A Short History of Nearly Everything - May 23

We'll meet at Suzanne's to discuss A Short History of Nearly Everything on May 23.  

The Hunger Games - April 25

We'll meet at Karen's (I think) to discuss The Hunger Games.

Supplemental materials:

Scholastic study guide

News stories about casting for the movie:

• Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss)
• Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) and Liam Hemsworth (Gale)
• Maybe John C. Reilly (Haymitch)

The Brothers Karamazov - April 11

We'll talk about The Brothers Karamazov on April 11 at Katherine's house.

Supplemental materials:

• Dartmouth College study materials, including reading questions and an essay by Donald Sheehan about Eastern Orthodoxy in Bros. K.
• Middlebury College study guide
• Joyce Carol Oates essay, "Tragic and Comic Visions in The Bros. K"
• GradeSaver essay questions
• Wikipedia entry for The Brother Karamazov (with an image of a page of FD's handwritten notes)
• Wikipedia entry for Pushkin
• Wikipedia entry for History of Russia 
• Project Gutenberg text (Garnett translation)
• Public domain audio recording (Garnett translation)
• Nicholas Rourke Miller:  The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor: Moral Transformation in The Bros. K.
• Timothy Jacobs: The Brothers Incandenza: Translating Ideology in [The Bros K] and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest 
• Dostoevsky and Shakespeare
• Robert Belknap, Columbia:  Shakespeare and the Possessed

As always, if you come across anything, please let me know.

Little Bee - Feb. 28, 2011

We'll talk about Little Bee at our next meeting, Feb. 28 at Kathy's.

Check back again for location and supplemental materials.

Madame Bovary - January 31, 2011

We'll meet January 31, 2011 at Julie's to discuss Madame Bovary.

Supplemental materials:

• Sparks Notes: Study questions with essay suggestions
• GradeServer: Essay topics
• Cummings Study Guides:  Summary, discussion and essay questions
• About.com: Discussion questions 
• Barron's Book Notes/Pink Monkey: Discussion and test with answers
• Wikipedia entry for Madame Bovary
• Wikipedia entry for Gustave Flaubert
• Text at Project Gutenberg (Eleanor Marx Aveling's translation)
• Summary of Nabokov's lecture about Madame Bovary

As always, let me know if you come across any good supplemental materials and I'll add them here.

Updated book schedule

We made some switches to our book order. The new order is:

Jan. 31: Madame Bovary
Feb. 28: Little Bee
Mar 28: Brothers Karamazov
Apr 25: The Hunger Games
May 23: A Short History of Nearly Everything:
June 27: Alias Grace
July 25: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Aug 22: The Pillars of the Earth
Sept 26: I'm Not Scared

We swapped the red books and the blue books.

The new order is reflected in the calendar in the right column and in the "What We've Read" list.

New York Times Notable Books for 2010

The New York Times today online published its list of Notable Books for 2010.  The list includes new novels by authors we've read, including Per Petterson, Andrea Levy, and Louise Erdrich.

Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson - Jan. 3 - UPDATED with materials

We'll meet at Connie's house.

Supplemental materials:

• ReadingGroupGuide.com
• Nortana Reader's Guide
• Interview - Boston Globe
• Interview - Star Tribune
• Interview - The Guardian
• Review - NYTimes
• Review - NPR
• Review - The Guardian 
• Discussion - The Quarterly Conversation (Per Petterson and the Masculine Question)

My Antonia, Willa Cather

We'll discuss My Antonia on November 22, 2010.  Host TBD.

Supplemental Materials:

• Full text of My Antonia can be read or downloaded from Google books in pdf format or from Project Gutenberg in a variety of file types (since its copyright is expired and it's in the public domain)
• Reading Group Guide
• Houghton Mifflin's Reader's Guide
• Teacher Vision Reading Guide
• Penguin Group Reading Guide
• Yale-New Haven's Teacher's Institute paper including Questions
• Novel Explorer's Summary (including discussions of themes, historical perspective, construction)
• Wikipedia entry for My Antonia
• Wikipedia entry for Willa Cather
• PBS/American Masters bio materials about Willa Cather
• Willa Cather Foundation on Facebook
• Steph's blog post

Dracula on Kerri Miller

Here's the Midmorning show from 10/26/10 wherein Kerri Miller interviews Leslie Klinger, editor of "The New Annotated Dracula."

Slate for 2010-2011

Nov. 22: My Antonia, Willa Cather
Jan. 3: Out Stealing Horses, Per Paterson
Jan. 31: Madame Bovary, Flaubert
Feb 28: Little Bee, Chris Cleeve
Mar 28: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Apr 25: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
May 23: The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
June 27: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
July 25: The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Aug 22: The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
Sept 26: I'm Not Scared, Niccolo Ammaniti

Here's how the pitching and voting went:

Classic
Madame Bovary - Julie, Katherine and Suzanne - so many votes we didn't count

General (First number is first ballot/Second number is run-off vote):
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Kathy (53)
Little Bee - Kerry (42)
Brothers Karamazov - Steph (36)
Alias Grace - Steph (34)
Out Stealing Horses - Kerry (33)
My Antonia - Gayle (26)
I'm Not Scared - Kathy (24)
Pillars of the Earth - Steph (22/31)
Cutting for Stone - Suzanne (21/15)
Zertoun - Julie (20/27)
Hunger Games - Connie (19/37)
The Dog Says How - Suzanne (16/17)
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Gayle (13/29)
Pass the Polenta - Suzanne (12/13)
The Farming of Bones - Gayle (10/23)
Founding Mothers - Gayle (8/5)
Kitchen Confidential - Katherine (7/4)
The Glass Castle - Ruth (4/?)
One Good Turn - Ruth (0/?)

Book Picking Night: Oct. 25 at Kerry's at 6:00

Start time will be 6:00 for BOOK-PICKING NIGHT, OCT. 25, 2010



We decided a few things tonight:

1) We'll start book-picking night at 6:00.  We are committed to arriving on time and getting right to the business of pitching so that we have plenty of time to pitch and select books. It's important to people to enjoy the pitching/deciding, so we won't rush through that.  If people need to leave before we're done, we won't bring a rushed conclusion to the voting.

2.) We'll have one slot designated for a classic.  No other slots will be designated this year.  Books pitched, but not selected, for the classics slot can be submitted for the general vote.

3.)  We'll keep the voting method the same.  Typically one person can get a book selected by applying all their pennies to a single book, so each person has the power to make sure we select a book of their choice.

4.) Going forward for the season, we'll be committed to arriving on time (6:30) and getting the book discussion started by 6:45 at the latest.

5.) As always:  if you send me the long lists of what you're considering pitching, I'll post info here, so people can investigate your books prior to book-picking night, if they are so inclined.

Olive Kitteridge, Sept. 27

We'll discuss Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, on Sept. 27 at Steph's.

Supplemental materials

• Strout's website
• NYTimes Review
• Boston Globe Review
• Reading Group Guide
• Christian Science Monitor Article about Strout winning the 2009 Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge
• LibraryThing entry
• Steph's blog post

Business: October is Book-Picking Month

October is BOOK-PICKING Month!  Be thinking about changes you'd like to see in our picking process.  I'd propose that we bandy about thoughts and ideas at the Aug meeting; then, at the Sept meeting, crystallize those into votable issues to make decisions.


P.S. 8/15:  I think we need an annual photo.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon: August 23

We'll meet at Ruth's house.

Supplemental materials:

• Chabon interviewed by Kerri Miller for Talking Volumes (2007) about YPU
• Harper Collins Reading Group Guide
• NYTimes review of YPU
• Bio of Chabon from his agency, including links to all kinds of fabulous stuff, including articles and essays Chabon has written and interviews he's given.   
• Wikipedia entry for Chabon, including this paragraph that I thought was interesting (emphasis added and footnotes omitted):

In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew", Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in genre fiction and plot. While The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was, like The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys, an essentially realistic, contemporary novel (whose plot happened to revolve around comic-book superheroes), Chabon's subsequent works — such as The Final Solution, his dabbling with comic-book writing, and the "swashbuckling adventure" of Gentlemen of the Road — have been almost exclusively devoted to mixing aspects of genre and literary fiction. Perhaps the most notable example of this is The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which won five genre awards, including the Hugo award and Nebula award. Chabon seeks to "annihilate" not the genres themselves, but the bias against certain genres of fiction such as fantasy, science fiction and romance.

• Definition of "noir":  2. Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
• Steph's blog post