Event: Poké Poké Literature Club!

[Juno]

don't worry there will be no weird monika shenanigans I just wanted to rip off make a cute logo​

This is 'Poké' in name only because we are PokéCommunity, but we will hopefully be reading books of all sorts!

Separate from the Reading Challenge here, this is where we will all read the same book together and have casual discussions - freeform most of the week (ie. you can just pop in to say anything about the book and where you are at), but I will also put up broad discussion topics from time to time that are completely optional but for those who like a more guided discussion.

timeline

Every three months or so we will select a book to read together (via discussion and poll, so hopefully everyone has a say and we choose something we will all like) - I've intentionally made the timeframe quite long so that it will allow for flexibility in the lengths of books to choose from, while still giving you enough room to do your own reading of other books in your own time and/or have time for other activities.

This is meant to be extremely chill, so you can just read a few pages a day/week if you like and jump in to discussions whenever, and people can still join a bit later if they decide to pick up the book or join our club further into the quarter.

If everybody finishes a book ahead of schedule and/or we are reading a particularly short book, we can of course move on, but this is a very rough timeline of four books a year that we will be reading, experiencing and discussing together.

spoilers

When discussing characters or book plots, do be mindful that not everybody may have read to where you are. Please spoiler tag with the chapter you are on so people know not to open a spoiler if they haven't read to that part of the story yet, and please do the same if you are responding to someone with spoilers as well.

The BBCode/format to do so on the forums is:

[spoilertitle=Chapter 1]text here[/spoilertitle]

or

Chapter 1: || text here ||

on Discord.

can I still join if the group is already reading?

Yes! As previously mentioned, you can join in pretty much whenever. If you join particularly late, you may have to read a bit faster than others who started earlier, but from the Progress/Leaderboard post below you can have a pretty good idea of where everybody else is in the book and when the quarter ends, and you can decide from there if you want to jump in now or wait until we start the next book.

sign-up

Now that you've gotten the run-down, if you are interested in reading together, please make a post with the following information:

Username
Favourite Book Genre(s)
Favourite Book(s)
Goodreads link if you have one

And if you have a book suggestion for our first reading, please post that and a short introduction of it as well! Please try to keep your suggestions to books that are 550 pages or less.

member bios

Juno

Favourite Genres:

🏰 FANTASY • ❔ MYSTERY • 🌆 CONTEMPORARY

Favourite Books:

Jbsundown

Favourite Genres:

🤖 SCI-FI • ❔ MYSTERY • 🗺️ ADVENTURE

Favourite Book:

PoryKid575

Favourite Genres:

❔ MYSTERY • 👩‍🏫 NON-FICTION

Favourite Books:

Austin

Favourite Genres:

💀 HORROR • 🏰 FANTASY

Favourite Books:

professor plum

Favourite Genres:

🔪 MURDER MYSTERY • 🔎 COZY MYSTERY • 🏰 FANTASY

Favourite Books:

HappinessShow

Favourite Genres:

❤️ ROMANCE • 🏫 SLICE OF LIFE • 🌎 ISEKAI

Favourite Books:

Yellow Bommen

Favourite Genres:

🔎 MYSTERY • 🎭 COMEDY • ❤️ REGENCY ROMANCE

Favourite Authors:

Cherrim

Favourite Genres:

🤖 SCI-FI • 🧟 THRILLER • 👩‍🏫 NON-FICTION

😺 cozy Japanese books featuring cats that tug at your heartstrings and teach you life lessons while also not rocking the boat or espousing radical sentiments

Favourite Books:

Arcaneum

Favourite Genres:

💀 HORROR • 🏰 FANTASY • 🤖 SCI-FI (especially space operas) • 🧟 THRILLER (especially psychological and legal) • 🔪 MURDER MYSTERY

Favourite Books:





Favourite Series:

Sheep

Favourite Genres:

🏰 FANTASY • 🤖 SCI-FI • 🗺️ ADVENTURE

Favourite Book:

Bay

Favourite Genres:

🏰 FANTASY • 🧟 THRILLER • 🗺️ ADVENTURE

Favourite Books:

Aquacorde

Favourite Genres:

🏰 FANTASY • 🔎 MYSTERY

Favourite Books:

(there's like 40 books I can't list em all)

bobandbill

Favourite Genres:

😂 COMEDY • 🤖 SCI-FI • 🏰 FANTASY • 🔬 SCIENCE

Favourite Authors:

TheOnlyFelicity

Favourite Genres:

🔎 COZY MYSTERY • ❔ MYSTERY • 💀 HORROR • ❤️ ROMANCE • 🏰 FANTASY

Favourite Book:

Luke

Favourite Genres:

🏰 FANTASY • ❔ MYSTERY

Favourite Authors:

 

[Juno]

voting

Nominations are closed! We are now selecting our next book from these suggestions:

Between Two Fires
by Christopher Buehlman

​

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer

​

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

The Black Spectacles
by John Dickson Carr

​

A sinister case of deadly poisoned chocolates from Sodbury Cross's high street shop haunts the group of friends and relatives assembled at Bellegarde, among the orchards of 'peach-fancier' Marcus Chesney. To prove a point about how the sweets could have been poisoned under the nose of the shopkeeper, Chesney stages an elaborate memory game to test whether any of his guests can see beyond their 'black spectacles'; that is, to see the truth without any assumptions as witnesses.

During the test – which is also being filmed – Chesney is murdered by his supposed accomplice. The keen wits of Dr. Gideon Fell are called for to crack this brazen and bizarre murder committed in full view of an audience.

Also known by its American title The Problem of the Green Capsule , this 1939 novel is widely regarded as one of John Dickson Carr's masterpieces and remains among the greatest impossible-crime mysteries of all time.

The Golden Spoon
by Jessa Maxwell

​

Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for "Bake Week" but also the childhood home of the show's famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin.

The author of numerous best-selling cookbooks and hailed as "America's Grandmother," Betsy Martin isn't as warm off-screen as on, although no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection, and gotten it with a smile, but this year something is off. Things go awry as the baking competition begins. At first, it's merely sabotage—sugar replaced with salt, a burner turned too high—but when a body is discovered, everyone is a suspect.

progress board

📔 Juno • Goodreads
(0/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📘 Jbsundown
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📙 PoryKid575 • Goodreads
(0/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📗 Austin • Goodreads
(0/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📒 professor plum • Goodreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📔 HappinessShow • Goodreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📘 Yellow Bommen • Goodreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📙 Cherrim • Goodreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📗 Arcaneum • Goodreads
(0/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📒 Sheep
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📔 Bay • Goodreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📘 Aquacorde
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📙 bobandbill • badreads
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📗 TheOnlyFelicity
(0/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages


📒 Luke
(1/1 PPLC books read)
Current book progress: ?/? pages

current discussion topic

TBD

Please try to finish the book by --- Have fun!​

 

[Jbsundown]

Book cluuuuuub!
I'm so in!
Username: Jbsundown
Favourite Book Genre(s): Sci-fi, Mystery, Adventure, anything really!
Favourite Book(s): Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Goodreads link if you have one: I do not I'm afraid

 

[PoryKid575]

Username: PoryKid575
Favourite Book Genre(s): Mystery, Non-Fiction
Favourite Book(s): Suddenly a Murder, The Great Gatsby
Goodreads link if you have one:

PoryKid575

PoryKid575 has 0 books on Goodreads

www.goodreads.com

/ may as well start a Goodreads if I'll be reading for a book club already.
Suggestion: One Hundred Years of Solitude / This book follows 7 generations of the Buendía family living in the fictional town of Macondo, Columbia. With each of the generations reacting and becoming part of the town's history. I've never read it personally, but I've heard many positive things about it and would love to experience the novel with this club.

 

[Austin]

whoooo books

Username: Austin
Favourite Book Genre(s): Horror, Fantasy
Favourite Book(s): Dracula, The Fault In Our Stars, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings
Goodreads link if you have one:

Austin

Austin has 151 books on Goodreads, and is currently reading Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en and The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

www.goodreads.com

 

[professor plum]

i wish i could read

Username: professor plum
Favourite Book Genre(s) murder mysteries, cozy mysteries, fantasy
Favourite Book(s) hmm.. that I've read within the past few years? The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, The Shining by Stephen King (a reread lol), Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Goodreads link if you have one:

Tyler S

Tyler S has 952 books on Goodreads, and is currently reading Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune, The Woman in Me by Britney Spears, and Attack of the...

www.goodreads.com

 

[HappinessShow]

Username: HappinessShow
Favourite Book Genre(s): romance, slice of life, isekai/transmigration
Favourite Book(s): Residence of Monsters; Fu Xing Dong Lai (Lan Qi Zuo Ren), I Reincarnated as the Little Sister of a Death Game Manga's M*rder Mastermind and Failed (Inaida Sou), Observation Record of a Self-proclaimed Villainess' Fiance (Shiki)
Goodreads link if you have one:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/182732227?ref=nav_profile_l
made one for the occasion :3

 

[Yellow Bommen]

Username: Yellow Bommen
Favourite Book Genre(s): Mystery, comedy, regency romance
Favourite Book(s): Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Sayers, lots of others
Goodreads link if you have one:

Kim

Kim has 28 books on Goodreads

www.goodreads.com

 

[Cherrim]

May not have time to join this iteration till later but I'm still interested!

Username: Cherrim
Favourite Book Genre(s): sci-fi, thriller, nonfiction, and not sure how to classify this last genre I've fallen into but cozy Japanese books featuring cats that tug at your heartstrings and teach you life lessons while also not rocking the boat or espousing radical sentiments (which is very Japanese lol)
Favourite Book(s): Sphere, Timeline (both by Michael Crichton), Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir, The Traveling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library - Michiko Aoyama
Goodreads link if you have one: here

 

[Arcaneum]

Username: Arcaneum
Favourite Book Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi (especially space operas), Thriller (especially psychological and legal), Murder Mystery
Favourite Books: In Your Dreams - Tom Holt, The Stand - Stephen King, Spiral - Koji Suzuki, The Dark Tower series - Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King, The War of the Flowers - Tad Williams, Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series - Tad Williams
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/arcaneum

If we can access it somewhat easily, I want to recommend We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida!

 

[Juno]

Welcome friends!!! I've updated the OPs with everyone's info (added you all on GR also!) and the current book nominations - you still have until Friday if you'd like to suggest a book! A few of you made some suggestions on Discord also, I'll square it away with you if they were your 'official' nominations or if you were just spitballing.

 

[Sheep]

Username: Sheep
Favourite Book Genre(s): Fantasy, sci-fi, adventure
Favourite Book(s): Wicked
Goodreads link if you have one: Not yet D:
Oh man I don't read super actively but I just have to try this!

We'll Prescribe You a Cat sounds so up my alley, omg.

 

[Bay]

This sounds like fun!

Username: Bay
Favourite Book Genre(s): Fantasy, Thriller, Adventure
Favourite Book(s): The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, Mystic River by Dennis Lehane, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Goodreads link if you have one: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/120379563-bay

 

[Juno]

Omg welcome Sheep and Bay!!!

Added you both to the OPs, and also added @Austin and @professor plum's book nominations from Discord to the list.

A reminder that nominations close and voting begins on Friday! Let's say this period officially closes Oct 19, 2024 at 12:00 AM .

 

[Juno]

Submissions are closed now, and the poll is up in the thread! You can vote here or on Discord; your vote will only be counted once, of course, and even though technically anyone can vote only votes from club members who will actually be reading the book will count.

(Never too late to join the club also!)

 

[Aquacorde]

yeah okay okay

Username - Aquacorde
Favourite Book Genre(s) - Fantasy, Mystery
Favourite Book(s) - Terry Pratchett's Discworld
Goodreads link if you have one - i refuse this application

 

[bobandbill]

Username: bobandbill
Favourite Book Genre(s): Comedy, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Science
Favourite Book(s): Various things by Ursula K. Le Guinn, Terry Pratchett, Dianna Wynne Jones
Goodreads link if you have one: I only have Badreads

 

[Juno]

Username: bobandbill
Favourite Book Genre(s): Comedy, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Science
Favourite Book(s): Various things by Ursula K. Le Guinn, Terry Pratchett, Dianna Wynne Jones
Goodreads link if you have one: I only have Badreads

Welcome bob and I'm glad bill could make it too - you and your badreads have been updated into the OPs!

A reminder to you and everybody else who hasn't voted yet that the poll closes on Friday! Will probably end it a little earlier in the day because I have a birthday party to go to in the evening, so I'll announce the book we're reading around 4pm PST. :)

 

[Juno]

Adding two members joining from the Discord also, welcome @TheOnlyFelicity and @luke!

The poll was close, but we have a winner after consolidating the results of the polls from both Discord and this thread! Even if your book was not chosen, do hold on to those nominations for a future reading as they all genuinely sounded great.

The book we will be reading is...

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
by Stuart Turton

​

Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.

There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.

---

If, like me, you do not already own the book, here are a few places you could get it:

Amazon (e-book)
Amazon (paperback)
Audible (audiobook)
Google Play (e-book)

And, of course, local bookstores or the library are always great options as well!

You can start reading whenever you have procured your copy - I will post little discussions and activities here from time to time, but please feel free to start your own discussions and pop your own thoughts here or in the Discord as well! I imagine both will have their own uses - a more live discussion/chat atmosphere on the Discord and maybe longer form ones over here, but you are certainly not limited to to either and you are all free to engage with the media and each other in either spaces however you like.

If you can, please try to update me on which page you are in at least once a week so I can update the reading progress board, and once again we are aiming to all finish the book within 3 months (by January 31st of 2025).

Have fun, and happy reading!​

 

[Sheep]

Page 160 now! Really enjoying this one so far. Awesome pick, excited to see how things progress. o7