DC Public Library discussion

Hi everyone! Welcome to our October book discussion!

Each month we'll announce the theme and you choose the book you want to read.

In honor of Halloween, our October theme is "Things That Go Bump in the Night." This could include horror, less scary stories that incorporate classic Halloween costumes as characters, or non-fiction discussions of witches, ghosts, ghouls and all the rest. Below are a list of suggestions, and there are many more on the Things That Go Bump in the Night bookshelf.

Horror and Ghost Stories
- The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
- Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventure Crew by Zak Bagans
- The Shining by Stephen King
- The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
- Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Witches, Vampires, Zombies, oh my!
- The Passage by Justin Cronin
- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
- Zone One by Colson Whitehead
- In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton

Please post a comment letting us all know what you plan to read and suggesting any good Halloween-ish books you've read!

Also, this month's happy hour meet-up will be Monday, October 22 from 6-8pm. Stay tuned for location information.

So, as I said over in the Spooky & Scary Books discussion, I am a complete wuss and just can't do scary stories. For this month I've been deciding between Zone One and The Last Werewolf. Would anyone recommend either?

I'm reading Zone One right now. I'm about 60 pages in, and so far so good! You should read it as well so we can have a little debate. (Also, it hasn't been that scary so far, so I think you'll be OK.)

Alright, that settles it. Zone One it is.

Oooh, I'll try to join you two! I LOVE zombies!

Zone One was great - it's a really different type of scary book. I think you'll like it!

Here are some questions to be thinking about while you're reading and discussing this month:

- Did the author put any twists on the horror genre or classic "scary" characters?
- How did the author create fear and suspense?

Also, for those interested in meeting up this month, we'll be doing happy hour at RFD (810 7th St NW) on Monday, October 22 from 6-8pm. Again, this is a very casual thing and not meant as a replacement for our discussions here.

I'll be re-reading The Shining, my favorite SK book.

I finished Zone One last night and simultaneously loved and hated it and am eager to discuss it when others finish it!

Maria wrote: "I finished Zone One last night and simultaneously loved and hated it and am eager to discuss it when others finish it!"

So I'm just under 100 pages in, and I've been struggling. He has set the scene so well and I'm enjoying the language, but I need some character and/or plot development stat! It seems like it's about to pick up, am I right?

Kate wrote: "So I'm just under 100 pages in, and I've been struggling. He has set the scene so well and I'm enjoying the language, but I need some character and/or plot development stat! It seems like it's about to pick up, am I right?"

Not really...the pace is pretty steady as I recall.

I loved the book...

Kate wrote: "So I'm just under 100 pages in, and I've been struggling. He has set the scene so well and I'm enjoying the language, but I need some character and/or plot development stat! It seems l..."

The pace is definitely steady, but I feel like the character development ramps up soon after the first 100 pages or so—stick with it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Thanks Tony and Tim. I don't mind the pace, but I am looking forward to getting a little more information and insight into what's going on. Everything has been set up so beautifully, now I'm ready to dig a little deeper.

Kate wrote: "Thanks Tony and Tim. I don't mind the pace, but I am looking forward to getting a little more information and insight into what's going on. Everything has been set up so beautifully, now I'm ready ..."

Yeah, it does pick up somewhat - but one of the things that I liked was that a lot of the information came through in really subtle ways, rather than being declarative. I ended up knowing more about the situation than I realized...

I didn't really find that it picked up... but I may have missed something b/c I keep hearing a reference to a big reveal near the end that apparently went totally over my head since I don't know what it refers to. If anyone knows what it is, please send me a message so we don't spoil it for others who are still reading!

Hi everyone, just a reminder that our happy hour meetup is tonight from 6-8 at RFD. Hope to see some of you there!

Also, I finished Zone One this morning and will be putting up my thoughts later this afternoon. Can't wait to compare notes with everyone else who read it!

So I ended up loving Zone One. Once I got to the second section (of three), I really felt like the language, story and characters gelled into a great read. As others said, it wasn't that the pace picked up, but I began to see where the story was going and the effects it had on the characters. I've never read a zombie book before (beyond a few chapters of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), so I can't really compare it to others, but what really struck me about this book was the realism. The descriptions of violence were terrifying and disturbing because they were never gratuitous or over the top. This is not a hero story, by any means.

The other thing I loved about this book is the social commentary. Two of my favorite passages were the description of Mark Spitz's former career doing faux-friendly social media marketing for a Starbucks-like company and his remembrances of a TGI Friday's style restaurant. Anyone else a fan of the "nostalgia industry"?

Well, since I was underwhelmed by Zone One and love the Walking Dead comics and TV show, I decided to read The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor during our pre-Halloween hurricane.
Now, I'm extremely skeptical of novelizations in general, not to mention that this is a novelization of a tv show that itself is based on a comic book series.
But...this was a great zombie story! There were so many really gross scenes, and not much filler in between. It was a page turner, and I was really surprised to learn who the Governor was before the plague. It's hard to tell if I would have enjoyed this if I weren't already invested in the world that Robert Kirkman has been building for about a decade and that I've been reading about since college -- it's easy to lower one's standards for a beloved series At times the writing was pretty awful, but prose style isn't really what I'm looking for in a zombie novel anyway.

Maria - I can definitely see how you would be underwhelmed by Zone One if you aren't too interested in the prose style of zombie novels. That was a lot of what it had going for it.

Sara- I tried to watch The Shining over the weekend and couldn't make it through. I can't tell if reading it would be more or less scary. What do you think?

Thanks everyone for another great discussion! Just because October is over, though, doesn't mean our discussion of spooky stories has to stop. If you didn't quite finish your October pick in time, if you discover more great Halloween reads in the future, or if you're looking for a suggestion, please post here!

Also, don't forget to let us know what your POTUS pick is for November!