[asmb] Book Club discussion

Fleeing the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their ancestral home, a band of rabbits encounters harrowing trials posed by predators and hostile warrens — driven only by their vision to create a perfect society in a mysterious promised land known to them as Watership Down. First published in 1972 to world-wide rave reviews and now a modern classic, this is a ...moreFleeing the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their ancestral home, a band of rabbits encounters harrowing trials posed by predators and hostile warrens — driven only by their vision to create a perfect society in a mysterious promised land known to them as Watership Down. First published in 1972 to world-wide rave reviews and now a modern classic, this is a powerful tale about the destructive impact of our society on nature.


i've heard mixed reviews about this book, but it seems like one of those books that even though its more of a younger person's book, an adult might enjoy it as well. Plus i've been wanting to read it, nd this gives me an excuse. Im waiting for it to arrive at my local library so i can pick it up and start it.

My sister loved it and couldn't believe I'd never read it. So I'm glad this gives me a reason to get it read as well. I'll pick mine up by the end of the week.

Yeah I'm eagerly waiting to get it in at the library, it keeps saying its in transition from the branch I requested it from to mine, but its said that for last three days. Grrr to slow shipping or whatever they use to move the books

I should be picking up a copy at the evil, terrible, horrible, A/C'd bookstore either tomorrow or Friday. It's supposed to be steadily hotter than hell around here so it could be either day. Or both. They have A/C after all. :P

Yes a/c is a wonderful thing. It's getting hotter here too, you don't even want to go outside after 9am.

Today was overcast and as moist as a Yeti's armpit in summer. O.< Trouble is, if it doesn't rain and do a good job of it, there is going to be heat deaths in the area within the week because this moist is just going to fishbowl the whole place. It's going to be in the 100's this weekend and well into next week without counting the humidity and I don't have A/C or fully functional sweat glands. :(

Guess I'll just have to stay indoors and away from the windows this weekend and read some books! :D

Yikes! I hope it rains soon for ya. And yes stay where you can keep cool. Find a coffee house or random place with indoor chairs for lounging and stay there with your books.

And on note about the book I'm still waiting for it to arrive.......grrrrrrrr! I placed the request on the 9th.

I started reading this and so far I like it. I've only made it to chapter 11 but it looks like I'll enjoy this one.

I need to sit down and really delve into it. So far the only thing that bothers me is the fake names or rabbit names he gives things then calls it what it is. Especially the rabbits, they have strange names that he uses sporadically then calls them something else. Yeah its a small thing but its irksome.

I do have to agree with that. I keep having to look back at the glossary to see what they're talking about. I'm hoping I'll have a "lupine vocabulary" before the end of the book so I can stop doing that. It's more likely I'll just go by context though and that will be good enough.

I haven't even thought of checking against the glossary in the back but at the same time I don't want to keep flipping back there every chapter.

The glossary is helpful with the names. Some of the different names are nicknames and it explains that. Also it tells if they're in danger from a fox or a dog or a car or whatever but most of that you can figure out or it doesn't really matter. Danger is danger is their cases.

Well this just showed up today, yay!

Well this was an interesting read. I liked it. Which suprised me some. We had rabbits growing up & they are mean, nasty, disgusting critters at best in reality. I didn't think I'd care what became of Hazel's band of rabbits but you get sucked into the storyline and find yourself hoping that things will turn out well for them. Unlike in reality at the age of 8 I was hoping the dog would eat my damn rabbit so I could get a mouse instead. lol, I was awful. No, the dog never ate Chocolately Chewy, he died of old age.

:D

We had rabbits too. All over the dang place because if you have two, you quickly have 20. And they mixed with the wild cottontails whenever someone would get out so you'd occasionally see a lop-earred cottontail trying to move faster than his ears would allow - like a fluffy bassette hound in the clover.

We only had one evil rabbit. His name was Hitler because he had a smudge of black directly under his nose and he was the meanest little sh*t you'd ever meet in a rabbit body. He would deliberately move his food and water bowls to to far end of his cage and then wait for you to try to get them back. If you were stupid enough to reach in there, he'd attack your arm. We actually had a special stick with a nail on the end to reach in there and pull the bowls close enough to fill them. He would splinter away at that thing every time. Even when one of the other rabbits learned how to open their cage and went around opening everyone else's cages, they left Hitler's locked. He died of old age, crabby as hell to the very end. Brat. :D

i still have yet to finish this book. Im on the same page as I was nearly two weeks ago.Its not that I dislike what little i've read so far, its just that the mood hasn't struck me to read it.(does that make sense to anyone but me?) I really need to sit down and read it, but I fear that wont happen for atleast a few more days.

I know how that is. Some books I want to read but they just don't float to the top at the time. I'm reading Watership Down in about 40-60 page chunks. I just got to part three, Efrafa. I like it but I only seem to get so far then I get tired or whatever. And I'm getting three books from reserves at the library this week. I need to stop everything else and just read. though that's unlikely.

Yeah I know that feeling when all the reserved books come in and your like..."yay!"....then you realize that you have too much to read and not enough time to read it in. There are several books from the library that i've been wanting to check out yet haven't since I have an ever growing collection of books that need to be read first.

Oh no, can totally relate to that whole mood thing. I'm almost at Part III of this one too and it's not because it's a slow read at all, it's only because my mood is off. I'm thinking that when I get done at work Saturday, I'm just going to sit down on the couch with my birdbath-sized cup of coffee, no tv, one fully-nipped up kitten and just read for a bit. I could finish this thing in an hour tops that way.

Yeah I need to just sit and read it, cause its one of those reads that I dont want to just read bits and pieces of each night. It seems like the flow of it would be hindered if i did that. but i dont have a day off to just sit and read till Sunday.

I realized that I like Dandelion's stories. I just read the one in the beginning of part three and it was pretty good. The stories are meant to give insight about the rabbits and their thinking but a couple of them are just good stories as well.

Okay I swear I am going to start this book Saturday afternoon after I get off of work. Usually if I work a day shift my family leaves me alone in the evening so I should be able to rest and really dig into it. Whats crazy is that I really do want to read this book. I've just been in a very big epic fantasy type mood. (I've also been wanting to reread some of my fave books but haven't let myself since I have way too much to read at the moment that i haven't read a million and one times)

It is a quicky read once you get going. ;) The chapters are fairly short so even if you get stopped at some point, it's not as hard to get back into it again.

Finished it today and would have had it done yesterday except I took'd a nap. <.< >.> Anyone else feel like wandering around going 'hrudududu!' :D

I refuse to call my cats Pfeffas! :D

I'm just about done. Another session or two of reading and I'll be finished. I'm having trouble reading much at a time now, I get tired. Anemia, eye damage, blah, blah, blah, and so on.

Mary wrote: "I refuse to call my cats Pfeffas! :D"

Have you tried it yet though? I got such a look.

Then again, I had a piece of pizza and wasn't sharing too. :D

I finally finished. I am glad I read this though I think I would have found the action scenes much more exciting and scary if I'd read them when I was young.

And I'm willing to cut this book some slack. A chapter title, Dea Ex Machina, that I'd roll my eyes at in another book, fits here. I ended up really liking this even while being aware of it being meant for a younger audience. I can see why this is a classic. It's proper that it is.

i agree with you. I could immagine reading it to my grandnephew(he's 8) and how he'd react to some of the scenes.

Agreed, decent solid classic. :) And not a pretentious classic either.

I just might have found a gift for the niecelette for holidays.