Students, staff and faculty are welcome to drop by for our Any Book Book Club Meeting on Thursday, July 5th from 12:30 – 1:30 at the Burnaby Campus Library.

Discuss your favourite reads and get some great ideas for your summer reading list!

We meet at the black couches on the main floor.

New members are ALWAYS WELCOME.

And in case you’re wondering – these are the titles we discussed last month:

• Museum of Extraordinary Things / Alice Hoffman
• Nocturne / Helen Humphries
• Who Do You Think You Are? / Alice Munro
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine / Gail Honeyman
• Happenstance / Carol Shields
• Shrill : Notes from a Loud Woman / Lindy West
• Braided Skin / Chelene Knight
• 100 Days / Juliane Okot Bitek
• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier / Ishmail Beah
• Make Miracles in 40 Days / Mealody Beattie
• The Chosen / Chaim Potok
• The Interestings / Meg Wolitzer
• Brother / David Chariandy
• Fates and Furies / Lauren Groff

The Any Book Book Club met yet again, and discussed a diverse collection of titles – if you want to keep us with us, this is what you missed:

• Never Out of Season / Rob Dunn
• American War : a Novel / Omar El Akkad
• Exit West / Mohsin Hamid
• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me / Sherman Alexie
• Thin Bright Line / Lucy Jane Bledsoe
• Dear Current Occupant / Chelene Knight
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine / Gail Honeyman
• The Women in the Castle/ Jessica Shattuck
• All the Light You Cannot See / Anthony Doerr
• The Battle of Kursk / David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House
• Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race / Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Indian Horse / Richard Wagamese
• Give and Take / Adam Grant
• Northern Light / Jennifer Donnelly
• Most Likely to Succeed : Preparing Our Kids for the New Innovation Era / Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith
• Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation / Jay Samit

We’ll meet again in June – hope to see you then!

The book club met again last Thursday, and the conversation and book suggestions did not disappoint!
We started with a highly recommended self-help book, from someone who doesn’t like self-help books:

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Some memoir/historical non-fiction was next with Gutenberg’s Fingerprint by Merilyn Simonds.

Then fiction – the weird, creepy kind, with Slade House by David Mitchell, and the kind that hooks you with the first sentence – Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta.

Back to non-fiction with Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, that two people in our group brought to talk about! (We’re not that big a group..) which led to mention of Days of Destruction / Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges.

Two health related non-fiction titles were discussed – When the Body Says No: The Hidden Costs of Stress by Gabor Mate and The Cancer Chronicles by George Johnson and a business title – The Four : The Hidden DNA of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google by Scott Galloway

Lastly – the aspirational, or “I want to read” title – Seven Fallen Feathers : Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga.

Mark your calendars because we are meeting again on Thursday, May 3^rd at 12:30 at the black couches on the main floor of the Burnaby Campus Library. All faculty, staff and students are welcome!

 

Another book club meeting, some more great discussions about books.

We started with books about conversations:

• Crucial Conversations : Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny and Al Switzer
• Fierce Conversations : Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time / Susan Scott
• Difficult Conversations (HBR 20 Minute Manager Series)
• Conflict is Not Abuse : Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman **note, this title was highly recommended by a few people; as well as the author’s other books

And moved on to historical fiction:

• The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
• The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

February was Black History Month, and some books about race were next:

• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Then a variety of non-fiction:

• The Last Gang in Town: The Epic Story of the Vancouver Police versus the Clark Park Gang by Aaron Chapman
• Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend by Leo McKinstry
• The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman

More fiction came next:

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

An autobiography:

• The Confessions: St. Augustine

More fiction:

• The Marianne Trilogy by Sheri S. Tepper
• Also by Sheri S. Tepper:
  • Grass
  • Raisin Seed
  • The Gate to Women’s Country

Some author recommendations – if you like Sheri S. Tepper you might also like books by:

• Octavia Butler
• Ursula K. Le Guin

Then non-fiction again:

• Industries of the Future by Alec Ross
• The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Morretti

And we finished with a group favourite:

• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Last, but not least, a recommendation about a new mobile bookstore in the Lower Mainland:

• Iron Dog Books

We are meeting again on April 5^th at the couches on the main floor of the Burnaby Campus Library.

All faculty, staff and students are welcome to join us!

The BCIT Any Book Book Club met for the first time at the Burnaby Campus Library on February 1^st.

Everyone who showed up brought at least one title they wanted to talk about, and great conversations ensued about those books, their authors, related books, related topics and the best local second hand bookstores.

Titles discussed ranged from classic literature, to historical fiction, satire, biography, memoir and more. They were books we’ve read, books we are currently reading and even books we plan to read very soon.
Here is a list:

• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
• Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
• La Rose by Louise Erdrich
• The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz
• Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
• Janesville : An American Story by Amy Goldstein
• The Ghost Orchard by Helen Humphreys
• Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny and Ron McMillan
• Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
• The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

All students, faculty and staff are welcome to join us next time.
We plan to meet Thursday, March 1^st, 12:30 – 1:30 at the big comfy couches at the library.