All those sound good to me, nyannie. I read The Balkan Trilogy some time ago but would happily read it again - I just wondered if it would be a big ask as a first choice to get this thing off the ground in terms of length.

That is a good selection because you've offered us a couple of novels, a memoir and a mystery/thriller. So many people have gone on at me about C J Sansome and I haven't got round to reading one, so this would be a good opportunity. When we first started our book group in 1978, what was wonderful about it was people offering choices you might not normally consider and discovering a whole new genre to enjoy.

So would it be very boring if I put them in my order of preference just to kickstart making a decision:

1. Dark Fire
2. The Postmistress - sounds interesting
3. Call the Midwife - I'm really enjoying the TV series so it would be good to read the book it was based on
4. The Olivia Manning trilogy

But I'd be happy with any of them.

PM'd you to say I won't be involved in the book club, shall enjoy reading the threads though

lol James isn't coming back, we kept in touch for some time afterwards, but he's got a real life now, unlike me

I doubt the debating would be appreciated, it's called baiting these days you know, discussing things

They were great times though I'm Team James all the way (for old times' sake) lol

I must have missed the post suggesting the discussions of John's time in BB, but I'm really up for that and look forward to it Is that going to be on specific nights/days... nights I'm not around so much but the beauty of DS is that it's there to read thru and respond to the next day, just let me know, I am really looking forward to that

James, Deefs, myself and others used to love discussing the BB times late at night, we had a great laugh and everybody else seemed to enjoy reading them even when we did express less complimentary opinions on their BB time - perhaps cause it was in the past and JJJ were supposedly together and happy.

I'm was one of the few people that loved Caoimhe and Johns relationship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1xU2VWjNdQ

I'm another up for talking about Johns time in the house.

love this idea....and I like the idea of rotating co ordinators...


but could I not be first......I havent been a book club co ordinator before and I dont want to miss something obvious....how about voting for nyannie to go first....?


and any one of the books she suggested would be fine by me.....

I love being organised......as I am generally hopeless at it...


my family tease me that im always trying to do 3 or 4 things simultaneously.....and I do loads of peripheral things really well and forget to do something really obvious.....

like buy a loaf of bread......

but can I please go second.......I can do May if it helps?

John was rarely nominated cos I think he was generally liked by most of the people in the house.....

if you want to add another interesting aspect to this.....

I found it fascinating..how a lot of the people who were evicted each week, were those nominated that week by John...
eg Rachael no 1.... Im not completely sure about this...but I have an odd feeling that in the first weeks especially, John was a bit of a golden boy with BB, and what he said and thought had a lot of influence.....
In the row between him and sunshine for instance....it was sunshine who got the negativity and got evicted....

and to some extent it was marked especially in the week that Nathan and John were up together....


and John did talk about reading books....he had read the entire twilight series and could talk about why he was team edward....ok its not the most intellectual of books....but its not necessarily the kind of fiction I would imagine him reading....
.. cos if I remember correctly he was discussing the films and the books in great depth one afternoon.....

I like the idea of discussing again John's time in the house. With the benefit of hindsight the discussions can be very interesting. I didn't get involved with BB until the 3rd week but did enjoy his relationship with Keeva and thought his relationship with the other boys very interesting.

Hi everyone

Thank you all for your posts and PM's about our book discussions. Some very useful suggestions have been made If it's okay with everyone if I will collate your ideas and then have a conversation with nyannie, as she is emerging as the front-runner to choose the first book.

As soon as I've spoken to nyannie (within the next few days) I'll put out a further post, confirming arrangements

Please could anyone who I suggested might be a co-ordinator, who has not PM'd me, let me know whether they can take that role?

Many thanks again everyone And as I said, let me know if you disagree with anything!! Cheers

Lindy xx

I agree with you kfb. We need to keep the first book fairly short as we will only have 5 weeks to read it. Dark Fire is quite long but good. The Postmistress has a sad ending so a friend told me. Call the Midwife and The Postmistress are about the same size in length - I think. The Postmistress is about WWII. I too have read the Balkan trilogy and loved it. For some reason I'm now reading the Alexander Trilogy by Mary Renault. Never read it in school so thought I'd learn a little that way.

I can also suggest Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. We had to read it in 9th grade - it is short but meaningful. Come on, let's have other suggestions. Give us the title and author and if you know something about it - crime, biography etc let us know.

It depends what other suggestions we get, have you any? The book group I run now is quite small - only 8 of us but we really do read a lot of different things. Our last book was Mapp and Lucia by EF Benson. It was difficult to get hold of.

Why don't we get all suggestions by next Wed. I will post all the suggestions and we can decide.

Why don't we give ourselves until the end of March/April to read the book. This will give us ample time to get hold of it and think about it. I will put up a couple of discussion points but we can have others that contributors can put up too. As someone said earlier we can have maybe a day to post. Put up other posts too but head it BOOK DISCUSSION. I'll then do a summary.

Anyway, let me know what you think. The house is finally warm - the muffins need more pecans and more maple syrup and are very good with cream cheese. I'm off to do dinner - hubby in bed! Thank goodness for chicken soup!

Sorry Lindy - didn't see your post. Don't want to contradict you in any way. See what you think about others contributing titles for the first book.

I think there's a lot to this, augusta In many ways I felt that John was easily as well-liked as Josie within the house, and I'd put that down mainly to his sensitivity and honesty. I don't recall seeing him gossiping behind people's backs.... In many ways the show was his to lose, and I think he knew that towards the end. Why the pressure got to him, and why BB itself decided to make the situation worse for him, is perhaps a question for later in this discussion....

Hi I think we need to talk Will PM you.

Don't worry, you are not contradicting me! So far, most people seem to agree that it would be good to have a 'rotating chair' () and no-one would object to you choosing the first book. If you / whoever can announce it by the middle of next week, we would have 4 weeks to read it before my suggested first date of 15 March. However, in this case only, (as March is a 5 week month) we could put the date back to 22 March, which may be more realistic.

As I say, I'll PM you to discuss.

Meanwhile, anyone got any more suggestions?

Lindy x

Okay, just a couple of suggestions before I log off for a bit:

The Snowdrops by A L Miller - this is a first novel by a guy who was a diplomat in Moscow. It's a story of intrigue, crime and romance, but the best bits, I think, are the atmospheric descriptions of Russian society and landscape. Quick and easy to read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - this is set in Afghanistan, and is based around the lives and experiences of several women. They don't have a great time (to put it mildly). This is one of the few books that has had me actually sobbing..It's a bit longer than Snowdrops, but not hard to read.

Just my two pennies' worth - if not used this time, they may pop up when I'm choosing!

Have a good evening all

13 swear words john james
in 1.46 second you should be ashamed




























Please try harder you could of at least, got 20 in

loving all the talk about Book Club and Appreciating John from the start of bb
Just let me know what i have to read

P.S i will not be talking about the Liverpool Result as far as i,m concerned it did not happen

Neither did the handshake, sadly

I too think John was well-like on the whole, but also a bit feared; there were often remarks about his temper - but this was as time went on. Also, he often did talk behind people's back about them, had many a conversation with Josie and others in the bathroom about other HMs.

I do think BB favoured him a bit at the beginning; perhaps because he was a bit of an unknown quantity, the forthright Aussie, and maybe even because they had spent a bit of money on him even before he entered the house, suggesting that it was a foregone conclusion

Feared? That's an interesting word. Do you think so?? I expect you're right - my memory of this is certainly blurry.

I had forgotten about those bathroom convos Somehow I never perceived them as malicious - I hope they weren't

:yawn: :yawn:

Night all, sleep tight :sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

Lindy xx

I wouldn’t say he was all that popular, maybe it was just a case of hm’s not wanting to go up against him, it was pretty obvious he had a big fanbase on the outside what with all the screams he would get.

It couldn’t have been fear apart from the week with the bucket over the head thing cause he wouldn’t know who nommed him until he was out.

Yep he bitched, he had his few favourite targets, BB itself being one of them, I would say a big difference between him and some of the other hm’s (and they could all bitch) was that the few people he bitched about he also tried to “resolve” it with them face to face, but he’d explain things from his point of view and expect people to bend and adapt without thinking he should do the same. And then by always telling people what he thought he was making things more difficult for himself which was a bit silly.

Well he had a temper, the night with Sam Pepper was off the charts. And then other times like with Ben he would manage to stay calm but was still completely relentless. I don’t think bottling things up is his forte.

Nope, I don't think he was malicious

I really liked Keeva, she was smart and interesting and they had some great convos.

I see some parallel with Aaron (BB12) in that analysis. In the latter's case he was favoured by BB in the early weeks but once he was firmly established as a leading character (by the end of week 3), the producers then switched against him.

In BB11, I've no doubt they wanted Josie to win, rather than John, to take forward the brand to C5 . . . . and so we had the farce of the 4-way vote to evict. In BB12, it's harder to know whether they wanted Jay to beat Aaron, or they were simply doing it to try to stop a runaway win (eg, maintain some voting interest in the series).

Have to say Jonathan I agree with you about John trying to resolve things with people but I also think jealousy from other housemates was also a reason for his unpopularity in the beginning. He was good looking and articulate but very very stubborn. I think many of the HMs saw him as a potential winner. Josie too and I think that may be why she became so close to him.

I think BB may have given him good edits etc in the beginning but he didn't play ball - didn't have a full-blown romance with Josie - and he spoke his mind - remember Ms Haversham etc. One of the reasons why he wanted to go home imo is that he still hadn't come to terms with his dad's death.

My opinion only - looking forward to Wednesday's discussion. Khyra, do we need to look at any clips beforehand?

Yes, C