Young Writers Society

Hey, YWS!

I know what you've been thinking. For those of us in the Northern hemisphere, Summer's just begun showing herself, students have summer vacation around them like a scarf, and you're probably thinking to yourself, "I should read a lot of books since I have all this free time."

We were thinking exactly the same thing.

So we have just the thing to help you out:



From June 22nd to August 24th, we'll be reading a book a week and discussing our reactions to the plot, characters, craft, and impressions of each work.

Led by the helpful posters over at Writing Gooder, who will post a discussion starter every Saturday (and reminder posts on the preceding Wednesdays for those of us whose memories aren't exactly the best), YWS will engage site-wide around the table of what we like best: books.

Here's the schedule so far:

1. The Great Gatsby with Stella Thomas (June 22nd) {PDF}

2. The World's Wife with Rydia (June 29th) {*}

Please note that The World's Wife contains mature content.

3. The Little Prince with Hannah (July 6th) {PDF}

4. The Giver with Penguin Attack (July 13th) {PDF}

5. Before I Fall with Elinor Brynn (July 20th)



"What?" you say. "I thought this was The TEN Books of Summer!"

And you're right, but the last five are up to you! Nominate books you'd like to see discussed site-wide here on the announcement thread, and we'll schedule through August 24th for a full ten books.

All you have to do is read and write. You can do that, right?

See you June 22nd!



* links to poems from The World's Wife, in the order they appear in the book:
1-7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

The board is now open for book nominations!

Notice that with the five books already selected we tried our best to find books with PDFs available online so that members can still join in from countries where English is not the dominant language and where English books might be harder to find.

If you make a nomination, see if you can find a link to a PDF version of your book to post along with it. Everything will run much smoother this way.

This sounds like such a great idea!

I would love to suggest The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It's about African-American maids in the 1960s from Jackson Mississipi, and a white American called Skeeter who wants to write their life stories.

I found a pdf here.

Omg, yes! Thank you, @Elinor%20Brynn!! Before I Fall is one of the best and most amazing books I think I have ever read. I'm competely in love with it.

I'd like to nominate If I Stay by Gayle Forman. It's a wonderful story about a girl named Mia. One day, she and her family goes for a car ride and it ends up in a tragic accident that has her parents DOA, her brother and herself hovering on the edge of life and death. It's a powerful out-of-body experience, with Mia deciding whether to go or to stay and debating what she has lost. (There is a beautiful sequel, called Where She Went, that can be optional for the reader to enjoy if they choose so.)

Here is a PDF file here. ^-^

I really hope this one gets chosen, and I'm willing to help if needed!

If I have more suggestion, I know where to put them.

Ooh, I'm currently reading The Help!

I read The Great Gatsby last month. It was a good read!

I LOVE THE LITTLE PRINCE.

I actually just bought six books at a farmers' market, so I'll be reading at least a couple of those, plus there are two books left to read from the seven I got from my teacher at the end of the school year.

BlueAfrica wrote:I LOVE THE LITTLE PRINCE.

I actually just bought six books at a farmers' market, so I'll be reading at least a couple of those, plus there are two books left to read from the seven I got from my teacher at the end of the school year.

If any of those books turn out fabulous, be sure to come back here and recommend them!

I'd like to nominate The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It appears to be the story of a Child's growth into adulthood in a pseudo-monastic future society, but that's not really what it's about. It's actually about art, science, philosophy, politics, humanity, and the meaning of life. If no one else has read it, I'd be more than willing to run the discussion for that week.

I've already read The Great Gatsby five times for my IGCSE...

Disk, did you happen to find a PDF of the book? Also, is it a rather thin book? It sounds like it could span a monster number of pages and we only have a week to read. Haha, it sounds so good though!!

Also... haha... Auxiira...

I would truly recommend the Chaos Walking trilogy by the beautifully talented Patrick Ness & The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller for older readers who like a good sob...no seriously...huge amounts of excess water sob.
xoxo

The Great Gatsby would be an amazing read.

I would recommend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, it's the 1st book I fell in love with.

I have only heard of The Little Prince, it does sound interesting though =)

Rounding up suggestions so far:

The Help -- PDF

If I Stay -- PDF

The Glass Bead Game -- PDF

Chaos Walking (The Knife of Never Letting Go)

The Song of Achilles

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- PDF

Yay!! Just another reason to love YWS even more. <3

Anyways, I'd suggest The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge. If you want a brief description of the book, here's part of what Amazon said:
"On an island of sandy beaches, dense jungles, and slumbering volcanoes, colonists seek to apply archaic laws to a new land, bounty hunters stalk the living for the ashes of their funerary pyres, and a smiling tribe is despised by all as traitorous murderers. It is here, in the midst of ancient tensions and new calamity, that two sisters are caught in adeadly web of deceits."