesting philosophies all mixed in.


I know there are probably not many readers here. But I had to get this off my chest, because as a fan (and prospective future member) of Oprah's book club I have been having self-doubts lately.

I thought "what does being a fan of Oprah's book club mean? Do I just like books? Am I gay?"

I felt like I might scream out "I am a fan of Oprah's book club!" during sex, at work or class. Because although a part of me is ashamed of it, but the other part wants the whole world to know...that I am a fan of Oprah's book club.

[amat]

Well, you should save face and just make this a book thread. About the latest books. It's fine for you to like the book club, another thing to share it. Believe me I have some playlist music that I would never post on here but still listen to occasionally.

Anyways a couple books I've read recently that I really enjoyed.

The Things They Carried - The best war book of all time. Period. Absolutely gold, one of the best books I've ever read and it sucked me in it really did. Ever wanted to get in the head of a soldier? This is the book. More quotables and deep passages then any book I've ever read and Tim O'Brian's style of writing is extraordinary.

Tree of Smoke - Very powerful book that weaves in and out through a bunch of major events through the 60's and tells a tale of conspiracy. Remarkable piece of writing.

[Andre]

Pillars of the Earth was Ken Follets best novel by far.

Im a third generation stone mason originally out of London
and I have an inbuit dislike for religion and its earthly powers and hold over so many people.

You can imagine how I felt reading it, when my misses said "heres one you'll enjoy".

[Cortez The Killer]

Pillars of the Earth was Ken Follets best novel by far.

Im a third generation stone mason originally out of London
and I have an inbuit dislike for religion and its earthly powers and hold over so many people.

You can imagine how I felt reading it, when my misses said "heres one you'll enjoy".

I am currently about 300 pages into this incredible book. At first I was thinking "How on earth is a story of a stone-mason in the 12th century going to be interesting?" How wrong I was, I cannot put this book down. The characters are amazing, I love the intrigue in the plot and how little pieces of information are put together at a time.

I am not a religious person myself, but appreciate Tom's drive to built a Cathedral. I also enjoy the contrast of how politicized and corrupt religion was (is) but also that there are still good people involved (Prior Phillip). I feel like I am getting a good history lesson, a bit of life philosophy, the forces of good and evil, a slight education on monk-life and masonry and all of this somehow creates a real page-turner.

I am also sexually intrigued by the witch

[Cortez The Killer]

Well, you should save face and just make this a book thread. About the latest books. It's fine for you to like the book club, another thing to share it. Believe me I have some playlist music that I would never post on here but still listen to occasionally.

Anyways a couple books I've read recently that I really enjoyed.

The Things They Carried - The best war book of all time. Period. Absolutely gold, one of the best books I've ever read and it sucked me in it really did. Ever wanted to get in the head of a soldier? This is the book. More quotables and deep passages then any book I've ever read and Tim O'Brian's style of writing is extraordinary.

Tree of Smoke - Very powerful book that weaves in and out through a bunch of major events through the 60's and tells a tale of conspiracy. Remarkable piece of writing.

Amat, you might want to give the "Raw Shark Texts" a try. I read that a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I think on amazon "Trees of Smoke" was also recommended if "Raw Shark Texts" was enjoyed. I know it rings a bell.

Raw Shark Texts start out as kind of a generic "Momento" clone where the protagonist wakes up and has no memory of who he is, some kind of dissociative disorder. Then it gets into this crazy meta-physics conspiracy which would sound absurd if I tried to explain it.


No shame on the playlist...got some Sigur Ros and Enya on my ipod

Sigur Ros doesnt even use a real language in their songs, I believe the language they use is called "hopelandic"

[Dizaster]

I was looking up a book i've been meaning to get for a while and saw that it was on Oprah's book club as well..

It was an Author Eckhart Tolle, if anyone has read any of his books?
The one I was looking at getting is "The power of now".. It's about how our Ego's aren't happy with things as they are right now, so we project into the future and picture ourselves with all these great things or into our past to relive things that we feel will make our lives better right at that moment... But most people waste their whole lives living in another place because their ego wants to picture bigger better things...
I thought it would be interesting.

[Andre]

I was looking up a book i've been meaning to get for a while and saw that it was on Oprah's book club as well..

It was an Author Eckhart Tolle, if anyone has read any of his books?
The one I was looking at getting is "The power of now".. It's about how our Ego's aren't happy with things as they are right now, so we project into the future and picture ourselves with all these great things or into our past to relive things that we feel will make our lives better right at that moment... But most people waste their whole lives living in another place because their ego wants to picture bigger better things...
I thought it would be interesting.

Its more than just interesting its life changeing and impowering.

"Practicing the power of now" his second book , is easier to follow.

It is where I learned about consiously watching thoughts so that I seperate the real me from them and they stop secretly running my life or more to the point ruining my life .

The Libarary has his stuff .

[donnydarkoIRL]

Man, don't feel bad.
Just get in there, then rip her off. MAKE IT cORTEZ'S BOOK CLUB.

As for me. I don't know whats wrong with me.
All I read are books on Hannibal, Atilla and Genghis.

[Dizaster]

I was looking up a book i've been meaning to get for a while and saw that it was on Oprah's book club as well..

It was an Author Eckhart Tolle, if anyone has read any of his books?
The one I was looking at getting is "The power of now".. It's about how our Ego's aren't happy with things as they are right now, so we project into the future and picture ourselves with all these great things or into our past to relive things that we feel will make our lives better right at that moment... But most people waste their whole lives living in another place because their ego wants to picture bigger better things...
I thought it would be interesting.

Its more than just interesting its life changeing and impowering.

"Practicing the power of now" his second book , is easier to follow.

It is where I learned about consiously watching thoughts so that I seperate the real me from them and they stop secretly running my life or more to the point ruining my life .

The Libarary has his stuff .

Reps your way.

I managed to find a copy of "the power of now" and started reading it at work today... Just the first chaper about "you are not your mind" as you were talking about is already sensational.... As he said at the start of one of his books,,, The purpose of the book isn't to give you intellectual facts to think over, or food for thought.. It's to give you a "feeling" as a result of reading the words..

I had realised and felt what it was like to become aware that "we are not our reality" ie. "we are not our clothes, car, house, wallet, money, watch, jewellery".. Even our identity and how we deal with the world isn't who "we" are..

After reading the first chapter and having the realisation/feeling that I am not my thoughts.. And being able to seperate my "being" from the dialogue that is continually firing off in my head, was a great feeling!! After reading one line that really summed it up, I just felt this instant glow..
It went away kind of quickly.. But I'm going to read on more and try to internalise & practice seperating myself from my thoughts to continue getting that feeling...

It's all a bit overwelming at the moment as you get flashes of peacefulness, then when you jump back to the reality you are used to living through, it's all the more harsher in a way... At least for me and my reality as it is at the moment..

I definetely need to find some quiet time out of my day to practice and get more in touch with this stuff, and hopefully transfer it back into my regular routine and feel better about everything that's happening..

I usually don't like Oprah at all, but her book club obviously has some gems.

[Kev]

Good stuff guys, I'm a big reader myself, or at least I WAS until my full blooded Saddo addiction prevented me from doing anything else!

Now I've net nannied my computers however so I can't log in like I used to I find myself reading again.

I've just started Josh Waitzkin's book 'The Art of Learning'. It arrived yesterday and I'm a quarter way through already. It's really fascinating stuff and I'm getting a lot out of it already.

Dizaster, the 'power of now' book sounds interesting as well. I may check that one out. My biggest concern with any books relating to our ego, spiritual self, consciousness etc is that are often full of meaningless psychobablle and pseudoscience speak.

That 'Mastering your hiden self' for example was just a complete cowpat of a book imo, an utter waste of time and the most meaningless religion I've ever looked into. I guess I just didn't 'get it'.

So I usually approach books that look into our 'inner selves' with a great deal of skeptisim.

Not all of them though, Scot Peck's 'The Road Less Travelled' remains one of my favourite books of all time, although even he went rapidly downhill with his subsequent 'Further along the road less travelled, and the awful 'The Road less travelled and beyond'

It's clear I wanted to take a nice stroll down the road less travelled, but didn't want to walk too far, and definitely didn't want to go beyond the road


But this is a great idea for a book club, I LOVE books, I buy at least 6 new books a month, sometimes I'll buy more than a dozen in a single week. Even if I don't read them I love having a nice library.

And Donny, reading books on Ghengis and Hannibal is great mate. I love history myself. I'm a huge fan of British history and the classical world also. A very worthy pursuit imo.

[brucelee]

Good stuff guys, I'm a big reader myself, or at least I WAS until my full blooded Saddo addiction prevented me from doing anything else!

Now I've net nannied my computers however so I can't log in like I used to I find myself reading again.

I've just started Josh Waitzkin's book 'The Art of Learning'. It arrived yesterday and I'm a quarter way through already. It's really fascinating stuff and I'm getting a lot out of it already.

Dizaster, the 'power of now' book sounds interesting as well. I may check that one out. My biggest concern with any books relating to our ego, spiritual self, consciousness etc is that are often full of meaningless psychobablle and pseudoscience speak.

That 'Mastering your hiden self' for example was just a complete cowpat of a book imo, an utter waste of time and the most meaningless religion I've ever looked into. I guess I just didn't 'get it'.

So I usually approach books that look into our 'inner selves' with a great deal of skeptisim.

Not all of them though, Scot Peck's 'The Road Less Travelled' remains one of my favourite books of all time, although even he went rapidly downhill with his subsequent 'Further along the road less travelled, and the awful 'The Road less travelled and beyond'

It's clear I wanted to take a nice stroll down the road less travelled, but didn't want to walk too far, and definitely didn't want to go beyond the road


But this is a great idea for a book club, I LOVE books, I buy at least 6 new books a month, sometimes I'll buy more than a dozen in a single week. Even if I don't read them I love having a nice library.

And Donny, reading books on Ghengis and Hannibal is great mate. I love history myself. I'm a huge fan of British history and the classical world also. A very worthy pursuit imo.

Bilbo, we have the same passion for books. I love buying books and keeping them in my small library. I also haven't read some of the books I have bought.

To be honest, I love Shakespeare's sonnets and his plays ( whether it's comedy or tragedy).

However, my interests when I was in High School were Greek and Norse mythologies and Science Fiction novels.

Now I only get to read computer programming and management books.

[RP33]

Oprah does wonders for the bookstore i work at..

as soon as she releases a book into her book club, then we automatically sell out and have to order thousands upon thousands.. all of her fucking groupies come in like lemmings..

I want that book "Secrets.. the one that everyone is buying"..

"Oh, you mean " The Secret " .. "

"no, it's called secrets.. everyone is buying it"

"Well there is a book called " The Secret " which is part of Oprah's bookclub, and EVERYONE is buying it ( you fucking loser )"

" OHH okay, yeah that must be it then "

I've probably had that conversation at least 300 times when The Secret was out.. People are such morons.. If you're going to read a book cause everyone else is reading it, and you don't know what it's about, who wrote it, or the TITLE, then shoot yourself..