Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Great Books About the Beach
At the beach, by the beach, for the beach... Here's what the Wall Street Journal has amassed for our reading pleasure.
Monday, August 9, 2010
I want to participate in this book club but I cannot stand certain books on this list....
No problem, fellow reader! Allow us to share our mitigating strategies. We have discussed this challenge at length and noodled several options. Do we bag the Booker assault altogether and pursue something new? Do we vote to skip certain titles? Do we deviate from our set purpose and oh-so-easy method of reading to a set list, when we know that certain undesirable mountains lurch menacingly in our collective futures (we're talking to you, Ondaatje)?
Our thought is no... and yes. Here's the deal. From mutual experience, we like the idea of reading to a previously-set list. It eliminates the monthly scramble to select a book. It focuses and organizes us around a theme and allows our monthly reading to connect itself to a larger related literary set, to which we find ourselves frequently referring, comparing, questioning, revisiting. It exposes us to books that few of us would admittedly read on our own. It seems to regulate and improve attendance in a way that random monthly book selection did not; people know ahead of time to what they have committed, and therefore, they come.
How then, to handle situations where members have already read or simply can't bear to read a selection? We fear that, in the immortal words of Tevye, if we bend too far from our tradition, we will break. So we will not alter our official reading list. However, in dire individual straits, we invite and even encourage authorial substitution. If a member cannot abide an author's Booker winning entry, we hope they will enrich the discussion by reading another work by the author and therefore contribute to the discussion by offering us the perspective of the author's additional writing. How often in our conversations do we ask each other if we've read other works by the same pen, if the affectations that puzzle us are unedited faults of the author or deliberate acts of genius meant to shatter and delight us? By reading into their canon, members can deepen our understanding of the writer and therefore, of the work we are discussing while feeling they are participating without the torture of the book they simply could not read (ah, memories of the Atwood's The Blind Assassin, may it gather dust far away from me).
Alternately or additionally, members can, as so many often do, read commentary and interview with the writers about the month's work. While by instinct we usually save these contributions for the latter part of our discussions, we always value every additional perspective at the table and often find in these comments new layers for dissection and insight.
The bottom line is this: Read. Attend. Discuss. In any sequence and quantity you can in any given month. Each member has to date walked in with books unread, partially read, and fully read. And they have contributed and felt sated from the experience of participating. That's what we hope the continue giving and receiving in the group.
Our thought is no... and yes. Here's the deal. From mutual experience, we like the idea of reading to a previously-set list. It eliminates the monthly scramble to select a book. It focuses and organizes us around a theme and allows our monthly reading to connect itself to a larger related literary set, to which we find ourselves frequently referring, comparing, questioning, revisiting. It exposes us to books that few of us would admittedly read on our own. It seems to regulate and improve attendance in a way that random monthly book selection did not; people know ahead of time to what they have committed, and therefore, they come.
How then, to handle situations where members have already read or simply can't bear to read a selection? We fear that, in the immortal words of Tevye, if we bend too far from our tradition, we will break. So we will not alter our official reading list. However, in dire individual straits, we invite and even encourage authorial substitution. If a member cannot abide an author's Booker winning entry, we hope they will enrich the discussion by reading another work by the author and therefore contribute to the discussion by offering us the perspective of the author's additional writing. How often in our conversations do we ask each other if we've read other works by the same pen, if the affectations that puzzle us are unedited faults of the author or deliberate acts of genius meant to shatter and delight us? By reading into their canon, members can deepen our understanding of the writer and therefore, of the work we are discussing while feeling they are participating without the torture of the book they simply could not read (ah, memories of the Atwood's The Blind Assassin, may it gather dust far away from me).
Alternately or additionally, members can, as so many often do, read commentary and interview with the writers about the month's work. While by instinct we usually save these contributions for the latter part of our discussions, we always value every additional perspective at the table and often find in these comments new layers for dissection and insight.
The bottom line is this: Read. Attend. Discuss. In any sequence and quantity you can in any given month. Each member has to date walked in with books unread, partially read, and fully read. And they have contributed and felt sated from the experience of participating. That's what we hope the continue giving and receiving in the group.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The New Dirty Dozen
And here they are, the short list, the last men and women standing, the 2010 Man Booker Dozen... (Is two-time winner Peter Kelley Gang Carey just a mandatory nominee by now?) Apparently they went with a baker's dozen of 13 books. They'll announce the winner on September 7. Do you think it's an honor just to be nominated?
- "Parrot and Olivier in America" by Peter Carey
- "Room" by Emma Donoghue (coming in September)
- "The Betrayal" by Helen Dunmore (not yet available)
- "In a Strange Room" by Damon Galgut
- "The Finkler Question" by Howard Jacobson (not yet available)
- "The Long Song" by Andrea Levy
- "C" by Tom McCarthy (coming in September)
- "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet " by David Mitchell (LA Times review)
- "February" by Lisa Moore
- "Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray (coming in August)
- "Trespass" by Rose Tremain (coming in October)
- "The Slap" by Christos Tsiolkas
- "The Stars in the Bright Sky" by Alan Warner
WHO PICKS THESE BOOKS???
We keep asking ourselves and each other: Who selects these Booker prize-winners, and on what basis? What is the magic formula, if any, and how does it vary between years? We discuss how and whether politics, ethnocentricity, culture, age, literary snobbery, or other secret ingredients produce the list that we are so faithfully plundering.
Here is a peek into the 2010 committee - for a book we have not read as a group, as it was selected after we began our journey back in time. Does the mighty selection process seem somewhat defanged when you see a mere group of young mortals standing together for an office photograph, or do we get insight into the truly subjective and ever dynamic reality of literature?
And do we still wonder what they were thinking when they chose ______________ (fill in the blank with your most painful Booker memory!)
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1310
Here is a peek into the 2010 committee - for a book we have not read as a group, as it was selected after we began our journey back in time. Does the mighty selection process seem somewhat defanged when you see a mere group of young mortals standing together for an office photograph, or do we get insight into the truly subjective and ever dynamic reality of literature?
And do we still wonder what they were thinking when they chose ______________ (fill in the blank with your most painful Booker memory!)
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1310
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Most Anticipated Books for the Rest of 2010
Here's what they say is coming...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-most-anticipated-book_b_655312.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-most-anticipated-book_b_655312.html
Monday, July 19, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Top Ten Books You Were Forced To Read In School
From Time Magazine. Have you read them? Have you re-read them? Do you agree they are greats?
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2002836_2002835_2003010,00.html?hpt=C2
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2002836_2002835_2003010,00.html?hpt=C2
Friday, January 1, 2010
Bestsellers of the Decade - Huffington Post
Click here for a fun look at Decade Blockbusters
(Click "Next" at the top right of each book cover to advance through the slide show.)
(Click "Next" at the top right of each book cover to advance through the slide show.)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
