#online book club

[bethelctpride]

December Book club: I MEANT TO FINISH IT!

Our flashback at the end of the year to all eleven books that you meant to finish and didn't quite get done in time for the monthly! Join the book club discussion channel on Bethel Pride's Discord the last week of the year to take another go at these 11 books!

NONFICTION:

Ace & Proud- anthology of essays on asexuality & AVEN

The Pink Triangle: the Nazi War Against Homosexuals- history. this is an older book but has many first hand accounts that appeared for the first time in English here

Queer Heroes of Myth and Legend- a roundup of classic myths and more contemporary mythmaking

The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LGBTQ Game Makers Are Reimagining the Medium of Video Games- on the art and aesthetic of games and why GAMES at all

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America- part travelogue, part biography

FICTION

When the Angels Left the Old Country-Historical. and angel & demon leave the shtetl to find why no one has heard from emmigrants from the village who went to New York

Amatka- scifi. a space colony relies on rigid categories and labelling to keep from falling apart. but what happens when you find you were put in the wrong category?

Like a Love Story- Reza, an Iranian boy, grapples with his homosexuality amid the AIDS crisis in New York City. also covers ActUp's action during that time

Brooms- graphic novel. alternate America in the Depression where only some people are allowed to have magic. Featuring illegal broom racing.

Queer Little Nightmares: an anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry

The Prince & the Coyote- historical fiction about Nezahualcoyotl, precoumbian Mexico's greatest poet. featuring new translations of their work

If you are having trouble finding these titles, our partner Rainy Day Paperback has them all on their website or in person at 81 Greenwood Ave. Bethel CT.

[crowclubkaz]

Hi there! I saw your post for your queer horror cult book club on Goodreads, and I thought so--I'm already a member, lol!

I'm still new to the club and I was sad that I was so busy during pride month I couldn't actively participate, but I am super psyched to get back into things this month with Camp Damascus!!

Thank you so much for hosting it--it makes my little gay heart happy to find a real community of fellow queer horror lovers ^-^

Omg I'm so glad you could join!! No worries if you miss months at all, and I'm super excited to hear what you think about Camp Damascus!! Queer horror is so near and dear to my heart and our little niche community is always so lovely <3 Do you love queer horror books? Check out the Queer Horror Cult book club on Goodreads from anywhere in the world!

[bellasbookclub]

Bella's Book Club FAQ 🍎🌲📚

What is Bella's Book Club?

Bella's Book Club, (sometimes abbreviated to "BBC"), is an interactive virtual book club created by the Three Books One Plot podcast. Each month, participants read a selected book from the list of Bella Swan’s (really Stephenie Meyer’s) favorite books and authors as it appears in Chapter 13 of Midnight Sun, then come together to discuss it on Discord and other social media.

Where can I find Bella's Book Club?

We post most of our important information here on our Tumblr (check the Official Announcements tag), as well as in the #announcements channel of our Discord. You can also follow along on our Goodreads and join readalongs on our Storygraph (mainly used to keep track of past and present books we’ve read/are reading.)

Who can join Bella's Book Club?

BBC is open to anyone! You do not have to have participated in previous discussions, or even be a listener of the 3B1P podcast (though we’d love that, of course.) All we ask is that you be prepared to encounter mature themes and situations in some of our books (and discussions.)

How do I participate in Bella's Book Club?

BBC is designed to let you choose the level of participation you’re comfortable with. Most of the action (and fun) happens over on our Discord, during our monthly real-time discussions, but you're also welcome to share your thoughts or fanworks on a book by tagging us on tumblr or sending an ask/submission. We also sometimes post challenges, ask/tag games, and “scavenger hunts” to go along with our book of the month, and encourage each other to get creative. Past BBCers have made moodboards, fanbinds, playlists, shitposts, written fic and parodies, done scientific research, and even recreated recipes from the books we’ve read! The pressure is totally off, though—you’re welcome to read along and lurk from the cozy corner of your choice.

Who runs Bella's Book Club?

BBC is run primarily by bookworm nerds M (@gashousegables) and G (@volturialice) with occasional help from Shannon (@flowerslut).

M (she/they) is an Australian book nerd with librarian aspirations. From Animorphs to a Smeyer-adjacent Dragon girl phase, she's also the weeaboo in residence for the book club. When not feverishly promoting their Virtual Best Friend known as the Libby App they are swallowing pulpy Romances and mandatory sociological theory.

Favorite books: Imagica, the Locked Tomb series, Friday's Child, Picnic at Hanging Rock

G (she/her) is an American book nerd who grew up devouring like 3 high fantasy doorstoppers a week and considered the Scholastic Book Fair a national holiday. She enjoys reading gory Jacobean/Elizabethan tragedies for fun and has worked in Shakespeare education when she’s not stanning her local library.

Favorite books: Annihilation, The Bloody Chamber, the Locked Tomb series, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Shannon (she/her) is an American jock who read oodles of fic but thought books were mainly good for propping up wobbly tables until she had her own Reading Renaissance in 2022. Now she's on a quest to discover new favorites by seeking out recs and devouring every book in sight!

Favorite books: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the Locked Tomb series, The Vanishing Half

When is Bella's Book Club?

Last year, Bella's Book Club ran September 2023 through June 2024, followed by a break for our summer reading challenge. Our third year schedule is a little different—BBC will run September 2024 through November 2025, with a break June - August 2025 for our summer reading challenge!

Books are announced one month in advance, and discussions take place once a month on Monday nights at 8 PM EST (Tuesday mornings at 10 AM AEST) during 3B1P’s off weeks. In the event of a postponement, we announce it on Tumblr and Discord.

The current discussion dates for 2024-5 are:

September 30th

October 28th

November 25th

December 23rd

January 20th

February 24th

March 24th

April 21st

May 19th

Nominations/recs for the 2025 Summer Reading Challenge will be open May 20th-June 1st. The event will run June 2nd through August 31st.

September 22nd

October 20th

November 17th

How do your live readalongs work?

Our live readalongs (not to be confused with Storygraph readalongs) are basically Discord voice chats where we take 5-10 minute turns reading aloud from a specific chapter of this month's chosen book! (If you've never used Discord voice before, it's super easy—you just click on the designated channel, leave your camera off, and turn your mic off and on as needed.) Mods livestream the text, assign the reading order, time everyone's turn, and give the reader a 1-2 minute heads up when their turn is over so they can find a stopping point. It's a judgment-free zone perfect for practicing your silly accents! You're also welcome to tune in and just listen to everyone else read—no reading aloud necessary.

Do you do movie nights?

Yes! We sometimes take a break from reading to host Bella's Movie Club. Many of the books we read have been adapted for film and TV (and when no adaptation is available, we often watch a thematically similar movie.) We host movie nights on our Discord, scheduled according to demand and availability. We usually announce movie nights on Tumblr and Discord a week or so in advance, and schedule them on weekend nights (US)/weekend or Monday mornings (Australia) to accommodate the max number of time zones. If you’ve never watched a movie on Discord before, it’s super easy—anyone who wants to watch joins in via our voice channel, mutes themself (if you don’t know how to do this, the mods can do it for you), and then chats (mostly jokes) in real time via the #movie-discussion channel. It’s a rollicking time.

What books have you read in the past?

For our Season 1 (Twilight) lineup we read Jane Eyre, The Princess Bride, Sense and Sensibility, Tooth and Claw, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Little Women, and Northanger Abbey.

For our Season 2 (New Moon) lineup we read Emily of New Moon, Sunshine, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Blue Castle, Dragonflight, A Long Fatal Love Chase, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Persuasion, and Death on the Nile.

What’s the BBC Summer Reading Challenge?

The Bella's Book Club Summer Reading Challenge is our yearly summer break activity, usually designed to coincide with 3B1P’s hiatuses (though not this year! This year it's just back by popular demand.) Phase 1 of the challenge involves recommending up to 5 books through a Google form. In Phase 2, everyone’s recs are compiled into a list. Readers then choose 5 books from the list to read (and, optionally, review) during the summer months! You can find last year’s list here (and reccer spotlights here.)

Why are the books on your list Like That?

The list we’re pulling from was made by a white Mormon woman for her Not Like Other Girls YA protagonist. (We’ve found that Stephenie Meyer’s taste in books varies from “a quality classic but uninspired as a rec” to “this is actually a pretty cool deep cut.”) But don’t let that put you off too hard—we love reading through a more intersectional lens and Queering The Narrative, for example! We also take summers off to read each other’s book recommendations, which can be of any genre and include more diverse characters and authors. Even when choosing our lineup of monthly books, we try to schedule so that we end up with diversity of genre, era, style, and subject matter if nothing else.

***

got more questions? send us an ask!

happy reading! (we'll see you at book club)

[strawberriesandstethascopes]

🍵✨ Calling all book lovers! 📚✨ Step into the enchanting world of Matcha Readers Society - a upcoming book club in an online chatroom.🌿💖

Whether you're longing for epic quests, swoon-worthy love stories, or Bridgerton-like escapades, our club has something for every book lover!

Grab your favorite book, brew a cup of matcha, and join us on this literary journey of bookish delight. 📖✨

✧༺♥༻∞

link to join: https://bookclubs.com/clubs/6029828/join/7492fe/

[hiddenbookcasepodcast]

Spring is on the horizon, so it's time to share our spring reading list! 🌷💐🌷 We're slowing down for a while, with episodes releasing once monthly rather than fortnightly- so rather than monthly themes, we'll be having seasonal themes. We're starting with sequel Spring!

In February, we'll be starting things off with an ending- namely A Power Unbound, the conclusion of @fahye's enchanting historical fantasy trilogy, The Last Binding! 🌳✨🌲

Then, in March, we're welcoming back he incomparable @IndiaReadsALot to talk all things Sunbringer- book two in Hannah Kaner's stunning fantasy series Godkiller! 🔱🌊☀️

Finally, in April, we'll be returning to UNC Chapel Hill and chatting about Bloodmarked, book two of Tracy Deonn's magical YA dark academia series The Legendborn Cycle 🔥⚔️👑

If you want to grab a copy of one of these books ahead of the episode, support indie bookshops and help out the show all at the same time, you can buy through our Bookshop.Org pages at the links below! 📚💕

🇬🇧 UK Link 🇺🇸 US Link

[thepastisapebbleinmyshoe]

Winter's ashes danced, across the forest floor, beautiful and cold, quite the intimate storm.

Footprints, in the snow, she looked for him, the man she'd known, all those years ago. Seated peacefully, along the golden coast, in downtown restaurants, on expensive dinner bills, his darkness shows.

A series of traditions, the courtship, marriage, all became the weapon. To free herself, she'll need, a vintage key, hidden, but in plain sight.

He never saw the steps, happening around him, but the tighter his grip, ever so close, another, begins, to quietly close in.

"She Planted Her Own Flowers"

Waterstones Bookshop, UK (online)

[lavendershowcase]

If you haven’t heard of The Lavender Book Club yet then oh boy! I have a very appealing club you might want to join.

The Lavender Book Club has one major goal for all of us: to read more books written by and about LGBT writers. Right now, the club is pretty small and all conversations have been very chill. It is a discourse-free zone. If I see people getting too rowdy over anything that isn’t related to the book, they will immediately be kicked out of the server. Any attacks on anyone else’s identity or labels or experiences will not be tolerated.

If you would like to check out our Discord server, you can join here.

Transcript under cut:

An Introduction to the Lavender Book Club: a queer book club hosted by The Lavender Showcase, a blog dedicated to sharing and spreading works by LGBT writers

What Does the Book Club Read?

The Lavender Book Club reads books written by/about queer people. The books currently on our list vary. We have sci-fan, fantasy, YA, contemporary literature, romance, and non-fiction.

Every month, we try following a theme. Every theme is a bit vague. It could be just classics, YA, or non-fiction. There is quite an impressive spreadsheet, so we're currently not looking for any new suggestions. We're trying to pick through the books we've already been recommended.

When Does the Book Club Meet?

The book club "meets" every third Sunday of the month. It's 100% text-based meetings.

Most of the conversation happens in our Discord server, but anyone is also welcome to have conversations on Tumblr. You can send in asks or tag us if you would like to have us engage with your thoughts. You could also use the hastag #lavender book club and see who else is following the tag!

What Have We Read So Far?

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuin. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.

How to Join Our Club

Anyone can join any way they want!

The invite link is posted [above]. Meetings are chill so there is no need to worry about how much you're talking. You don't even have to finish the book! A lot of times, in meetings, a good number of us haven't finished the book. Those who have, though, usually use spoilers to black out their text.

You can also just hop on Tumblr when the meeting day comes and chat however you like with other people who have read the book.

There's no pressure to read every book every month. If you just want to join because you think our current read looks interesting, that's fine! If you want to sit out some months because you can't find the books or aren't interested, that's fine too!

[cheshirelibrary]

The February 2023 Celebrity Book Club Books

[via Beyond the Bookends]

Here’s what these celebrity book clubs will be talking about in February:

Reese Witherspoon Book Club: The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

Read with Jenna Book Club: Maame by Jessica George

The Good Morning America Book Club: River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

Oprah’s Book Club: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

[space-snowglobe]

I'm surprised that no one has used tumblr communities to make an online book club, where everyone reads the same book and talk about it.

So I made one!

If you guys are interested in getting together and making each other read our favorite books, please join! I think it'll be a fun time

[bethelctpride]

Brooms by Jasmine Walls

Mississippi, 1930s. Magic simmering beneath the surface, kept in check by unjust laws and societal expectations. But for six extraordinary women, the roar of enchanted engines and the thrill of the forbidden broom race offer a chance to rewrite their destinies.

Meet Billie Mae, captain of the Night Storms racing team, and Loretta, her best friend and second-in-command. They're determined to make enough money to move out west to a state that allows Black folks to legally use magic and take part in national races.

Cheng-Kwan – doing her best to handle the delicate and dangerous double act of being the perfect "son" to her parents, and being true to herself while racing.

Mattie and Emma -- Choctaw and Black -- the youngest of the group and trying to dodge government officials who want to send them and their newly-surfaced powers away to boarding school.

And Luella, in love with Billie Mae. Her powers were sealed away years ago after she fought back against the government. She'll do anything to prevent the same fate for her cousins.

"Brooms" is a heart-pounding graphic novel soaring with magic, friendship, and rebellion. It's a Fast and the Furious with broomsticks instead of cars, a historical spotlight on struggles silenced by time, and a celebration of the indomitable spirit that dares to defy the odds. Buckle up, witches and dreamers, for this ride is about to take flight.

Drop into Discord anytime during the two days of book club and discuss it via text chat.

[canmore-elblood]

Review of All Body Bags and No Knickers

[georgeokello02]

(4) Review of Anti-Black Prejudice In America - reviewer George Okello 2 - OnlineBookClub.org https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=508884

[ten-of-imps]

If anyone is interested I created a book club on Fable app mostly for reading books with vegetarian/vegan characters, agenda, politics, philosophy and information. Invite down below👇

https://fable.co/club/lets-eat-books-and-plants-with-mally-166732073545

You do not have to be any kind of plant based living person. It's enough to be interested or open minded about everything.

[deniabochurd]

this months library book club nom-meow-nations are now open (◕‿◕)♡

books can be submitted in the library discord till midnight tommorow, where the votes shall begin !

(i'm still not a cat)

link to the little library discord

i've nominated good omens bc i'm on a niel gaiman kick but i still need to search my tbr for the second slot book

[thepastisapebbleinmyshoe]

I loved all the little things, he hated about himself, from the way, he looked, while he slept, to the sound, of his laugh. I would have spent a lifetime, waiting for that man to come back, perhaps if he had loved himself, he wouldn't have needed a mask.

Self Love

"She Planted Her Own Flowers"

(Vital Source - eBooks for students, AUS)

[thefantasticone21]

All Four Published Books Now on Fable Books

All four of my published books are now on Fable Books. What is Fable? It is both an online bookstore for ebooks and a social reading app that allows people to join online book clubs. The app also features book-related posts from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. If you have the app, and are looking for your very own copy of Kicking from Beyond the 40, Journey Through the Video Game World, The…