2 years ago

Honeybee, I just thought I'd let you know I'll be starting this tomorrow.

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2 years ago

K good, I haven't started yet! I think it would be best that this is our July book and then we can pick another for August. Actually since i start back school in the fall not sure how regularly I can participate after, but I definitely up for this book.

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2 years ago

No worries, Honeybee! We'll do this one, then see how it goes after that. I might post another thread, just to find out if anyone else is interested as well. But, if not and it's just the two of us, we'll do a read whenever we're both available to do one.

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2 years ago

Ok, Honeybee, I've finished. I looked for some discussion questions online, but I couldn't find anything. I could try looking again later, but for now, I'll just post my review.

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2 years ago

hmmm, it appears each comment can only be so long, so this is part 1 of my review:

3.5 stars.

Langston Cane the Fifth – part-white from his mother’s side, and part-black from his father’s - has just been fired from his job, and is recently divorced. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, so he heads to Baltimore from Oakville, Ontario. Generations of his family have been moving between the cities (and countries) since his great-great-grandfather escaped slavery in the mid-1800s. Langston decides he’d like to learn more about his family’s history.

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2 years ago

Part 2:

It was good. Lawrence Hill mentions at the end that the novel is loosely based on his own family’s history. With so many male characters named Langston Crane, at times, thinking back over the story, I got a little mixed up as to which one a certain event happened to. Part of that was probably also because the story was not chronological. Family history was revealed as Langston the 5th discovered things and wrote about them, which would be more realistic, anyway.

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2 years ago

I've read it. Just finished it not too long ago.

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2 years ago

Hey Library, just finished the book....I will but up a review on the weekend

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2 years ago

Laura, do you have a review you can post? Or just comments to make on the book? Honeybee, sounds good! Looking forward to hearing what you thought.

I'll try to find time tomorrow to look for more discussion questions. Or, if anyone else has some, that would be great, too!

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2 years ago

I accidentally but my review in a new post, but at least I got it all in. I'll do a search for questions as well.

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2 years ago

Sorry, I didn't take time to look for questions yesterday and won't have time tonight.

So, you thought that this one was better than The Book of Negroes? I haven't read it yet, but I plan to...at some point. I suspect there are still tons of holds on it at the library! Oh, you're not in Canada, right? There is a CBC radio program every year where 5 Canadian celebrities debate 5 Canadian works of fiction and vote 1 book out each day. In the end, you are left with 1 book that "all of Canada should read". The Book of Negroes was one of the 5 books this year, so the hold list at the library is (or at least was, I haven't checked recently) quite long. :-)

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2 years ago

I think the Book of Negroes is better than this book.

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2 years ago

Ah, thank you! I misunderstood! :-)

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2 years ago

Oh, that's cool! I just did a Google search to see if I could come up with some discussion questions for this book, and our thread came up on the first page. :-)

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2 years ago

Well, I don't think I'm going to find anything, and I'm no good at coming up with questions on my own. :-( There are questions for The Book of Negroes (no surprise, there!), but I can't find anything for Any Known Blood. Oh well. We can try again with a new book in August. :-)

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2 years ago

That is pretty cool it came up first in a search. Maybe next time as we choose we can look to see if there are questions as well so that we know we'd have some discussion guidance after. Just to get more out of it.

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2 years ago

That's not a bad idea, the only thing is that it could limit what we might want to read.

Should we start a thread to nominate books, do you think? Is it only going to be the two of us again, I wonder!? Will we agree...? Let's find out! :-)

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2 years ago

I agree that it could limit our choices but as with this past book we didn't have any discussion because we didn't have any questions to direct it. So it's just something we can keep in mind.

Also, I won't be able to participate for August as I am doing 2 separate books clubs and have 4 books to get through for the month with some friends as I'll be home for a few weeks. But I should be up for participating in September.

A new thread for the next book is good, I think it will draw more eyes if there is a new post.

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2 years ago

Ok, thanks for letting me know. I'll see if I can delete the thread I made for August nominations, and I'll try to remember to start a thread for September nominations sometime in August instead.

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2 years ago

Perfect! It let me delete the thread. Enjoy your book club books!

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2 years ago

Thanks

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