Book Circle Online: Books

UNDER THE SKIN is a sleek and bizarre science fiction story by Michel Faber, a sometimes erotic, sometimes ice-cold portrait of a disfigured alien predator. Strategically disfigured as a honeytrap for earth men who will soon be meat. Her name is Isserly and she picks up hitchers on the motorways of Scotland, conducting them into castration, mutation, and processing into foodstuff at the behest of a decadent cosmic aristocracy. The book pushes buttons like JG Ballard on hits of champagne-spiked estrogen. Through the insect eyes of a huntress in disguise, we're tricked into thinking about where our food comes from and who it used [...] The post Under The Skin by Michael Faber | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

DOCTOR SLEEP is Stephen King's gripping and surprisingly endearing sequel to THE SHINING, a classic 70s horror novel that opened bloodsoaked corridors of terror in the collective psyche of a generation (in its literary form and via a masterful film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick). The book revisits Danny Torrance, the psychically gifted little boy whose daddy Jack was possessed and destroyed by the malignant ghost culture of an evil old hotel. Danny is Dan, now, in his thirties, a survivor of traumas the ordinary world can scarcely imagine, dulling the dark edge of his supernatural sensitivity with liquor and drugs for decades. The [...] The post Doctor Sleep by Stephen King | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

Jackie Collins has sold over 500 million books in over 40 different countries. She has just published her 30th book where she shares a glimpse into the childhood of her most popular character, Lucky Santangelo. In this edition, host Jeffrey Masters sits down and talks with Jackie about her newest book, Confessions of a Wild Child. "I think that in another life - I'm going to sound very Shirley MacLaine - I was either a panther, or I was a black male soul singer, or I was Italian...My house is filled with paintings of panthers and leopards. I just love them. They give me [...] The post Jackie Collins | Confessions of a Wild Child | Author Interview appeared first on Book Circle Online.

After her mother's death and her marriage was destroyed, Cheryl Strayed embarked on a 3-month trek across the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches across the west coast from Mexico to Canada. She hiked over 1,000 miles of it, and details the terrors and triumphs of her experiences in her memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on The Pacific Crest Trail. In this edition, hosts Jeffrey Masters, Cassidy Gard, Kylie Hodges, and Sean Overman discuss Cheryl Strayed's memoir, Wild. "Of all the things I'd been skeptical about, I didn't feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me." - Cheryl Strayed [...] The post Wild by Cheryl Strayed | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

HUNGER GAMES, by Suzanne Collins, is a 2008 young adult novel (quote/unquote) that became a publishing sensation, spawning two sequels and two hit films with a third in the wings, wooing readers and watchers from every walk of life with its mythic tale of Katniss Everdeen, the Girl On Fire, a poor girl who hunts squirrels to feed her family in a brutal dystopia (a future gone wrong, it seems, or perhaps a parallel universe that overlaps with our own in all the wrong places). She scrapes and survives with a traumatized mother and a fragile sister in one of twelve districts, where [...] The post The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

http://youtu.be/0ZVGOR1gyHw Anthony Russell, author of Outrageous Fortune, describes himself as lucky with lineage. Growing up at Leeds Castle, he says, "Money, and lots of it, appeared to grow on trees, especially those which adorned the Leeds Castle parkland. Ancestors with glowing titles and extraordinary accomplishments filled the history books, but there would be consequences for being handed everything of a material nature on a plate, with no clear indication of what one might be expected to do with such good fortune." Anthony’s life of privilege and luxury was matched with the fear of breaking one of the unwritten rules of the Castle Way. Outrageous [...] The post Anthony Russell | Outrageous Fortune | Author Interview appeared first on Book Circle Online.

Charity Gaye Finnestad describes herself as a modern-day Alice in Wonderland who has fallen down the rabbit hole. While sill in her 20s, Charity left Oregon and her second husband to move to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Along the way, she started her popular blog, Hollywood in Heels, where she documented her adventures while dating and learning to navigate the entertainment industry. Her new book of the same name expands on the blog and is smart, funny, and unapologetically honest. Charity writes that Hollywood’s primary commodity is sex and that “illusion is the name of the game.” In Hollywood [...] The post Charity Gaye Finnestad |Hollywood in Heels | Author Interview appeared first on Book Circle Online.

Step into the Circle and bear witness as the BCO narrative dissection team explores Samantha Shannon's THE BONE SEASON, an exciting and widely hyped new novel (the first of a projected seven-part series), wherein we meet Paige Mahoney, our narrator and heroine, a nineteen year old criminal clairvoyant who can slash her way into the headspaces and dreamscapes of those around her. She performs her little thought crimes in a future London, circa 2059, a London under the control of SCION, a tyrannical security force that runs six other major cities and seems poised to take over a globe even darker and more troubled [...] The post The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

“A Brilliant Novel in the Works” edition, is an exploration of Yuvi Zalkow’s “A Brilliant Novel in the Works”, an almost semi-autobiographic piece about a man struggling to write a novel. Host Jason Squamata talks about the book on the levels of craft, theme, and character. Joining Jason with the breakdown are co-hosts Doug Dean, Pat Janowski, and Mark Savage. It’s Book Circle Online's “A Brilliant Novel in the Works” podcast! About “A Brilliant Novel in the Works”: When Yuvi's wife finds him in his underwear, standing on top of his desk, she isn't terribly impressed with him and his writing habits. But Yuvi [...] The post A Brilliant Novel in the Works by Yuvi Zalkow | Book Discussion appeared first on Book Circle Online.

“The Stud Book” edition, is an exploration of Monica Drake’s “The Stud Book”, an ensemble meditation on the mating games and hilarious sadness of motherhood and fatherhood. In this podcast, host Jason Squamata talks about the book on the levels of craft, theme, and character. Joining Jason with the breakdown are co-hosts Doug Dean, Pat Janowski, and Mark Savage. Also joining the hosts is the Author of “The Stud Book”, Monica Drake, who will expose the slices of life and art that engendered this compelling new novel. It’s Book Circle Online's “The Stud Book” podcast! About “The Stud Book”: “A sharp-edged satire of contemporary [...] The post Monica Drake | The Stud Book | Author Interview appeared first on Book Circle Online.