f morsie reads

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

book clubbing in July

This month's book club selection was Good Omens (The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I didn't do such a good job with my genre distribution this time around since we've had two zany British books in the past three months,* but no matter.

I'd heard really good things about Good Omens, but I have to admit that I'm a bit ambivalent about the novel. I like the concept and, yes, I did laugh out loud at some points, but I never really got into it and I definitely felt that it dragged a bit. I probably wasn't in the right mood for the book.

Surprisingly, the other book clubbers were equally ambivalent (though to be fair, there were a few people who didn't actually read the book). Previously we'd read Gaiman's Neverwhere (read post) and we didn't feel that Good Omens was all that different. We discussed its similarities to Dogma, but those of us who had both seen the movie and read the book decided that we liked Dogma better (where Dogma gets into the knitty-gritty, Good Omens is much more superficial in its look at good and evil and the players involved).

We talked about Good Omens for a while, but then we wandered to other topics. It wasn't the most successful choice for us, but none of us regretted having read it.

* May's selection was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

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posted by karen! @ 1:23 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Book clubbing in June

This month's book club selection wass the 2008 Caldecott Medal winner, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

Though it is 500+ pages, The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a very quick read. It's not a graphic novel, but rather a novel that takes a cue from film and uses image sequences (in the form of detailed line drawings, also by the author) to further the plot.

I don't really want to get into plot since the story itself isn't very long. Selznick clearly put a good deal of thought and time into the book. It's very clever and there's a wonderful sense of interconnectedness to it.

One of the book club members checked an audio version out of the library (in the audio version the image sequences are replaced by realistic sound sequences) that came a bonus DVD. We watched part of it and had a chance to listen to the Selznick discuss about the book, how he came up with the idea(s) for it, and a lot of the historical background to it and that really did give most of us a new appreciation for the book.

As a group we thought that The Invention of Hugo Cabret was equally appropriate for children/YA and for adults. We appreciated the fact that the story revolved around a historical personage and how it taught us as readers about the history of film without being too obvious about it.

My only complaint is that the story itself was so short. I wished it would have been a bit meatier, taken a bit longer to read.

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posted by karen! @ 1:19 PM   1 comments

Friday, June 13, 2008

Booking Through Thursday to Friday - Clubbing

A day late...

Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose the next book and who would lead discussion?

Yes! I'd always wanted to be in a book club so I helped found a book club at work in 2006. We don't have one set person who leads our discussions each month. I usually try to get us started talking and then just let the discussion run its course. As for choosing books, we vote. I pull together a large voting list, divided by genre, based on suggestions from book club members, then I open up the voting to all library staff members (since everyone is welcome to come). Using the results of the voting, I schedule the books so that we read a different genre each month. Making a concerted effort to read a variety of genres is good for all of us. It helps us to branch out and it also makes the club a bit more inclusive and occasionally we do have someone come to a meeting just because we are reading a genre or book s/he is interested in.


Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

I don't think that the fact that a book is "assigned" (whether for book club or school or review) makes me more or less likely to appreciate it. In fact, I think that I force myself to be even more open-minded with assigned books (since in many cases I may be reading books I wouldn't chose on my own). I do think I probably do pay a bit more attention to assigned books, read them more thoughtfully, because I know I'll be having to discuss or write about them.

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posted by karen! @ 8:51 AM   1 comments

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

book clubbing in May

I was looking forward to this month's book club discussion. Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair was on the agenda and I knew that most of my book club members hadn't been exposed to Fforde or Thursday Next before. The Eyre Affair is the first book in one of my favorite series and I was wondering how everyone would react to Fforde.

My initial reaction to The Eyre Affair:
"I'd heard great things about this series and I was not disappointed. I loved the literary references, the crazy 'history,' and the all-round zaniness of the book. Not to mention the dodos!" (journal entry 10).

In preparation for the meeting I read my Illustrated Jane Eyre (blog post) and reread The Eyre Affair. It's a good thing that I did because I'd forgotten how different The Eyre Affair is from the other books in the series (it's much more self-contained) and exactly where Thursday's story left off at the end of the novel (to some extent, the books in the series do run together for me and it just would not do to spoil something from a book later in the series).

Only one other person in the book club had read the book before. And, I'm happy to report that all the others did seem to like the book (a few of them are planning on getting book 2!). I think some of Fforde's zaniness and side-stories were a bit much for some of them, but they all seemed to like the main plot line, the way Fforde envisions the world of books, and interaction-with-text aspect of the story.

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posted by karen! @ 9:14 PM   0 comments

Monday, April 28, 2008

book clubbing in April

This month my book club tackled its first classic,
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

I don't think I'd ever read A Room with a View before (the only Forster I remember reading is A Passage to India). I knew we'd have a good discussion, though, especially after I saw the new film adaption that aired on PBS earlier this month.*

We did indeed have a nice discussion. We talked about the novel as well as the 1985 and 2007 films. We discussed Forster himself, the subtleties and class distinctions in the novel, our feelings about the various characters, the proper pronunciation of "Beebe", and the novel's possible connection to Howards End among other things.

Personally, I enjoyed A Room with a View and I'm thinking of reading more Forster in the relatively near future.


* They changed the ending?! I was shocked and horrified at what they'd do in the name of "modern audiences", but I knew it'd be good discussion fodder.

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posted by karen! @ 1:05 PM   2 comments

Monday, March 03, 2008

book clubbing in February

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Last month's book club selection was Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. I actually didn't finish the book in time for our discussion on Wednesday (I only finished yesterday), but I was rereading and remembered enough that I wasn't going to worry about spoilers.

We had a full and lively discussion on the book, hitting on topics like
- who is the blind assassin referred to in the title
- how would we have reacted to the book if we were older and had lived through more of the time period described in the book
- who was responsible for Laura's death and way
- the fairy tale aspects of the book (this came from one of those sets of discussion questions put out by publishers and we completely disagreed with the question-author about the story being at all fairy tale-like)

One of the best things about reading this book is that it introduced quite a number of our members to Atwood for the first time and left them asking the rest of us about which of her books to read next (we recommended Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale).

March is nonfiction...

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posted by karen! @ 4:43 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

book clubbing in January

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult was chosen as a filler when it took longer to set up our voting than we expected. Having read a number of Picoult's other books (Keeping Faith, Mercy, My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, The Pact, Plain Truth, and The Tenth Circle), I was sure that Vanishing Acts would be good discussion fodder.

The issue at hand in Vanishing Acts is whether it is ever acceptable to kidnap a child.

One thing that we all agreed on is the Picoult tried to cram way too much stuff into this book. The novel could have easily been made into two and there wouldn't be so much to distract from the main story. (Honestly even though Fitz was a main character, he really didn't need to be in the story at all; then there was Ruthann...)

Since Picoult's general modus operandi is to take an issue and blur the lines so much that you really can no longer see it as a black-and-white issue it was interesting that that wasn't the case in this book (at least with the main issue, Andrew's antics in jail are a different matter entirely). As a reader, your support of Andrew and his decision never really wavers throughout the book.

What I found most interesting about my book club discussion is that most members who hadn't read Picoult before were interested in reading her other books, while most of the members who had read her before were ambivalent about reading her in the future.

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posted by karen! @ 1:32 PM   0 comments

Thursday, January 17, 2008

future book club selections, 2008-2009

It seems like I've been waiting forever to finalize and post this list, but the wheels of democracy turn slowly...

In any case, it looks like we have a nice variety of books on the schedule and I'm looking forward to discussing them.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
To be discussed: February 27, 2008

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
To be discussed: March 26, 2008

Room with a View by E.M. Forster
To be discussed: April 23, 2008

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
To be discussed: May 28, 2008

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
To be discussed: June 25, 2008

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman
To be discussed: July 23, 2008

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
To be discussed: August 2008, date TBD

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
To be discussed: September 2008, date TBD

Austenland by Shannon Hale
To be discussed: October 2008, date TBD

Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker
To be discussed: November 2008, date TBD

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
To be discussed: December 2008, date TBD

Possession by A.S. Byatt
To be discussed: January 2009, date TBD

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
To be discussed: February 2009, date TBD

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
To be discussed: March 2009, date TBD

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
To be discussed: April 2009, date TBD

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
To be discussed: May 2009, date TBD

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
To be discussed: June 2009, date TBD

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
To be discussed: July 2009, date TBD

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
To be discussed: August 2009, date TBD

Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel
To be discussed: September 2009, date TBD

Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
To be discussed: October 2009, date TBD

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
To be discussed: November 2009, date TBD

Princess Bride by William Goldman
To be discussed: December 2009, date TBD

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posted by karen! @ 12:17 PM   3 comments

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

book clubbing in December

Because the Libraries' holiday party was scheduled for today, our book club meeting was rescheduled for Thursday of last week. Voting for our 2008 and 2009 selections is going on right now - so exciting - so expect that list to be posted sometime in the middle of next month (the results of our last round of voting are listed in this post).

In any case, our selection for this month was Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.
Persepolis is Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
I was excited to read the book because I've had Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (rescued from the bargain bin at a local independent bookstore) on my shelves for a while without a good excuse to pick up the first book.

Persepolis was a relatively quick read, but one that bears re-reading. I really appreciated how Satrapi's drawing style complimented the subject matter (expressive, but spare so as to not overwhelm the actual story she was telling). Probably my favorite part of the book was Marji's relationship with God and how it is depicted.

For some of the people in our book club, this was their first experience with graphic novels. A librarian who specializes in graphic novels was in attendance so he ended up leading the discussion. And, while there is much to discuss in the book itself, we ended up talking mostly about graphic novels in general.

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posted by karen! @ 12:13 PM   1 comments

Friday, November 30, 2007

book clubbing in November

It's the end of November, I can hardly believe it. Where has this year gone?

Like I mentioned yesterday, my book club met on Wednesday. This time we discussed The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue, a book inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem of the same title. Of course, I left my copy of the book at work so I don't have it with me to reference as I write this post (but, c'est la vie).

I first heard of The Stolen Child when a read my friend Janelle's review of the book. A number of us wanted to read the book, but I scheduled it far in advance in hopes that it'd be more readily available after it came out in paperback. Because of that time lag, I didn't remember much about the book. In fact, I didn't remember the most important thing about the book, which is that the faeries/hobgoblins/changelings in the story are creatures who were originally human children (in all the other changeling stories I've read -- most recently The Moorchild by Eloise Mcgraw -- the human children are stolen by beings of a completely distinct fantastical race). That twist on the changeling myth gives the novel much more weight. [I got pulled away to watch a movie on TCM]

In any case, my response to the book fell pretty much in line with the response of my other book club members. I (we) found the book compelling, but quite disturbing at times (it's hard to discuss details without including spoilers). The book was a challenging read, but definitely worth it (though I probably would not recommend it to parents of young children). There is so much detail, that the novel makes great discussion fodder for a book club. My one criticism of the book is that there are some completely unnecessary coincidences (two big ones), which made (at least for me) the story a little less believable.

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posted by karen! @ 7:32 PM   2 comments

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

book clubbing in October

This month's book club pick was The Poet and the Murderer by Simon Worrall. I find that fact that our other nonfiction title for 2007 was The Professor and the Madman kind of amusing. I'm sure that the two were chosen because of subject matter, but it does seem that we respond in some way to that title format.

Voting for our 2008 selections will happen next month and I'll be posting our reading list for next year in early December at the latest. A list of our 2007 (and late 2006) selections is available here if you are interested.

Anyway, about the book: First of all, it really wasn't what I expected. Because of the title I assumed there would be a more even handling of Dickinson and Hofmann. As it was, Dickinson seemed pretty tangential to the story the author was trying to tell. We learn all about Hofmann and his personal history, the LDS Church (historic and contemporary), the rare book and manuscript trade, auction houses, early American printing, and forgery techniques, but very little about Miss Dickinson (beyond little tidbits and theories tossed into the narrative journalistically). Hofmann's story is compelling in and of itself and I'd almost rather that Worrall didn't try to merge it with Dickinson's.

You can tell that The Poet and the Murderer was Worrall's first book and that his background is in journalism. The narrative is very episodic with an emphasis on the more exciting or salacious details (for example, it seemed like Worrall rushed through the murders and what let up to them, but he was very explicit about what happened to the female victim, explicit enough to turn your stomach).

All this isn't to say that we didn't like the book. I think most of us did (or at least found it quite interesting). We liked that the tale began from the perspective of a librarian. And, I think we all learned more about Mormonism and forgery than we'd known before. But, we didn't like the typographical errors or that fact that Worrall didn't really reference his sources.

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posted by karen! @ 1:06 PM   1 comments

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

book clubbing in September

It's that time of the month again. My book club met today and we discussed Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Richard Mayhew is a young businessman with a good heart and a dull job. When he stops one day to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk, his life is forever altered, for he finds himself propelled into an alternate reality that exists in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations below the city. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

Neverwhere received a pretty positive response from the book club. We all liked it, some more than others, and because of that (as is typical for us) our discussion about the book itself wasn't that in depth. That's not to say we didn't have a good discussion, we just got off track a bit talking about graphic novels and the Millennials and movie adaptations and ...

Personally I liked the book, but found it a bit slow. Though that's probably because (as usual) I waited until the last minute to read the book so I couldn't put it down in favor of something that was better suited to my mood.

My impressions of the book, however, we're definitely affected by the fact that I'd read China Mieville's Un Lun Dun relatively recently. The concept behind Un Lun Dun and Neverwhere is similar, with an alternate world existing beneath our feet. Un Lun Dun's un-London is a bit more fantastical (and the novel a bit more playful as it is geared toward a different audience). I enjoyed Un Lun Dun, but after reading Neverwhere I know exactly how much Mieville is indebted to Gaiman

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posted by karen! @ 4:08 PM   4 comments

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

book clubbing in August

I simply can not believe that it is almost the end of August. Where has this summer gone?

In any case, we had another book club meeting today during which we discussed Arthur Phillips' The Egyptologist.

Set in primarily in 1920s Boston and Egypt, The Egyptologist is the tale of a fanatical Egyptologist searching for the tomb of an apocryphal pharaoh against the backdrop of Howard Carter's famous exploits in the Valley of the Kings.

I came to The Egyptologist warily. I liked the concept behind the novel, but I was expecting not to like it because I had a lot of trouble his first novel, Prague (I started it on four different occasions, but never managed to get through it, which is very rare for me). I am, however, happy to report that I did enjoy The Egyptologist though I did end up rushing through it since a huge ARC arrived along with a very short deadline.

In any case, we all liked the book though we were a bit confounded by it. Half of us who'd finished it (myself included) had figured out the "mystery" early on, but we did not think that detracted from the book. We loved the combination of unreliable narrators and experience of hearing various versions of the same story and having to sort out the "truth" for ourselves.

I'd definitely recommend this one and I know exactly who I'm going to pass my copy to next.

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posted by karen! @ 2:16 PM   2 comments

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

book clubbing in July

This month's book club selection was Tracks by Robyn Davidson. The book is subtitled "a woman's solo trek across 1,700 miles of Australian outback" and is less an account of the trip itself than a chronicle of that time in the author's (mental) life.

Tracks opens with Davidson and her trusty canine companion, Diggity, arriving in Alice Springs with only $6 and a dream: to travel across the central desert with three wild camels. We follow the author through her preparations (2 years!) and the trip itself--with the accompanying mental angst, injury, romance (?),and wild animal attacks--and in the process we learn much about camels, the Australian outback, and plight of the island's aboriginal inhabitants.

Most of our book club members didn't actually read the book before our discussion today. One member quite liked the book. I thought it was just OK, I expected more (I know, I know, it's not good to come at these books with preconceived notions, but sometimes you just can't help it).

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posted by karen! @ 3:36 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

book clubbing in June

When developing the reading list for my book club, one of my primary concerns was on variety - both to challenge us to read outside of our usual genres and encourage pop-ins who might only come to a meeting because we were reading their favorite genre that month (though now that I think of it, we did manage to miss some pretty big genres like romance and horror). In any case, June turned out to be a science fiction month with us reading Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card.

In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.

Even though I was raised on fantasy, I never really got into science fiction. While I do read science fiction occasionally, the operative word there really is "occasionally." Even though I'd heard murmurings about Pastwatch I probably would never have gotten around to reading if it hadn't ended up on our book club reading list. I'm glad that I did though because I did quite like it, particularly its unique combination of historical fiction (one of my favorite genres) and science fiction. I decided that I was going to like Card (who I'd never read before) and Pastwatch, when I read in his acknowledgments: "A complaint to Sid Meier, for the game Civilization, which seriously interfered with my ability to concentrate on productive labor".

Though a number of us found the book to be slow going at the onset, those of us who finished it found that Pastwatch got much better toward the end and that at a certain point we became very invested in the story and needed to find out what happened.

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posted by karen! @ 1:52 PM   6 comments