The Little Stranger Discussion

This morning we met to discuss The Little Stranger, the 2009 novel by Sarah Waters. There were a range of responses to the book, with several people disliking it and several people enjoying the creepiness of the Gothic horror story.

One of the most prevalent discussions of the book revolved around class. The crumbling class structure of British 1940s is everywhere in the book, from the very obvious decaying Hundreds Hall to Dr. Faraday’s unspoken but clearly obvious desire to better his own class.

We also discussed who or what the “little stranger” of the title really was – was it supernatural, or was it mental instability of people who were losing their entire lives in front of their eyes? Was it possibly Faraday himself, who is certainly unreliable in his telling of the story? Because the author leaves the question deliberately ambiguous, the consensus of the Book Clubbers was that it was a somewhat unsatisfying end. We all wanted to know the answer!

Wave Book Discussion

Today at the book club, we discussed Wave, the memoir by Sonali Deraniyagala about surviving the 2004 tsunami that killed her two sons, her husband, and her parents. This was a very good discussion because we had a number of different opinions about the author. Some people found her very selfish and self-involved, and others felt she responded in a way that was reflective of the devastation that she had survived. A number of people felt very removed and detached from the author in a way they weren’t expecting, given the story she was telling. However, it was also noted that the author herself seemed very detached from the story. Her grief is overwhelming and non-stop; there is no hopeful ending here. She has survived, and written this book, but even at the end, she still yearns for her lost family.

One of the most compelling parts of the book is the way she talks about some of her actions after the tsunami. She recounts these events, seemingly without emotion. For example, when a Dutch family moves into the renovated house she lost her entire family in, she takes it upon herself to harass them into leaving. How dare they get to live in that house when Deraniyagala’s family died there, she thinks. They never leave, but they do change their phone number, and soon the author falls back into a stupor of Ambien and alcohol.

The Good Lord Bird Discussion

The book club met yesterday morning to talk about The Good Lord Bird by James McBride. The discussion was spirited and far-reaching, including discussions of current events as well as the historical realities of John Brown’s time.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion revolved around comparisons to Huckleberry Finn, which many reviews have noted. Some of the book clubbers thought this was a valid comparison, given the dialect, the humor, and the satire, but some didn’t quite see it.

One book club member brought a biography of John Brown in order to talk about the accuracy of the book’s portrayal of Brown. Most of the broad strokes of Brown’s life were true to all accounts, but some of the specific actions of secondary characters were embellished or completely created by McBride.

Because this book was based on real events and real people, we also discussed some of the additional secondary characters, such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Douglass does not get a particularly positive treatment in the book, but we discovered no basis in reality for these descriptions. 

Book Club Meeting Tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning, July 15, at 10 am, we will be meeting to discuss John Brown and Henry (Onion) Shackleford in the novel The Good Lord Bird. What did you know about John Brown, aka the “Old Man,” before reading this book? Did it change your views at all?

And if you get a chance, watch this interview with the author James McBride before then. He has a lot of interesting things to say about the book.

MCL Book Club Selection for July: The Good Lord Bird

Join us on Wednesday, July 15 at 10AM for a discussion of The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Mistaken for a girl on account of his curly hair, delicate features, and sackcloth smock, 12-year-old slave Henry Shackleford realizes that his accidental disguise affords him greater safety and decides to remain female. Dubbed “Little Onion” by his liberator, abolitionist John Brown, Henry accompanies the increasingly fanatical Brown on his crusade to end slavery — a picaresque journey that takes them from Bloody Kansas to Rochester, New York, where they attempt to enlist the support of such notables as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman before embarking on the infamous, ill-fated 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. — from NoveList

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We Were Liars by e. lockhart

Today we met in the Morris County Library conference room to talk about the YA novel everyone has been buzzing about, We Were Liars. We had our biggest discussion yet, but there’s still room for more of you! We’d love to have you.

Overall, people really liked this book, with many giving it 4 or even 5 starts. I don’t know if that’s happened before, so this was a definite favorite. A couple of people gave it a low of 3, mostly because even the significant characters were fairly flat and undeveloped. However, a case could be made for that actually being the way teenagers actually view other kids their age who they only see every summer.

First, we will not spoil the ending of the book, so don’t worry! If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a doozy, and no one saw it coming. Aside from the ending and its emotional impact, we discussed the themes of wealth in society. Cadence and her cousins are from the “keep a stiff upper lip” upper crust of society, and nothing breaks into that shell. As teenagers, they rebel against it, of course.

Morris County Library Book Club tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, June 16) at 10 am we will be talking about the YA novel We Were Liars by e. lockhart. This book twists and turns and is never quite how it seems. See you tomorrow morning! We can’t wait to talk about this one….

Also, in what will be no surprise to anyone, this book has already been optioned into a movie. Who will play Cadence? Mirren? Gat? Bring your favorite choices – no one has been cast yet!

MCL Book Club Selection for June: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Join us on Wednesday, June 17 at 10AM for a discussion of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Spending the summers on her family’s private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer – from Novelist

 

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Book Club Discussion on Kindred

Today we met at the Morris County Library to discuss the sci-fi classic Kindred by Octavia Butler. We had several new Book Clubbers, and it was a really fascinating hour and a half. We started by talking about why Butler chose to take a modern (well, modern in the 1970s) woman and transport her back to the Antebellum south, instead of just writing a more straightforward slave narrative. Some people didn’t feel like that worked for them; they didn’t like the time travel because it wasn’t realistic. Once we discovered how she came up with the idea of this novel, however, most of the book club members appreciated her reasoning, even if they still didn’t necessarily think it worked. As she stated in an interview:

I wanted to take a character, when I did Kindred, back in time to some of the things our ancestors had to go through, and see if that character survived so very well with the knowledge of the present in her head.

Book Club Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Wednesday morning, we will be meeting at the Morris County Library to talk about the sci-fi classic Kindred, by Octavia Butler. This book was written in 1979, but there is still a lot to discuss today. Make sure to join us in the conference room at 10 am for what will surely be a rousing discussion about this book. Coffee and tea will be served.