Cooper Book Club

Our family has been so blessed by friends bringing us dinner and my mom and mother-in-law coming to help out after my surgery. It has been a good experience (as good as having a gaping hole in your body can be). Our small group had a welcome baby party for Matthew. From the party Matthew got some nice clothes and even some swim trunks. I don't know when I'll be out swimming but at least Matthew can be out in the pool.

I snapped a picture of all three kids when they were about a month old with just a diaper on. Looking at these pictures, I'm amazed at how similar all three kids look. Besides the size difference their faces are remarkably similar. I showed Sarah's picture to Erik and he thought it was Matthew!

Erik and I along with David and Joel have decided to form a Cooper Book Club. This is totally awesome. I've always wanted to be in a book club, sipping tea, eating crumpets, and discussing books but have always assumed the books picked would be lame. Since Erik, David and Joel are in the book club we will pick good books. Currently we are reading Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. The world is rich and complex and the storytelling is excellent, however this is the series I had to stop reading because it became too gruesome for me. I'm not a wimp either - I have read some pretty gruesome stories (Dark Tower by Stephen King got pretty gruesome at the end). Anyway, we'll see what they think when they get to the mord-sith!

This book club is going well and I've been so happy that everyone is reading the book. Now we can sip tea and discuss the book while playing EQ2.

I've compiled a list of books I want to read in the future and as possible book club books.

• Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. I've read Soldier's Son by Robin Hobb and liked it quite a bit. The book was slow moving at the beginning but she has fabulous character development.
• Magister Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. C.S.Friedman is one of my favorite authors that I have recently discovered. Usually when I read a novel I tell Erik about the plot, characters, and my theories of what will happen in the book. I can't do this with C.S.Friedman books. Her books are too complex to even explain to Erik (which I'm sure he doesn't mind at all).
• Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erickson. This series was created as a world for role-playing games. I like role-playing games :) and love entering new fantasy worlds so this series sounds interesting to me.
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This book is always on a list of top fantasy novels. I liked Stardust (by Neil Gaiman) but thought the movie was actually better than the book. The book was good though. Really the only reason this is here is because the book is always listed as a top fantasy novel so I've wanted to read it.
• Magician by Raymond Feist. The Riftwar Saga has long been on my list of books to read. This is another series in which the world was created for a role-playing game.
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. This book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. A few years back I made it my goal to read all Hugo and Nebula award winners. I got through many of them but never read this one. I read The Left Hand of Darkness by LeGuin a few years ago and liked it but never got to this one.
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. This book is one that maybe only I would like :). I have read that it is a combination of Jane Austen and Fantasy literature. I love Jane Austen and love Fantasy so this book appeals to me. That's about all I know about it though.
• Sevenwater Trilogy by Juliet Marillier. This is a celtic historical fantasy novel that several people have told me I would like. I haven't read much historical fantasy so this sounds interesting and different.
• Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. One of the fantasy bloggers I read loves Guy Gavriel Kay so I wanted to read something by him. This book is set in a place similar to Italy. I like Italy (and lasagna and gelato) so this sounded like a good one to start with this author.
• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Brandon Sanderson is the author of Mistborn, Elantris (which I just finished), and is finishing the Wheel of Time series. I love his writing - it moves fast, is intriguing and fun. I am excited about this new series that will be released Aug. 31.

So I have compiled a pretty good list of books I want to read. This list may be different than other lists of those in our book club but I wanted a start. One issue we have with these books is that many of them are series'. Since we may not want to read the entire series, we need to know if the first book in the series has a satisfying ending or if we need to read all the books in order to find out what happens. This recently happened to me when I was reading a new series by Timothy Zahn (the Conquerors trilogy). I finished the first book but was left dangling. Anyway, we need to find out how the first book in some of these series ends. Erik said he knows only one person (our friend Tim) who has read more fantasy than me so we should ask him, but I don't know if he's read the books or not either. We might be stuck.

87 points on quiddler today. I got to make the words "sinned" and "froth"