GGB Reno’s “August Authors” Brunch
GGB Reno’s August Authors brunch featured 10 bibliophile geek girls enjoying a lively conversation about our favorite authors, books, book series, book-to-film/TV adaptations, eBooks, audiobooks, and much, much more. We also had a book exchange, for the girls to share some of their hardcover and paperback passions.
We went around the table introducing ourselves to the few new faces, and discussing our favorite things about books. Julie, a clearly passionate book lover, brought up Jane Austen (one of the many times she was mentioned, along with the widely revered Colin Firth BBC Pride & Prejudice adaptation). Some of her favorites include Simon Brooks, Raymond Feist, Mercedes Lackey, specifically her Valdemar series. She also has a guilty pleasure – Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books.
Erin loves the classics, authors like Jane Austen, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Gaiman, and generally lots of sci-fi and fantasy. She caused a stir among the brunch crew when she said she was not a huge fan of the Harry Potter film adaptations. She also has a soft spot for romance fantasy like Patricia Briggs. First time brunchette M’Lisa describes herself as “a bit obsessed” about Harry Potter. She, unlike Erin, loves the movies but didn’t really care for the Fantastic Beasts adaptation. She loves YA novels, including the Percy Jackson and Maze Runner, and the Inkheart trilogy. She also loves the horror genre, including books by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, and also “trashy romance” novels like True Blood. Angela’s first book series was the Anita Blake series by Laurel K. Hamilton. She did her undergrad in English Literature, so she’s extremely well read but is happy she can now read for FUN again! She loves the His Dark Materials books, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice & Fire, and the series of books based on the TV show Castle! She also reads a lot of Chinese books and loves fanfic.
Speaking of which, co-officer Erin used to write her own fanfic! For her, reading was always an escape. Her first literary obsession was the Young Jedi Knight series. While she loves sci-fi and fantasy novels, as she gets older she’s becoming more interested in reading more of the classics. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is one of her favorites. She also loves non-fiction, and highly recommends The Great Influenza. Newcomer Kalia loves manga, the Percy Jackson series, the Dragonkeeper series, and a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. The Percy Jackson films upset her! She also didn’t like the classic film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, because things were “out of order.” She kicked off a tangent about how anime is so watered down in the US.
Jenna grew up in Alaska, and didn’t have access to many bookstores, however she used to steal her parent’s science fiction subscription magazines. She loves Ray Bradbury, the Wizard of Oz series, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Margaret Atwood, Akata Witch , and Kay Jamison. She’s excited about the upcoming adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. Amy doesn’t read as much as she used to, and with no small amount of irony, this is largely due to her new job, Collection Development Manager for a library! She reminded everyone that most libraries have eBooks for check out, and she introduced us all to the OverDrive service, which every eBook lover MUST check out! She herself doesn’t really like eBooks, however. She uses goodreads and is trying to read newer sci-fi.
Co-officer Vanessa loves reading classic sci-fi from the greats, such as Bradbury, Heinlein, Jules Verne, HG Wells, but her literary obsession since she was a teenager is Kurt Vonnegut. She’s excited for the recently-announced Dan Harmon adaptation of her favorite Vonnegut book, “The Sirens of Titan.” She really enjoys reading sci-fi over any other genre, particularly dystopian or allegorical sci-fi. She couldn’t get through book 3 of A Song of Fire and Ice, so she’s given up on that and is just enjoying the show. Her favorite book of all time, however, is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
CJ is also an English major and therefore has no time for books! The first book she remembers is Little Women. Her go-to series is the Xanth series, largely for its delightfully bad puns. Along with Angela, she too loves the Anita Blake series. She thinks Gattaca is a great adaptation of Huxley’s Brave New World. She also admitted to reading the entire Twilight series “for a friend” which sounded tremendously suspect to the rest of us!
We ended the brunch with a book exchange, involving many genres of books including fantasy, murder-mystery, graphic novels, horror, and everything in between. We look forward to seeing our geek girls again next month!