Hi hi book club of /r/bangtan!
Can you believe it’s already August?! This week brings me such good memories of watching Hobipalooza and finally diving into this beautiful purple rabbit hole. While memories come and go in and out of my heart, and we wait for all the giggles and shenanigans, why don’t we curl up with a new book for our August discussion?

Our July discussion was a beautiful one about The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Ezupery (2000) – Recommended by multiple members and inspiration for Jin's Moon performance. A pilot crashes in the Sahara Desert and encounters a strange young boy who calls himself the Little Prince. The Little Prince has traveled there from his home on a lonely, distant asteroid with a single rose. The story that follows is a beautiful and at times heartbreaking meditation on human nature and is universally cherished by children and adults alike. In case you missed it and would like to participate in the discussion, it’s not too late to join! We tried out a new format for this discussion – what did you think?

As usual, we have five BTS-adjacent books to choose from. These books were either seen on a member's bookshelf/in their luggage, recommended by them, were seen being read by them, or are books about BTS and their music. The ult-list is much longer but we used a randomizer to choose these 5 for the poll and we'll have fresh choices for you each month (we're also taking suggestions for what you'd recommend to each member.) Take a look at August’s picks and vote on what we should read next!

Some key dates to remember

(All dates/time are in KST)

DateEvent
August 2Poll opens now – ends August 5 11:59pm
August 6Voters’ choice book announced
August 20Books with Luv discussion meeting

So many people to see, and places to go… and books to read

These are the 5 books you get to choose from for the month of August!

Title – BTS ConnectionDescription
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1916) – Seen on Namjoon’s bookshelves in a picture posted on weverse.When Gregor Samsa wakes one morning to find that overnight he has somehow transformed into a human sized beetle-like insect. His family is disgraced and disgusted. He becomes an outsider in the world, alienated and isolated. The comic absurdity of the plot highlight themes of alienation, inadequacy, isolation and guilt. Harrowing and thought provoking this is one of the most influential and widely read works of 20th Century fiction.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987) – Namjoon shared that this was a favorite book of one his closest friends in a Sept 2015 interview for ASTA TVA magnificent coming of age story steeped in nostalgia, a masterly novel blending the music, the mood and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love.
Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart by James R. Doty (2017) – The inspiration for the song Magic ShopGrowing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin (2008) – In an RM & V Live in October of 2017, V talked about how a fan had recommended this bookWhen sixty-nine-year-old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mom? Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.
Living Loving and Learning by Leo F. Buscaglia (1982) – In a late 2017 VLive, J-Hope introduced us to the edesigned 35th anniversary edition of this book, a lecture on the importance of loving yourself and knowing yourself.A delightful collection of Dr. Buscaglia's informative and amusing lectures, which were delivered worldwide between 1970 and 1981. This inspirational treasure is for all those eager to accept the challenge of life and to profit from the wonder of love.

Are You Sure…this is how to Book Club??

Below is a discussion guide. We will also be preparing some questions for you!

  • Book specific questions: TBA
  • Fan Chant: Hype/overall reviews
  • Ments: favorite quotes
  • ARMY Time: playlist/recommendations of songs you associate with the book/chapters/characters
  • Do The Wave: sentiments, feels, realizations based on the book
  • Encore/Post Club-read Depression Prevention: something the book club can do afterwards (on one’s own leisure time) to help recover from the book hangover.

If we’re tryna be special, can we get closer to you?

As always, if you have questions or suggestions on how we can make discussions even better please let us know. You can post it here or feel free to reach out to any of our lovely volunteers and mods!

With luv,

Our book club volunteers:

And the r/bangtan Mod Team

Make Like Seokjin and 달려라 to This Month’s Poll!

Vote for the book you would like to discuss in the next book club!

View Poll

by mucho_thankyou5802