Was the future depicted in Feed realistic? Why or why not?

How did the infection affect how people access and interpret the news? Do you think the media outlets of 2040?

Georgia, Georgette, Shaun, “Irwins,” even using the term “zombie” to refer to the infected — what do you think of the use of current zombie lore being used in Feed?  Did it make things more realistic, or pull you out of the story?

Who was your favorite or least favorite character? What did you think about the relationships between the characters?

While Feed is a zombie novel, there is a lot more to it — do you think Grant is trying to make any statements about current culture?  What themes do you notice in the book?

The ending of Feed is…a little bit of a cliffhanger.  Are you excited to read the sequel?

(Oh, BTW — Geek Pittsburgh interviewed me about this book discussion! Read the article here.)

Not dead yet,

Karen

This book will blow your mind.

First up, by an unanimous vote, the just-got-to-know-ya book group have selected our April book to be Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, an eye-opening graphic novel memoir about a young girl’s complex relationship with her father growing up while having to help out with the family business of running a (fun)eral home. She discovers things about her father she never knew until after his death, and strangely enough, she develops a stronger connection to him than ever before.

Do you enjoy graphic novels? Then you will love this.

Never read a graphic novel before? This is worth the chance. You should take it.

Heck, already read this a million times? You should probably come.

This book will also make you question everything you have ever done.

If this isn’t enough to sway you, our May book will be Downtown Owl (and on CD, how delightful!), written by Chuck Klosterman. While Chuck is usually the guy behind heavily intricate essays on pop culture and the what-of-it notion of understanding, this is his first fiction novel. Set in a fictional town of 1983 Middle America, he spins a story of several characters who eventually become intertwined due to a historically accurate snowstorm that led to a few deaths. While this is not a graphic novel, you will still become immersed with his affectionate irony and modern humor.

The next meeting for Brookline Book Buzz is scheduled for April 25th at 6 PM at Cannon Coffee, the hippest coffee shop off the I-79 corridor. Coffee is produced by Commonplace Coffee Co., and let me just throw this out there: They have a sweet outdoor patio in the back. Don’t you want to sit outside in warm weather, drinking your iced coffee, and talking about awesome books? I know you do.

The sweetness that awaits you

Our first meeting will be Tuesday, March 26 at 6pm. We will be meeting at the OTB Bicycle Cafe, 2518 East Carson Street, 15203.

I am almost finished with the March book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and I am dying to talk to someone about it. You should join me and put me out of my misery. Don’t want to read the book? Listen to on MP3 or download the audio book (narrated by Wil Wheaton. Meee-ow.)

If I can’t tempt you with excellent reading material and/or my sparkling personality, let me also add that Tuesday night at the OTB is ONE DOLLAR TACO NIGHT.

No one should have to eat tacos alone.

-suzy

It’s happening!  Book Buzz will be coming to Brookline for your entertainment and enlightenment.  These particular Book Buzz meetups will be taking place at local business and community hot spot extraordinaire Cannon Coffee on the fourth Thursday of every month at 6 pm.

Our first meeting will be March 28 and we’ll be chatting, getting familiar, and selecting our first quirky, heterodox read.  Our books will be based on readers’ choice, as long they’re strange, uncommon and, yes… mind blowing.

{{heterodox}}

Each month we’ll meet twice to discuss two related titles: an old favorite and something a little more off-beat. Everyone’s welcome to come to one discussion – or the other – or both! Copies of each month’s titles will be available for check-out at CLP – Lawrenceville.

(Click on the dates to register!)

Pairing One: Cooks and Cooking

Child, Julia.  My Life in France
March 11, 2013 ** 7pm
CLP – Lawrenceville, 279 Fisk St.

The captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found “her true calling.”

Powell, Julia. Cleaving
March 25, 2013 ** 7pm
Perk Me Up Coffeehouse, 4407 Butler St.

This follow-up to Julie and Julia moves beyond French cooking and into butchery and heartbreak.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Pairing Two: Dead or Alive?

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein
April 8, 2013 ** 7pm
CLP – Lawrenceville, 279 Fisk St.

Scientist Victor Frankenstein creates a large and powerful creature in the likeness of man, but is disgusted by his own creation and he abandons the being to fend for itself.

Grant, Mira. Feed.
April 22, 2013 ** 7pm
House of the Dead, 4110 Butler St.

Twenty years after the zombie rising, bloggers Shaun and Georgia Mason are chasing stories that may not only change the face of American politics but also reveal the truth behind the infected.

**Books will also be available for purchase at the store.**

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Pairing Three: A Woman’s World?

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale
May 13, 2013 ** 7pm
CLP – Lawrenceville, 279 Fisk St.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.

Jordan, Hillary. When She Woke.
June 3, 2013 ** 7pm
Church Brew Works, 3521 Liberty Ave.

In the near future, prisoners are genetically modified, not imprisoned. Hannah is a Red: for having an abortion, she has been forever marked as the most heinous type of criminal.  Her road to redemption and to safety forces her to question everything she’s ever believed.

** Please note special date.  Discussion will be held in beer garden, weather permitting. **

CLP – Lawrenceville will be hosting Book Buzz: Book Pairings.  Much like fine wines and great food, some books just fit together naturally.  Each month we’ll discuss a classic title at our 115-year-old classic Library.  Then, two weeks later, we’ll discuss a related but more contemporary book.  I’ll be revealing the dates, titles and locations early next week, so stay tuned for more info!

CLP – South Side is jumping on the Book Buzz wagon.  The estimable Suzy Waldo will be bringing a group together for Happy Hour at some of her favorite watering holes to discuss some amazing titles. She told me what they are yesterday, but I’ll let her post them here herself.  Be prepared to be amazed!

CLP – Squirrel Hill is already doing a great genre book club, and they’ll be talking about a couple of my favorite titles this winter and spring. If you need something to tide you over until March, check out their discussion of Going Bovine on February 20th.  But, they’ll also be joining us in Book Buzzing soon!  Hoorah!

CLP – East Liberty will be holding a monthly book discussion, and CLP – Mt. Washington and CLP – Beechview are currently planning quarterly discussion out on the other side of the rivers.  Stay tuned for more information about those programs, too.

Aaaaand…drum roll please…Book Buzz is moving BEYOND book discussions.  For 2013 we’re looking at Bad Craft Nights (because crafts aren’t just for the crafty) and, if we can pull it off, an epic Book Speed Dating Night sometime in the fall.

What do you think? Yinz excited?

“Because words mattered.  Winning the words was a good part of the battle.” (p7)

“School is its own country.” (p7)

” ‘The personal is political’ Jimmy said to me one of the first nights I sneaked over to his house, ‘and the political is personal.  We vote every time we make a choice.  We vote with our lives’.” (p21)

“I also wanted to give him something he could hold in his hand.  It didn’t have to be expensive, only valuable.”  (p43)

“It’s not the end of the world until it’s the end of the world.” (p50)

“Even my voice had seen.” (p57)

“I thought I might change my mind about changing my mind.” (p88)

“I knew he was going to think less of me, but I hoped to minimize the lessness.”  (p90)

“Scorn.  I hit the vein of scorn.” (p91)

“I’ve seen facts get harder and harder to hide–and easier and easier to manipulate.”  (p102)

“My voice was a bare whisper, a pencil mark in the air.”  (p107)

“There was an ounce of further caution in our comfort.”  (p119)

“I knew right away he was rainbow spinkles and he hasn’t proven me wrong yet.”  (p129)

“Most were Stein/Martinez supporters experiencing the power of arrival.” (p134)

“Bodies and banners and signs, clothes of all colors, faces of all ages.”  (p140)

“Once again it felt like history.  But this time our piece was even bigger.”  (p140)

“It was if the air became so saturated with our voices that we were breathing sound.”  (p158)

“It was something beyond a standing ovation–it was a living ovation.”  (p158)

“To add to the thereness of the moment.  To say we would not be moved.”  (p160)

“We’d watched as its first leaves turned the yellow of raincoats.”  (p174)

“She looked like her thoughts hadn’t slept at all since she left.”  (p189)

“I was there.  Just one young gay Jew in a sea of people.  Just one lone voice in an enormous body of sound,  Just one unique person at one unique moment, there to witness something monumental.  I was part of history.  We are all part of history.”  (p221)

Funny Words

sniggering  (p33)

happy zoom  (p40)

thrumping  (p53)

gnashed  (p71)

chainmarts  (p133)

foolio  (p140)

gripple (p150)

hinky jinky  (p181)

~Marian

]]> http://clpbookbuzz.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/wide-awake-by-david-levithan/feed/ 0 marianj index http://clpbookbuzz.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/political-fiction/ http://clpbookbuzz.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/political-fiction/#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2012 16:35:48 +0000 dandanlibraryman http://clpbookbuzz.wordpress.com/?p=183 Continue reading →]]> …and I don’t mean the kind that they write about here.

I’ll admit that, on the sunny, 80 degree day on which we selected David Levithan’s Wide Awake as our November Book Buzz selection, we probably didn’t appreciate how tired of electoral politics many of our readers might be by now.  But if you’re feeling like the girl in this video, you may be in just the right mood to pick up a political novel.

The way I see it, fiction has a wonderful way of putting things into perspective and elevating us above the day-to-day noise.  Because in a great book like the ones below, you won’t find any charts, five point plans, or analysis of body language during a debate.  Instead, you’ll find people — sometimes key power players (didn’t you ever wonder what they’re thinking?), and sometimes the people affected by the policies enacted by the fictional politicians.

So let’s all take a deep breath, step back from the campaigns for a little bit, and dig into some great political fiction!

For starters, now is a good time to introduce our book club book, David Levithan’s Wide Awake.  Talk about the political becoming personal — in a sort-of-but-not-quite-familiar near future, a high school student finds that he has to push away from his family to embrace his political identity.  Do you ever have a hard time making the connection between the political world you see in the news and real, live, personal convictions?  Levithan makes the (hypothetical) political personal in this book, and after reading it, you may find yourself politically energized!

If you want a straight-up classic, try Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.  Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, this is the harrowing story of a Louisiana politician’s rise and fall in the 1930′s.  (Also a great movie.)  Supposedly based on the career of Huey Long, with whom I will forever associate the word demagogue because of what must have been a very effective 6th grade history lesson.

Gore Vidal brings the man on the penny to life in Lincoln, his biographical-fictional take on the Great Emancipator.  This is an interesting read — the facts are facts, but Vidal speculates what Lincoln’s experience must have been like.  Fascinating stuff.

Follow three generations of a fictional political dynasty in Ward Just’s Echo House.  Watch the Behl’s peddle influence in the best tradition of cynical, power hungry, backroom politics.

Alan Drury’s Advise and Consent, another Pulitzer winner, could also be called “How the Sausage is Made.”  Watch a fictional (based on reality, as always) Congress push and pull behind the scenes.

You may never meet a shrewder political operative than Tracy Flick, the high school go-getter and student council presidential hopeful in Tom Perrotta’s Election.  This hilarious send-up of electoral politics is highly recommended for anyone ready to check out of election coverage.  (Also a great movie.)

Do you have a favorite political title?  What do you even consider political writing?  I would actually argue that Dune is my favorite political book of all time, but that’s a subject for another post…

–Dan

Library staff and customers gather at Tazza d’Oro for great coffee and great conversation.

Some comparisons are obvious — we’re not the first to see major similarities between this title and the Harry Potter books, and the parallels between The Magicians and the Chronicles of Narnia are even more apparent in the sequel, The Magician King.  Grossman was raised on Narnia, and he talks a lot about it in this interview.  But what else is there?

Well, while we were chatting I mentioned that I knew this book was for me because it fits into one of my favorite sub-sub-genres: magical school stories.  And people there asked me what else there was.  And…I drew a complete and utter blank.  How embarassing!  But I promised that I’d pull together a list of some favorites and put it on the blog…and here it is!

Note:  this are NOT true read-alikes for The Magicians.  These are just books that I personally like that combine school stories with fantasy elements.  Your mileage may vary.

Mercedes Lackey goes at the top of this list.  Not all of her books are magical school stories, but many of them are.  A couple to get you started:

Legacies: Spirit White is an orphan, her entire family killed in a devastating accident.  As soon as Spirit is released from the hospital, she’s whisked away to a boarding school unlike any she’s ever heard of.  There she learns that she’s a “legacy” — her parents both attended the school as well.  And apparently the school does more than just teach English and math: it teaches magic.

Foundation: In Book One of the Collegium Chronicles, we meet Mags.  A neglected and abused child slave in a gem mine, Mags is soon rescued by a Companion who carries him into Valdemar, and straight up to the Collegium to be trained to use his heraldic powers.

Tamora Pierce is another of my personal favorites who has several series that might fit the bill.  Although her characters don’t go to school to learn their magic, magic plays a very large part in their life at school.  Alanna’s stories, beginning with Alanna: The First Adventure are the first of the Tortall tales.

Not enough for you? Okay, there’s more!

Bray, Libba.  A Great and Terrible Beauty.

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls-and their foray into the spiritual world-lead to?

Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea.

When Sparrowhawk, a young student at the School for Wizards, becomes overanxious and tries his dangerous powers too soon, he unleashes a terrible evil throughout the land.

Putney, Mary Jo. Dark Mirror.

Lady Victoria Mansfield, youngest daughter of the earl and countess of Fairmount, is destined for a charmed life. Soon she will be presented during the London season, where she can choose a mate worthy of her status. Yet Tory has a shameful secret – a secret so powerful that, if exposed, it could strip her of her position and disgrace her family forever. Tory’s blood is tainted . . . by magic. When a shocking accident forces Tory to demonstrate her despised skill, the secret she’s fought so hard to hide is revealed for all to see. She is immediately exiled to Lackland Abbey, a reform school for young men and women in her position. There she will learn to suppress her deplorable talents and maybe, if she’s one of the lucky ones, be able to return to society. But Tory’s life is about to change forever.

Sabin, E. Rose. A School for Sorcery.

Nothing could have been more unexpected – or exciting – than the letter that arrives in the mail informing Tria Tesserel that she has been accepted at the prestigious Lesley Simonton School for the Magically Gifted. Tria has known since she was a child that she had special gifts. Now she will be able to master her craft among peers as powerful as she. But Tria is crestfallen to discover the school is…well…a bit less grand than advertised. The shock of her dismal, tumbledown surroundings, however, is nothing compared to the surprise that awaits her: her roommate, Lina Mueller.

There are more…lots, lots more…as well as another fantastic sub-sub-genre: books about schools that teach teenagers how to be SPIES.  But that’s another list, for another day.

Yours,

Karen