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Book Club Discussion for March 2024 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-03-01 21:11:18
Imported:
2026-06
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Dear Book Club Readers ---

You had an incredible reading month in February, and it would be lovely to hear about the books you're enjoying this month.

Your comments in these Book Club Discussion threads continue to reveal your deep love of great literature, and we would love to hear about how your reading is treating you at the moment.

So, tell us what your March is looking like.

What are you reading at the moment?

Let us know anything that's on your mind, your literary loves, and anything you wish to share or sharpen your thoughts about.

  • Author details
  • Seasonal reads
  • Areas to explore
  • Your current Big Read
  • Complementary art forms
  • Questions about literature
  • Favourite lines and passages
  • Things you're finding difficult
  • Rewarding literary rabbit holes
  • Musings, notes, and marginalia
  • Things you want to recommend
  • Resonant character descriptions
  • General life updates (we're interested)

This is the place to put anything bookish you like, and get other readers weighing in on your thoughts!

Our wonderful Book Club community continues to be a literary oasis thanks to your thoughtful appreciations of the Great Books.

Reading through the recent book discussion threads, one can see what a truly special group of literature lovers we have here:

So thank you so much for being a part of the family, and I hope your month is filled with exciting bookish adventures.

Happy reading!

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Comments

Jeff

I've had an amazing and significant evening/morning, a dual end result, listening to classical music while reading is good, really really good, and that my focus, my alive vibrant vitalistic focus is Nietzsche, with all the great thinkers and sources that for me at least came before and after in the vein that he symbolizes in my recurrent thoughts, which predate my actual discovery of his writings. March 15, 2024 and onwards is a playlist for this refined focused journey https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExl8zbtjizTCHAyaqfEE6iumAWHQCbVm From Holderlin's Hyperion O man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he thinks, and when enthusiasm is gone, he stands there like a wayward son whom the father has driven out of the house and regards the meager pennies that pity gave him for the journey. When asked for a comment, Pascal in his Pensees opined Flies are so mighty that they win battles, paralyse our minds, eat up our bodies.

Landon

Hello all. I am new to the book club and am excited to be here! I am an English major planning on beginning my MA in the fall. I have just finished up the Master and Margarita, last week and am just beginning the experience that is War and Peace by Tolstoy. I am a lover of classic literature and look forward to the community and growth in this book club!

Jeff

Greetings group, I will try to make this my last comment for awhile, i merely wish to share in abbreviated form the trajectory of my readings, which cover all of what i have on my kindle, this is my all at once approach coming into reality. It took a long time for me to transition from going through microphases of focuses to what tonight is joyfully affirmed, sure there will be weeks where i will only read a certain kind of thing, but now consciously it is all happening at once. Reading is like consciousness, having a sharp focus is then like being in a classroom, or a job. Having it all at once is like being an inquisitive child, spending endless hours exploring his or her own community which to them is huge, but may indeed hardly show up on a map. 1 - Antiquity 2 - Christianity 3 - The Middle Ages 4 - Eastern religion/philosophy 5 - The Reformation 6 - The Renaissance 7 - The Puritans and Dutch Reformed 8 - The Enlightenment 9 - Poetry 10 - Plays 11 - The Occult 12 - Feminism 13 - Philosophy 14 - Classics 15 - Modern Classics 16 - Disturbing and Controversial Literature 17 - History 18 - Entertainment (music, movies, manga) 19 - Audible 20 - Page turners 21 - Psychology And last and indeed least 22 - Science "Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left." – Aldous Huxley I have pretty much summed up my expensive hobby, now is the time to enjoy the fruits of my investments. In a decade or so, i could be fairly knowledgeable about the above, i had written a rambling paen to reading and learning, but i accidentally deleted it, basically i encourage one and all to keep expanding their horizons and to forge their own paths ontop of those aided by such wonderful locations as The Hardcore Literature Book Club. All the best!! – Jeff

Tatiana

I am about to finish Genji, since I will be too busy to read it in May, and would like to start on Moliere. I need to know the order in which we will read the selected plays.

Janet Bannister

Hi guys! I got all excited about this and thought I'd share. Mainly,when I'm not reading classic lit with y'all, I'm often reading horror. A horror lit podcast I listen to is doing a theme this month called "That kid ain't right," featuring evil kids. This week he us discussing the 1954 novel The Bad Seed, by William March. This book, about a murderous little girl, came out two years after East of Eden,and it absolutely had to be inspired by Cathy Ames. Same little wicked ways, manipulative, an actress, etc. In EOE, William James gets a mention. In Bad Seed, Freud is the topic. I just think it's cool how art branches off like a tree, one story or idea triggering new ones. Also, how reading all kinds of books adds to the gestalt in your head, your understanding of history and the changing zeitgeist through time (the mom I'm Bad Seed us troubled because it seems like the daughter is murdering people...but she really shouldn't bother her husband with it...his work is so important. Made me think of our objections about depictions of women in Steinbeck's time).

Janet Bannister
>>133051320

I think Ben said in his last lecture that he has one coming out in the next week about Moliere. I could be wrong,but I think that's what I heard.

Jeff

A cordial heads up folks, it's become clear to me that i need a solid base/foundation for my studies mapped out above, something i hold near and dear to my heart as being what in modern parlance be termed "specialize", yes, my dear book club i aim to "specialize" in Christianity, with the Reformed perspective being the salient ingredient, which imo gets to the heart of what is purportedly most important in this faith, the bible. I vow most soberly and circumspectly never to be preachy here, and indeed i may be a stranger for the most part, i do want to continue my support of this stellar venture of Benjamin's however, the pleasures of fine literature is enormous, and rightly so can be considered sacred without any affiliation to any structured belief system that belongs to an organization of any sort. I would always view Buddhism with a mind that kind of mourned the inability to actually practice it, but Christianity for me is practiceable, and gives my life some added fundament of meaning in this chaotic world. Love to you all -- Jeff

Sherron Belk

Looking forward to The Tales of Genji. I see Ben sites the Royall Tyler as his preference. What will I miss by using the Royall Tyler abridged edition? Anything important?

Arianna

I just finished The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Wow. I inhaled (as Ben would say) this book in a few days. Completely captivating from the very first page. It's been a long while since I have had that experience in my reading. One of the themes of the book is women empowerment (timely since March is Women's History Month) which I enjoy, and I appreciate the large amount of character growth of both the women and men. I picked this novel up on a whim after completing Faust by Goethe (which I also recommend), and I am so happy I got around to reading this deservedly-renowned classic.

Jensea Storie
>>133359694

I also thought of the movie The Bad Seed when reading EOE. This is such tragedy. I love your comments of the story ideas adding Gestalt in our heads and the changing zeitgeist through time. 🤓✌️

Carolyn

I had the great fortune to travel to Buenos Aires and cruise to the Antarctic with expeditions on the continent in Feb/March. I love to read about where I am traveling. Below is a list of book I have read/am reading/to be read. Argentine Reading 1. Dirty Secrets Dirty War by David Cox (Disappeared) 2. Don Segunda Sombra bt Ricardo Gulradldes 3. (Guacho) 4. The Last Cowboys At The End of the World by Nick Reding (Guacho) 5. A Perfect Cemetery by Federico Falco (purchased at El Ateneo Grand Splendid - beautiful cinema turned into a bookstore) 6. Looking for Alicia by (the disappeared) 7. On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato 8. The Little School, Disappearsance and Survival by Alicia Partnoy (Disappeared) 9. Tschiffely’s Ride: Ten Thousand Miles in the Saddle, from the Southern Cross to the North Star by Amie Tschiffely (Crillo horse) Antarctic Reading 1. Antarctica Peninsula, Vistor's Huide by Natural History Museum 2. The Wager. a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Survival by David Gann (read while on a ship on the ocean, haha) 3. Endurance, Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing 4. Alone in the Antarctica, The First Woman to Ski Across the Southern Ice by Felicity Aston 5. Call of the White, Taking the World to the South Pole by Felicity Aston Just now getting back to Hardcore Literature Club.

Charlotte Wells

Ben, I wanted to comment on your video about the greatest novels. Robert McCrum did both lists, a hundred best novels more than 20 years ago. In 2015 he compiled a list of 100 best novels in English. Then, in both lists, he listed them in publication date, earliest to latest. He acyptually made no effort to rank them in order of importance or excellence. We can quarrel about what's there or not there, however, and I certainly do! Best, Charlotte