Always happy to find fellow readers! Unfortunately, I don't have a book club right now. Instead, I have a coworker, with whom I swap books when we've finished whatever we're reading. I've turned him on to Terry Pratchett recently, so I think this is working out well.
I tend to read from a pretty wide swath of genres, but mostly stick with Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Humanist literature. There are a couple of books that I end up returning to with some regularity, simply because their themes just resonate with me so much.
Kurt Vonnegutt, for all his faults, is one of the main reasons I am the person I am today. I discovered "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" at around 20, and it changed me immensely. For those who haven't yet read it, the primary theme is kindness in the face of adversity. It's not the most amazingly written book or anything, but the fact that so broken a man could stand up to everyone in the world at once and say "We have to be kind, even if we don't like them." really hit home hard, and has helped me to realize how insular I'd been in my adolescence.
He also wrote my other favorite book, "Bluebeard". It deals heavily with the meaning and intent of art and the artist from a very personal viewpoint. It has helped me appreciate the creations of others so much more. When you go to a modern art gallery, and see a painting of a single shade of orange with one black dot in the middle, most people would say "My kid could do that". Mr. Vonnegutt points out that they are missing the point. The art doesn't represent anything but the artists own emotion. It's purpose isn't to stir a specific emotion from the viewer, but to stir ANY emotion. Whatever you felt looking at the painting, that's what it was meant to bring out in you. It's a mirror, not a representation. You look at the image, and what you see has come from within you.
(I can tend to get really passionate about art, literature, and music. Let me know if I'm being too much please)
I'm also attempting to write more often now. Specifically, I've been working on-and-off on a gay romance/drama novel. It's still well in its infancy though, at only a 35 page skeleton draft and an ever growing pile of notes and ideas. One day I'll feel ready to merge everything together... Other than that, mostly angsty poetry that stays on the hard drive, and random short fiction to test out ideas.
Looking forward to other folks' views. I'm probably going to be checking this thread regularly
--Quick edit--
For those of you interested in starting to write, or feeling stuck in your writing, I'm going to highly recommend a couple of books that have been immensely helpful to me.
"The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great" by Donald Maass, and the companion workbook "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook" by the same.
Both books cover a wide range of topics to help flesh out your story, make your characters more alive, and to to help you find your voice when writing.
