welcome to bookbug!
Bookbug is a digital book club that is centered around discussions and reviews. Each month members will read a book and publish their thoughts to their personal sites. We chose to set up our club this way in order to give members more freedom and to encourage self expression.Announcements
NEW Our review spotlight page is up! :-)Update July 15th: Please take the time to vote on our next book below! And thank you for voting on our 'book lengths' poll, your opinions have been noted! :-)
Our July book is To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf! Happy reading!
about the club
This is a book club housed on Neocities. Members read a monthly book & record their thoughts or reviews on their own personal sites. We (Maple and Vashti) hope this can foster a sense of community and discussion amongst readers. Most of all, we want this to be a place where people can make friends and have fun! If this is something you'd be interested in, we encourage you to join. We are always taking new members!about the founders
This site was founded by Maple & Vashti! As of May 2024, Vashti is no longer running it, but will be forever in bookbug's hearts ♡a message from Maple
Hi there, I'm Maple! I have always dreamed of participating in a book club, but had never found one that read the same type of books I like, and have never found someone that shared a similar taste, to create one myself - well, until now! I've always been a big reader, which made me choose to study English Language & Literature at university (which I graduated in 2019!). Even though I always read a lot, I never really write about the books and that is something I want to change. I tend to like more classic and gothic books in general, but also enjoy contemporary books and plays!
Favourite books: The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides), The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov), Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde), and some other stuff hehe.
A message from Vashti
Just reading books; trying to read like a child again.
Favourite books: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Olga Tokarczuk), Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto), Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke), & many more!
how it works
Each month we'll read a new book. Book club members will create a /bookbug page on their site that houses their thoughts about our monthly reads. Your thoughts or reviews can be in any format that you'd like. As long as you read the book & write about it, it's okay with us!Every month on the 15th a new poll will be added to our homepage, so that members can vote on our next read! And then on the last day of the month, the poll will be closed and the winner announced.
NEW Do you have a book suggestion for the club? Bookbug will now take in your proposals via email only! Please keep in mind that: submitting a book title does not imply that it will be definitely added to future polls; and the club's preference of more 'classical' choices. If you have any in mind, send them over to neobookbug@gmail.com.
member requirements
As long as you have an active site, with a /bookbug page, you are good to go!We prefer if you have a button in standard size (88x31) to be added to our member list - no problem if you don't! We'll then use a placeholder button instead.
We do prefer if you could participate in every monthly reading, but it's totally okay if you don't make it from time to time (:
Also, please make sure to include the club's linkback button on your page (mandatory)!
NOTE we will do member sweeps every couple of months and remove: links that go nowhere; pages that don't include the club's button; and/or pages that contain anything offensive/etc!
how to join
Once you create a /bookbug page, contact us via e-mail with your button and link.Please send your request to join to neobookbug@gmail.com
member list
link back
hotlink is okay (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
credits
✳ layout base by fiziwhig, edited by maple to work on neocities - please, do NOT use it for your page.✳ bug doodle and button by maple
✳ background from doqmeat
review spotlight
Some amazing reviews from our member's! Please note that they will probably contain spoilers.
July 2024 read Elilenti's review of the first part of To the Lighthouse!"People struggle with the tediousness of familial life. This book is about those who formed the nuclear family-or didn't-and question whether they made the right decision for themselves."
June 2024 read Vita's review of Strangers on a Train!
"The writing felt fairly dense yet not difficult to parse. I do feel like even though Guy was one of the main characters of the book, he had drastically less agency than Bruno or even Anne. Everything that happened in the book felt like it was already laid out for him, and all that needed to happen was for the first domino to fall."
May 2024 read Jo's review of The Master and Margarita!
"Many modern authors tend to shy away from over-description, and with good reason. Bulgakov pulls this off by gradually introducing Moscow, his settings and characters through the episodic plot. We slowly learn about Woland and his friends - introduced first from an outsider perspective, then an insider one."
April 2024 read Ondine's review of Notes from Underground!
"These deep, unhealthy mental recesses still hold a good reflection of the erratic, irrational core of human nature. Dostoyevsky understands that humanity is guided on by desires that logic can't always explain, and that we sometimes know things are harmful to us, but we do them anyway to satisfy irrational whims."
past reads
p.s.: hover over the book covers to see each title!
For you
Archive of bookbug images for you to include in your /bookbug page, if you want, of course!
If you do decide to use them, please credit them back to this page! :-) They were both hand-drawn (and hand-written) by maple. Hotlink is okay!