Hayley

I was also horrified by Of Mice and Men - I think Steinbeck meant for us to be! I tutor kids who are studying it for GCSE and I don't like teaching the ending because it makes me so sad every time I read it. I definitely don't think it would lead to discrimination against disabled people though, I think it does the opposite. As you said, pretty much everyone has the same reaction and I think that's because Steinbeck makes us see how horribly unfair society is to Lennie, how he doesn't ever really stood a chance, and as readers we don't want that. So I think it's more likely to make people think about the way disabled people are treated in society in a way that might lead to positive change. Actually, I think that does for all the prejudice represented in the book. Discrimination against physical disability (with Candy and his dog), race (with Crooks) and gender (with Curley's wife) all feel similarly unfair. None of them really stand a chance, we get this sense of inevitable tragedy and that's not the kind of society we want to live in. Have you read the Burns poem the title is based on? To a Mouse by Robert Burns | Poetry Foundation

There's a fairly commonly held theory that Sherlock Holmes is addicted to cocaine in Arthur Conan Doyle's series, but it doesn't form a big part of the books. Excellent detective stories though

Woah, that was a huge repair bill. You definitely deserved some good news after all that! Phew! That would almost be funny. I was on holiday in Devon last week, so I was definitely cheered up by that. Lilly (my puppy) got to go in the sea for the first time, which was very cute. I also booked this week off work, although I'll just be at home, it's given me a chance to catch up on all the things I keep meaning to do! Extra cheered up when I went to buy a couple of plants from a local shop and was allowed to have one of them for £1.50 instead of £2.20 .

Just noticed Waterstones have half price on some books to pre-order, including Stephen King’s Fairytale and the new Robert Galbraith

It doesn't really remind me of King Lear, I was thinking a little bit Merchant of Venice and a little bit Romeo and Juliet! I haven't read it yet but I feel like something drastic will have to happen soon to make me like Cloten!

Yes, good idea we have had these threads in the past, but only covering the current year - it will be nice to have an ongoing one! I'm looking forward to Fairy Tale by Stephen King, which I think is out in the first week of September. And I didn't even know this existed, so now I'm looking forward to this too!

That’s totally fair. I can see why it isn’t one of the more popular plays. In some ways it feels like a combination of ideas from other plays to me? I don’t think they would have, they liked the shocking bits 😄 I actually thought that might be where it was going too! Absolutely was not expecting him to be in the box!! Poor Imogen is just getting one bad thing after another in this story!

You can when the information is there - it’s one of the things that will become easier once we’ve all added more books!

Thank you! I’ll send a list of the errors in as much detail as possible to the developer at the end of the week - if they’re connected I’m sure he’ll know and hopefully he’ll be able to fix them . So please do keep posting about any issues/ errors that occur!

You don’t have to if it’s a pain but yeah, the more information I can send about what isn’t working the better! Same for these, if you get a chance, it would be useful to know exactly what isn’t working!

The app pulls the data from Google books, so as long as it’s accurately listed there it should all work! If any don’t seem to be doing that correctly, send the ISBN to me and I’ll report it to the creator

Should be fixed now!

Thanks for this Kev, that's really helpful. Putting in bookclubforum.co.uk should direct it to the community page, so I'll get that sorted as soon as possible.

If anybody is on Twitter, Oscar de Muriel is doing a giveaway for a full set of the Frey and McGray books - all signed and doodled in . Winners will be chosen next Monday!

I don't remember this one but it's certainly an intriguing title!! 😅

That's really weird. I use the forum on Edge usually (from my laptop, running windows 10), from Chrome sometimes and from Safari on my phone - all of them have been faster since the update! I wonder whether clearing cache and cookies on your browsers might help? If it's the same after you've tried that I'll contact software support and see if they have any ideas.

Oh they're lovely! They really don't look like they'd be simple!

I couldn't work it out for a while either! It does of course mean that the more we use the shelves, the easier it will become for others - because more books will already be there to add

Yeah I agree, it is tough to define genres so explicitly sometimes. Although I also agree that your books do seem to fit broadly into 'literary fiction' category. I thought about having a cross-genre category but I suspect that it might get a bit messy. As Raven said, there is a part about getting ISBN's in the instructions I posted earlier. Personally I think searching 'google books' + book title is the easiest way - because you can just copy and paste the ISBN then . not at all - easy to miss.

With the new forum update we have a new feature - the 'Books' app! This will allow you to create your own bookshelves, comment on other people's shelves and rate the books on your shelf. You can also see your bookshelf in your profile! How do I start my bookshelf? Go to the 'Books' app (underneath our logo) and select 'bookshelves' - you should see an option to create your shelf! How do add books to my shelf? It depends whether somebody else on the forum has already got the book on their shelf. If they do, you can simply click on your shelf, select 'add books' in the top right corner, type in the book title and 'add book'! If nobody else has added your book yet, you just need the ISBN of your book to add it. You can find the ISBN above the barcode of a book, on it's 'copyright' page, or by searching google books/ waterstones etc. Once you've got your ISBN click on the '+create' button on the top right hand side of the forum (next to the notification bell and message icons). You will see the option 'book'. Choose which category you think your book belongs in (e.g. it's a non-fiction book/ it's a fantasy book...). Now you will see the 'submit new book' page. Simply add your ISBN, wait a moment for it to load, and all of the data for your book (including the cover!) will be added for you. Once you click 'submit book' you (and everyone else!) will be able to add the book easily using it's title from now on. I started my shelf! Now what? If you click on any of the books on your shelf (or on somebody else's shelf!) you can see other books from the same author, the same publisher, or just books which are similar! So explore new books, explore other member's shelves, interact with them (you can 'like' other shelves!) and have fun. If you have any more questions about how to use the bookshelves, please let me know in this thread

Horror is on there alongside fantasy and science fiction (because that's the original grouping on the main forum page!)

You won't be able to actually do it yourself, I have to add them from the Admin CP, but if you tell me the category I'll add it for you . I just thought I'd start off with the categories which already exist on the forum's main page. Speaking of which, I will post instructions on how to use the bookshelves tomorrow!