Hello book club of /r/bangtan! Welcome to November~ ARMY can’t catch a break between Jung Kook’s Calvin Klein ads (😳), Namjun’s CEO side quest, and Jin suddenly announcing an encore show complete with livestream viewing and a tuna based merch drop. Unlike BTS, the Books With Luv team will give you a break for the holidays, so November is Jin’s month!
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in last month’s discussion of Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura! Did you cry? 👀 Whether you haven’t quite finished yet or haven’t started, you are welcome and encouraged to jump into the discussion!. No hard deadlines.😀
We are back with 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. Take a look at February’s picks and vote on what we should read next!
Some key dates to remember
(All dates/time are in KST)
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct. 30 | Poll opens now – ends Nov. 2 11:59pm |
| Nov. 3 | Voters’ choice book announced |
| Nov. 24 | Books with Luv discussion meeting |
When you feel down, when you feel all alone, when you need someone to lean on…our November books will be there for you! (sorry 😭)
These are the 5 books you get to choose from for the month of November!
| Title – BTS Connection | Description | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger (1961) – Jin was spotted totally definitely reading this in a photoshoot where he looks like a snack~ | A short novel in two parts where siblings Franny and Zooey navigate through trauma, grief, and entering into adulthood with love. | ~176 pages |
| Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (1986) – Recommended by an r/Bangtan user for our Ghibli loving Jin! And you can’t tell me Jin wouldn’t love Howl. | When Sophie unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. A middle grade novel. | ~448 pages |
| Demian by Hermann Hesse (1919) – Demian really is that girl in Boraland! All of the members of BTS read it, and it’s written beautifully into the WINGS album and music videos, and Seokjin shines beautifully in them. | Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. | ~176 pages |
| Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader edited by Patty Ahn, Michelle Cho, et al (2024) – A collection of academic essays on BTS and ARMY. You can find the essays on the Duke University Press website here | From tracing BTS’s hip hop genealogy to analyzing how the band’s mid-2020 album reflects the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrating how Baroque art history influences BTS’s music videos, the contributors investigate BTS’s aesthetic heritage. They also explore the political and technological dimensions of BTS’s popularity with essays on K-Pop and BTS’s fan culture as frontiers of digital technology, the complex relationship between BTS and Blackness, the impact of anti-Asian racism on BTS’s fandom, and the challenges BTS poses to conservative norms of gender and sexuality. Bangtan Remixed shows how one band can inspire millions of fans and provide a broad range of insights into contemporary social and political life. | ~432 pages |
| Cursed Bunny: Stories by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (2022) – A recommendation from an r/bangtan user! The guys all seem to love to read quirky Korean literature. | By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own, illuminating the ills of contemporary society. No two stories are alike. | ~256 pages |
Nothing without your love
Vote for the book you would like to discuss in the next book club!
To vote for the book you would like to discuss in the next book club, [CLICK HERE](insert poll link)
Please note, it may say “Your Name Will Be Shared” below the poll. To maintain anonymity, don't login to your Canva account, should you have one. That way your name and email will remain anonymous and we will only see the poll response count.
Say what you want! Let’s ask the big questions
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.
Remember to stay warm and always be healthy so you can wake up for impromptu Weverse Lives.
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
251030 /r/bangtan Books with Luv: Jin’s the One You Should Love: Reader’s Choice Poll for November
byu/HopHope98 inbangtan
by HopHope98