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Let’s continue looking at the top vote-getters in the 2011 ABBC, today examining the speculative fiction category. I’ll focus on the top four, perhaps returning to this category at a later date, as it seems to be receiving more attention than ever in this year’s best-of-the-year lists and awards. As usual, the latest full ABBC spreadsheet, which now contains over 1,500 2011-published books that have received mention , is available via my other blogging home, WRL’s Blogging for a Good Book.

Haruki Murakami’s parallel worlds epic 1Q84 has received 21 mentions to date, putting it in a tie for the best reviewed book in the speculative fiction category. It follows a young woman who begins noticing oddities in her world and a young writer working on a mysterious ghostwriting project. As their worlds unravel, the reader discovers connections between their experiences. The 925 pages of this novel (it was published in three parts in Japan) make it a challenging choice for book groups, but those who persevere will experience a poignant romance, a hearty dose of dystopia, and enough mental gymnastics to keep their minds spinning for some time to come. This is probably the masterwork by one of our most important contemporary writers.

Erin Morgenstern has also received 21 best-of-the-year mentions for The Night Circus, a novel about two young magicians, each surrogates for a powerful behind-the-scenes figure, who compete in a magical battle in the black-and-white tents of Le Cirque des Rêves. Marco and Celia fall in love, which creates complications as the contest proceeds. Written in a highly descriptive style and with many viewpoint characters, this will appeal to readers who like lush, poetic language and beautiful, creative images but may prove frustrating for those who demand linear storytelling.

Stephen King’s latest 11/22/63 is in third place with 14 best-books mentions so far. It’s the story of a high school teacher who finds a portal back to 1958 and becomes involved in a plan to prevent the Kennedy assassination. At 849 pages, this is another tough one for book groups to crack, but it is King, and that means that the pages go quickly, full of romance, Americana, and thrills. The many pop culture references to the early 1960s will make the novel especially fun for groups with readers who remember the time period.

The fourth book in the speculative fiction list is George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons, just one mention behind King’s book with 13 votes to date. We’re five books into A Song of Ice and Fire, and this latest is 1016 pages. While the series is a personal favorite, book groups can’t tackle its length easily or jump into this fifth book without having read the first four. Instead, if you want to try it, I recommend that you address the series as a whole. Each reader can focus on the spot where they currently are in the series, or even just sample the HBO series Game of Thrones which is relatively loyal to the first book (though perhaps more focused on its tawdry aspects). You’ll find plenty to talk about in discussing Martin’s style without needing to divulge many key plot points.

More analysis of this and other categories from the ABBC will follow throughout the month of February. Stay tuned as I keep working to compile the votes.

The Downtowners book group at Kansas City Public Library is the fastest growing book group at Central. The group members do a great job of talking up the group among coworkers and friends, and they are very welcoming to new readers. They are an eclectic group of readers and have always been open to anything as long as it’s discussable. Here’s what lies in store for the coming year.

January: In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia  Alvarez–This book has been so popular there are no copies left for the facilitator to read! And it’s not available as an ebook, either. I see this as a good thing. Everyone is eager to read this book and they’ll be talking so much, no one will notice I didn’t get to read the book.

February: City of Thieves by David Benioff–An official selection of the KCPL Adult Winter Reading Program Destination: Anywhere! I’ve discussed this book before and it has great appeal for men and teens. I wrote about it for BGB here.

March: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon–Another suggested title off the Destination: Anywhere! list. It has also been a book group favorite nationwide.

April: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard–A great nonfiction choice with appeal to readers of all ages from a Kansas City author. I discussed this book in December with the Kansas City Star/KCPL FYI book group.

May: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain–One of the Downtowners’ suggested this title. This group likes to read historical fiction in the warm months. They enjoyed Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and this novel is a good readalike.

June: Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick–I will be encouraging some group members to listen to Philbrick read his own homage to an American classic.

July: A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse–This is the title that made the list because I want to read it.

August: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward–Downtowners will be the last of my book groups to read this year’s National Book Award winner.

September: Just Kids by Patti Smith–Another suggestion from a member of Downtowners. We like memoirs and this one is stellar.

October: The Turn of the Screw by Henry Miller–Just in time for Halloween, we’ll be reading this classic novella and watching the film version for a Read It/Watch It.

November: Tinkers by Paul Harding–Award winners are a favorite of this book group and one of the members campaigned for this indie fave novel.

I should have known that some of the most creative, educational, and fun ideas involving books and book groups would come from Youth Services Librarians. Especially the ones at the Galloway Township branch of the Atlantic County Library System.

Book Adventures is their offering for children in first through sixth grades to enhance the kids’ reading experiences and, hopefully, improve reading skills in school.

Each month the book group leader selects a theme and a book and the attending readers will discuss the book, play games, solve word puzzles, and/or make a craft (sometimes an edible one) related to the theme or the book. All the while the kids are talking about what they’re reading and how what they’re doing relates to the reading.

Read more about the program here in a news article from The Press of Atlantic City. Then think about ways to liven up adult book groups with some of the same activities.

Has your book group discussed Abraham Verghese’s big, drama-stuffed novel, Cutting for Stone, yet?  From what I’ve been hearing, it’s currently a very popular choice with book clubs, even though it weighs in at well over 600 pages.  Because of the book’s length, I assigned it to my group in November for our January selection (since we don’t meet in December, that gave everyone two months to work on it).

Cutting for Stone is a novel about doctors written by a doctor, and as you would expect, it’s loaded with medical details.  This aspect of the book may work as both a plus and a minus — at least that’s what my group thought.  Some readers loved the authentic descriptions of diseases and ailments and their corresponding treatments , while others flinched at these passages and quickly skimmed over them.

Highlights of our discussion?  One participant felt that the author, a male, had trouble creating female characters that exhibited any real complexity.  Another admitted confusion about the complicated delivery of conjoined twins that begins the book: the babies are supposedly connected at their heads, yet the physician performing the delivery sees only one of the heads trying to emerge from the mother and subsequently damages the child — considering where the babies were connected, how could this happen?

Dr. Verghese feels strongly that practicing medicine is a noble profession — one that should be approached with great care and compassion.  This passionate philosophy comes through in his storytelling, despite some melodramatic elements in the novel.  This is one of those books where a son abandoned at birth by his father in Ethiopia still manages to encounter him many years later on the other side of the world, in America; where two brothers become romantically involved with the same woman; and where a man provides a life-saving organ for his brother, whom he once betrayed — etc., etc.

No denying there’s lots to discuss here.  Certainly no one in my group found the book boring.  And oh, I forgot to mention — the mother of the conjoined twins is a greatly revered nun!  How’s that for a real attention-grabber?

Some writers manage to capture our present in a timeless way and one such writer is Stewart O’Nan.  Last Night at the Lobster envisioned America’s economic collapse and celebrated the quiet, unsung struggle of so many to make their way in a time of uncertainty before the recession really hit. Stewart O’Nan’s latest novel, The Odds, is about a married couple who head up to Niagara Falls for a Valentine’s Day weekend with their whole financial outlook and relationship at a precipice.

Art and Marion Fowler have been married for 29 years. But the emotional corrosion of affairs and unemployment and looming foreclosure has not helped their general outlook. We meet them at the end or at the beginning of something new. Art and Marion have different expectations of this last hurrah. One of them thinks that they are here to save their marriage while the other believes it is beyond being saved. Which of them is right?

O’Nan begins each chapter with an amusing or alternately depressing statistic like “Odds of a couple making love on Valentine’s Day: 1 in 1.4.” So often the odds are stacked against people, no matter how hard they try. You can live an honest life, play by the rules and still find yourself coming up short and staring down the barrell of bankruptcy. O’Nan doesn’t pull any punches with these truths. In this slim novel, O’Nan plumbs the odds so many face with compassion, wit and serious gravity. You wish the best for Art and Marion, whatever their personal desires may be. You want them to somehow figure out how to make it work. Because if they can’t how can anyone?

I, for one, am convinced of the power of O’Nan’s skills as a writer. His praises deserve to be shared widely. I know Neil has vouched for him here, too. The Odds is just more proof that O’Nan is a writer with courage, compassion and creativity on his side. As Ron Charles in The Washington Post said, “O’Nan is an author you learn to trust, no matter what he’s writing about.”  And the subjects and characters he explores are so timely, so in need of understanding and discussion.

Try Stewart O’Nan for your next book discussion. The odds are that your group will agree on one thing–O’Nan is one amazingly talented writer.

Knowing that many readers today have been trained by our societal clock to never luxurate in any enterprise, I almost hesitate to recommend a book for discussion that took me a week to read.

But when the book is Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, it is easy. 

The basic plot of this murderless detective novel, the tenth in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, is that Wimsey’s love of five year, Harriet Vane, has been steadfastly putting him off each time he proposes marriage.  When her old college of Shrewsbury at Oxford celebrates a gaudy and a character assassin goes to work, Vane decides to stick around and figure out whodunnit.

Proving to be more about other things then the actual investigation, this richly plotted, thick atmospheric novel takes its sweet time dealing with the state of women’s education, the stresses of academic life and the foolishness caused by romance.  In addition, because it is Sayers, it is also filled with ancient quotes, poetry, references to classical literature and other challenges to the reader that go unforgivingly unexplained. 

But the quotes from Sayers herself make her Dorothy Parkeresqe.  Here are some of my favorites from the book:

“Learning and literature have a way of outliving the civilization that made them.” p. 48

“That was the great possession in which–with all his limitations–the scholar could account himself blessed: the single eye, directed to the object, not dimmed nor distracted by private mote and beams.” p. 66

“Because, though nine-tenths of the mud might be thrown at random, the remaining tenth might quite easily be, as it usuall was, dredged from the bottom of the well of truth, and would stick.” p. 75

“The trouble is,” said the Librarian, “that everyone sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens, then they demand angrily what has become of discipline.” p. 106

“If you learn how to tackle one subject–any subject–you’ve learnt how to tackle all subjects.” p, 163

“But now you have the age of national self-realization, the age of colonial expansion, the age of barbarian invasions and the age of the decline and fall, all jammed cheek by jowl in time and space, all armed alike with poison-gas and going through the outward motions of an advance civilization, principles have become more dangerous than passions.”  p. 339

However, the payoff quote for those who follow the series becomes:

“Placetne, magistra?”

“Placet.”

Now you have to spend a week reading the book to find out why.  Then you will want to discuss it with someone.

John Lithgow’s memoir, Drama: an Actor’s Education, is a refreshingly frank and focused take on the familiar actor biography. While there are a few tidbits here about the many famous people he’s shared a stage or screen with, and a little bit of backstage gossip, the bulk of Lithgow’s book is not about name dropping or self-aggrandizement, it’s about what the title says, how an actor learned his craft.

To me, this book strikes a nice balance between the boasting that ruins some memoirs and the transparent false modesty that condemns others to phoniness. Lithgow is proud of his achievement, but also acknowledges his mistakes and the many times when luck and good connections helped him advance. His story is framed by memories of his father, Arthur Lithgow, an actor, director, and theatrical producer who worked for many major repertory companies but never achieved anything like his son’s fame or stability. The relationship between father and son is complicated, sometimes distant but full of mutual admiration, often supportive but also a little competitive.

Lithgow also talks frankly about his failures as a husband during his heyday in 1970s theater, when he let the romance of the stage lead to a series of affairs, culminating with one with Liv Ullman that contributed to the demise of his first marriage. In fact, he confesses his failures in this book–highlighting the lessons that he learned from each–more often than he crows about his successes.

If you’re looking for stories about Lithgow’s best known films and television roles, look elsewhere. The focus here is on his learning curve, his early stage and film roles when he was still picking up his craft, not the years in which he’d already achieved success and stability. There are praises for some of his favorites: Mike Nichols, Meryl Streep, and several less famous early directors, but he refrains from taking cheap shots at others, concealing their identities when he doesn’t have something nice, or at least balanced, to say. What a reader will learn about both the highs and lows of the actor’s life will more than compensate for this shortage of dirt dishing.

If you’ve ever seen Lithgow’s reception from other actors at an awards ceremony or other occasion, you’ll know that he’s held in high esteem by his collaborators. After reading this memoir, I can understand why.

Here are the top five vote-getters so far in historical fiction from the 2011 All-the-Best-Books Compilation. You can see all 91 titles in this genre that have received votes or review any of the other genres by downloading the full ABBC spreadsheet via Blogging for a Good Book at Williamsburg Regional Library.

Tied for fourth place with 10 votes is Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility. Its a stylish, shimmery debut novel set in the high society of 1938 Manhattan, where Katey Kontent, an up-and-coming charmer with her aim set on conquering the publishing world meets Tinker Grey, a wealthy, enigmatic, and handsome businessman as the new year begins. The events that follow have drawn comparisons to The Great Gatsby, Edith Wharton, and Truman Capote, exploring the many conflicts between social rules, the success of relationships, and personal happiness. It’s a jazz- and art deco-filled valentine to another time that would make an excellent book group selection.

Also with 10 votes to date is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Fans of the recent Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris might enjoy exploring this fictional study of Hadley Richardson Hemingway, Hemingway’s first wife, who endured the Lost Generation years with him in 1920s Paris. The book has plenty of “Hem,” F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce, but the real focus is Hadley, and her struggle to maintain a sense of self while caring for her narcissistic and moody husband. This might be a fun book to pair with Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises or A Moveable Feast. Shake up a few cocktails and your book group will be ready to go.

Number three in historical fiction with 14 votes to date is The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. It’s an 1850s western featuring two brothers sent by the shady Commodore to kill off a pesky prospector. Charlie Sister is a whiskey-swilling, bullying killer. The narrator Eli Sister is a much more gentle man, pudgy and melancholic, who doesn’t know any other way but is beginning to question his life choices. The book captures the rowdy atmosphere of the San Francisco area during the Gold Rush, utilizing ornamental language that contrasts with brute behavior. Pair it with other classics of wry Western humor like True Grit, Little Big Man, or Roughing It.

Alan Hollinghurst has received 15 best-of-the-year nods for The Stranger’s Child. The book takes readers to the end of the Georgian era, to an English country house where poet Cecil Valence visits for a weekend with his Cambridge friend George Sawle and his sister Daphne. He writes a poem that immortalizes Daphne, then goes off to die shortly thereafter in WWI, but whom is the poem really about? The story works forward through almost a century of history, following the fallout from that weekend and the changing ways in which it is viewed as attitudes toward homosexuality, culture, and literary taste shift over time. While the book will draw comparisons to Atonement, Brideshead Revisited, and Possession among others, it’s an original work that should draw further attention to Hollinghurst’s distinguished body of work, all of which deserves book group attention.

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje has the most best-of-the-year votes of all in historical fiction (and is tied for the third most mentions overall), with 18 votes to date. The title table is the one reserved for the least desirable passengers on the ship that carries the 11-year-old narrator from Ceylon to a new life in London in 1953. Michael and two other boys have adventures as they ramble around the ship, a curious mix of boyish hijinks and witness borne to some very adult events. In particular, they view a prisoner in chains, and the fate of this man continues to haunt Michael as he later ponders those 21 days on ship from an adult perspective. Ondaatje captures the way in which a short, intense period can continue to have impact throughout a life in this page turner that captures a child’s sense of wonder with perfect pitch.

Books like Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic, Geraldine Brooks’ Caleb’s Crossing, Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, Mary Doria Russell’s Doc, and John Sayles’ A Moment in the Sun are among those that follow these frontrunners in the ABBC results in what can only be described as a strong year for historical fiction.

The Women Who Dare book group at Kansas City Public Library likes to discuss books that are written by women and that focus on women’s relationships, concerns and issues. This is a group that reads women’s fiction with depth and literary quality. Here’s the list for the coming year.

January: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan–the group read Jordan’s debut novel, Mudbound, last year and enjoyed it. They’re looking forward to her sophomore effort.

February: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot–Now that every book group in the states has finished discussing this compelling medical narrative, it’s our turn.

March: Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim–this title is an official selection of the KCPL Adult Winter Reading Program, Destination Anywhere! It will also be one of the Read It/Watch It series at KCPL.

April: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender–every year one book makes the list because it’s one I want to read and I’ll need to “assign” it to myself. This is that title.

May: Elegies for the Brokenhearted by Christie Hodgen–whenever possible I like to include a local author and Christie Hodgen’s quirky elegies was very popular with Kansas City readers.

June: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward–this is the time of year that all three book group start reading the same title.

July: A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure–an inspiring adventure story that will rouse the readers in the middle of a sultry Kansas City summer.

August: The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart–there’s always one book on the list that I’ve never heard of. This is that book.

September: The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning–the group likes historical fiction with strong female characters who mix with real historical people and situations.

October: The Wilder Life:  My Adventures in the Lost World of “Little House on the Prairie” by Wendy McClure–Whenever we talk about favorite childhood books, Laura Ingalls Wilder is always mentioned. How fortunate this memoir was published recently.

November: The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon–a compelling story with a lively pace and interesting characters.

December: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson–the last book of the year is always a stress-reliever. This sweet story about two older residents of a small English village is a good selection for a hectic time of year.

Some times publicity works in reverse.

I am probably the only person on this site who has nor either read Cold Mountain or seen the film.  I have no excuses, just stating the facts. 

When I read the reviews for this novel, I knew the appeal factors contained within those raves made this book a perfect read for me.  This is a noir tale–and so much more.  There are many circles in this book and when the circles overlap things happen.  Luce is living in an abandoned lodge hiding from the town folk who remember how her inattentiveness in the past led to their town school being burnt to the ground.  The lodge has just been inherited by a man named Stubblefield who wanders into town unprepared for the effect of seeing his long fawned over beauty contest participant living on his property.  Luce has two children living with her, the mute twins of her dead sister Lily.  Lily’s ex-husband Bud has decided since a jury could not convict him of killing Lily, he might as well hunt down his kids and find his missing money.  All of these individuals come together in a town guarded by a deputy named Lit who had, has and will have a remarkable acquaintance with all the characters.

See those circles within circles?

Perhaps the plot would be enough to draw me in but Charles Frazier is a exquisite writer, able to make the best use of language while maintaining pace and tone in the novel.  The setting is bone chilling and the deep dark forest that provides the Nightwoods is as much a character as any person in the book.  His ability to translate a fairly tradition thriller-like plot into a work of literature makes this work able to be recommended to readers of James Dickey, Daniel Woodrell, Scott Phillips or James Lee Burke. 

Book discussion groups should be endlessly satisfied with this title.  It is so good it has made me vow to move Cold Mountain from the fiction section onto my TBR pile.

Today, I came across an interesting article about reading at the Harvard Business Review of all places. It explores how reading novels can make one more successful in the business world. I’m not terribly interested in the business aspect, but the fundamental argument of the piece is that reading novels makes one more empathetic to other people, more aware of their emotional states.

It turns out that new brain research is bolstering arguments about the many values of reading made by folks like Catherine Sheldrick Ross (see her wonderful Reading Matters) and Martha Nussbaum (take a look at Cultivating Humanity). A study at York University found that the more fiction people had read, the more able they were to identify the emotional state of people by looking at a photograph of their eyes. Further research in 2009 by the same team found even broader correlations between reading and emotional stability, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The bottom line seems to be that reading about characters in fiction, whether they are like us or not, helps us to understand how other people think and feel.

I suspect that reading’s power to enhance empathy is part of the secret behind the success of book groups. By comparing our reactions to the emotions of characters in group discussion, we enhance our emotional intelligence even further. Bonding over the emotions that we encounter in books is at the heart of the powerful social connection we can develop in the group. There’s a power in reading together that goes beyond even that of reading alone. But then those of us who frequent Book Group Buzz already knew that, didn’t we?!

Facilitators looking to add some international flavor to their reading groups should have a look at the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. This prestigious award will be presented at the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.

The award’s short list was announced last October and on January 21, the second annual prize will be given in fiction.

Here’s the short list:

Bharathipura by U.R. Ananthamurthy–in contemporary India, a man challenges ancient caste law by bringing “untouchables” into a  local temple.

A Street in Srinagar by Chandrakanta–The lives and loves of the residents of this overcrowded street in Srinagar intertwine with humor and poignancy.

Monkey-Man by Usha K. R.–At the start of the new millennium, the people of Bangalore are fascinated, frightened, and puzzled by the appearance of a mysterious creature whose presence may indicate drastic changes for them all.

Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka–A dying man’s stubbornly spends his last months on a quest to find “the greatest cricketer to walk the earth” and his journey illusrates the story of modern day Sri Lanka.

The Thing About Thugs by Tabis Khair–Amir Ali, member of the infamous Thugee cult, is sent to London to have his skull studied for the advancement of phrenological studies and finds himself in the midst of a murder investigation.

The Story that Must Not Be Told by Kavery Nambisan–an aging widower joins forces with a young journalist and his girlfriend to bring improvements to the slum next door and becomes the target of slum terrorists.

The compilation of all the best-books-of-2011 lists and awards continues, and the latest version of the resulting ABBC (All the Best Books Compilation) can be reached via my other blogging home at Williamsburg Regional Library’s Blogging for a Good Book.

While the compilation is a work in progress, trends are beginning to emerge, and I can safely identify some of the books that are likely to be at or near the top of their categories when the compilation is complete. I’ll be writing about these from a book group perspective over upcoming weeks. Today, let’s take a look at the leading vote-getters in biography and memoir.

Joan Didion’s Blue Nights tops the list with 16 votes to date. Her earlier memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, was very popular with book groups, and covered similarly difficult family disaster. In the first book, Didion reflected publicly about coping with her husband’s sudden death, and Blue Nights commemorates the death of her daughter Quintana Roo in similar fashion. Frank, and often brutally raw, these books are both excellent choices for groups and since they are relatively brief (mercifully), could even be combined in a single night’s discussion. Consider, however, staying clear if your group reacts badly to depressing subject matter or has members who have very recently lost family members.

Given some of the high profile writers and subjects on this list, the unknown Gabrielle Hamilton’s 14 votes to date for Blood, Bones & Butter: the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef is a true testament of the book’s quality. Hamilton has a unique background that incorporates training as both a chef and a writer. Add to that a difficult and eccentric family, a grittier-than-usual path to the top of the restaurant world, and some rather unusual approaches to relationships, and you have a food memoir that stands out in an increasingly competitive field. Some readers might find this a little too melodramatic, but most will just eat it up.

Also with 14 votes to date, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs has a great pedigree: an A-list biographer takes on a newly deceased American icon with a complex, many-sided personality. This detailed portrayal of a difficult man is the perfect reading companion to all of the laudatory obituaries that accompanied Jobs’ recent death. It makes a good microcosm for the excesses of the business world and couldn’t be much more timely. One caution for book groups, while a marvelous choice, this is 630 rather dense pages long. Allow a little extra reading time or encourage your readers not to delay getting started.

Next up, with 11 votes so far, is Tina Fey’s Bossypants. While she’s a fantastic comic performer, Fey’s deepest credentials are in the writing end of the business, and her skills are on display here. Deftly mixing social commentary with memoir, she effortlessly shreds sexism in the entertainment business and self-important politicians. Women will relate more than men to much of this material, but Fey’s trip from nerd girl to comedy megastar to often awkward mother and wife is a tour-de-force.

Andre Dubus III also has 11 votes for his Townie: A Memoir. It’s largely about the culture clash between Dubus and his father. After his parents’ divorce, the younger Dubus grew up in a depressed 70s mill town and was soon dragged into its violent street culture. His father was an eminent writer who spent most of his time in the more genteel world of the university and saw his son only rarely on weekends. It’s a story of a child neglected by his parents for different reasons, enraged by his resulting condition, and ultimately redeemed by art. For book groups it might be interesting to pair with some of the father’s short stories or Dubus pêre’s other big hit The House of Sand and Fog.

After this top five, other high vote-getters in the biography and memoir category are Joshua Foer’s recounting of developing his memory to an extreme degree in Moonwalking with Einstein and several big biographies of big subjects: Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: a Life of Reinvention; Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman; Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: a Life; Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s Van Gogh: the Life, and Charles J. Shields And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: a Life. I’ll write more later about these books and others that climb the compilation list as time allows.

Ali Smith’s There but for the is a novel begging for discussion. For one, it features a truly peculiar predicament and an elusive main character.

It starts with a dinner party, rather ordinary if snootish dinner party in Greenwich, a suburb of London which also hosts a famous observatory and the site of Greenwich Mean Time. A young man, Miles Garth, arrives with Mark, an older gay man, a friend of the hosts. Mark doesn’t know Miles all that well and everyone at the dinner party assumes Miles is Mark’s new boyfriend. Miles is charming and affable, so it is all the more alarming when he leaves the dinner table to use the bathroom and never returns. The entire dinner party later learns that Miles has locked himself into the guest bedroom of the host’s house and has no intention of leaving.

Smith divides the book into four sections, comprising the four words in the title. Each chapter offers another vantage from which to view this man, Miles, albeit all from a distance. Glimpses of Mark over the years from those who only know him tangentially tease the reader and only uncover more questions and uncertainty. What drove this seemingly nice young man to hole up in a stranger’s house, becoming an odd kind of minor celebrity? What becomes of a person when no one really seems to know them? Did he avoid connection in his life, or did it elude him? All of these questions and more accumulate.

There but for the is a novel in stories much like Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. Like Rachman and Egan, Smith knows how to write wonderful characterizations and present unique points of view while telling a compelling story.

I don’t think I understood how much work goes into selecting discussion group titles until this year. I had to put together lists for three different book groups and do my best not to duplicate titles since some of the book group members like to drop in on all the book groups.

However, I do have to take my reading sanity into consideration and my book group members are very understanding. There’s very little overlap and when I do this, I schedule one book for all three groups in the same month. This is a benefit in a couple of ways. Book group members who miss one discussion will have two other opportunities to talk about it. I only have to read one book and not cram two or three. I receive a little extra time to become an expert on the title up for conversation.

This year Common Grounds, Kansas City Public Library’s bi-monthly Saturday morning group, will be reading the following titles. Common Grounds likes to stick to fiction and nonfiction by American authors with strong social themes and topics.

January: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. We’re reading this book in conjunction with the Kansas City Public Library’s Adult Winter Reading program, Destination: Anywhere!

March: The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian. Mr. Bohjalian has always been a favorite of this group and they wanted to tackle his latest.

May: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Award nominees are always of interest and the group asked for this title, too.

July: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. The National Book Award winner should provide great conversation. This is the book Women Who Dare and Downtowners will be reading during the summer, too.

September: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Why’d we pick this one? Because it appears all the local book groups have already discussed it. Now there are enough copies for us.

November: Unwind by Neal Shusterman. This is a good time of year for books with speedy plots, lively characters, and intriguing issues. We also like to read as much young adult fiction as possible.

As a young man I know that I was a literary snob.  I claimed that I had read all the classics with an emphasis on the early superheroes.  My favorites were d’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Robin Hood and King Arthur.

As an old man, I now realize that my claim to having read the classics needs to be footnoted with references to the works I actually read:  Howard Pyle and the Classics Illustrated Comic Books. 

I know this to be a fact because as an adult, I have actually re-read Dumas and enjoyed the writing (in fact, just writing this makes me want to read this great novel again).  Along with a vain attempt to read the real Moby Dick, these returns to my past victories made me realize that things were missing out of the versions I so fondly remembered. 

As an adult, I could not have told you the origins of either Robin Hood or King Arthur while being able to tell you Errol Flynn played one in the films and I can sing most of the songs from Camelot.  Perhaps there is no harm in the acquisition of a story no matter how it is uploaded but I am pretty sure for quite a period in my life I thought Howard Pyle wrote these tales. 

Recently when my library ordered The Death of King Arthur: Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur:  a Retelling by Peter Ackroyd, it reinforced the fact that I believe I have never read Malory while managing to be very familiar with all the tales that he gathered. It is pretty cool that Malory’s work can be included on bibliographies of jail house writing but not so cool that it was not published until fourteen years after his death.  Perhaps it is also not so cool that Malory borrowed from various previously published versions of these tales, included some tales from other legends and made at least one story up all on his own.  Just thinking about reading something originally written in French, translated into Middle English, with a questionable sense of chronology and pedigree is giving me a headache now.

So, thank you, Peter Ackroyd.  Not only has he provided a “more contemporary idiom” but he also chose ”to abbreviate the narrative in pursuit of clarity and simplicity” to avoid points where Malory was “rambling and repetitive.” 

Age does change the way I view all things.  I am sure as a young man, all the whacking and thrashing seemed thrilling.  I am sure I truly believed that no one was really hurt in the forging and maintaining of a 5th century kingdom.  I can say with all certainty that as a boy I had no idea what it meant to “lie down” with a woman despite the fact that all the knights appear to want to do that very thing with their queen.  How quickly chivalry becomes almost farce when seen with the eye of experience. 

Here is a brief sample of the issues from the story of Tristam and Isolde (p. 134-135)

He approached her in a rage.  “Madam,” he said, “Here is the letter that has been send to you.  And here is the letter you sent in reply.   Alas, lady, did you not know how much I loved you? Did you not think of the lands and the treasures that I have forsaken for you? I am heartbroken that you have betrayed me.”

Then he turned to Kehadius…”For all your falsehood and treason, I will have my revenge.”  He drew out his sword. “Prepare yourself.”

At the sight of the sword, Isolde swooned.  When Sir Kehadius saw Tristam come for him, he had no choice.  He jumped out of the bay window of the chamber. 

After reading this book, I feel the whole story should be labeled a tragedy.  While starting with the most noble of intentions, Arthur’s Camelot was rife with betrayal, adultery and murder.  While my approach to this story this time was more somber, that does not make the telling of the tale any less powerful or any less necessary to be read in our time. 

Ackroyd’s translation makes it all clear and accessible to any book discussion group who would wish to read this “immortal legend. ”  Contained within this tale are all the shortcomings of mankind that we still exhibit today.  On display are egos exhibited through the practice of warfare, jealousy based on power, and the endless need to seek romantic love while performing the base needs of lust.  While the overly romantic code of the times still has some resonance in terms of hero worship, discussion groups will also focus on the waste of a good idea on individuals who are unable to carry out its basic tenants. 

The quote I carry with me most from returning to this legend is this:

Lancelot fell to his knees.  “Jesus, why are we fighting?” (p. 161).

This installation can be found at the entrance of the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. The image was taken by Hanif Shoaei.

Whenever I hear someone complain about the weeding libraries do, I call to mind gorgeous works of creativity such as this.

In my spare (ha!) time, I organize a Con. I’ve been with MarsCon in Williamsburg for eight years now, wearing many hats (usually my trusty bowler), for the last two serving as Programming Chair. Our best known guest this year is S.M. Stirling (whose books, especially those about The Change in Nantucket or Oregon, would make a fun, thought-provoking read for your group. See for instance, Dies the Fire), but we have ten or fifteen press-published authors on this year’s roster along with a slew of other artists, entertainers, and subject authorities. By the time it’s all over with this coming Sunday, we’ll have put on over 90 events for around 1,000 guests. Science fiction and fantasy conventions aren’t exactly like what you see in the media, but that’s the subject for a different post on a different blog.

The reason I bring this up here, is that today I had one of those late-forming brainstorms that arrived too late to be appropriate now and will have to be filed away for future reference. An event that should be on our agenda is a public meeting of our science fiction and fantasy book group. We could have read a book by one of the guests, invited the author, used the forum as our monthly meeting, and recruited other event guests interested in sampling how our open-invitation book group meets. What a great chance to find appropriate local readers for a special interest book group!

How about plugging a meeting into a local arts festival? Maybe a First Night celebration or other holiday event? A school event or parent-teacher conference night? In conjunction with the next author reading at your library? The possibilities are almost endless, and it strikes me as an easy way to build membership, promote reading, and create a special, unusual event for your group.

I suspect as usual that my little brainstorm is nothing new under the sun. Has anybody tried a public book group meeting as part of a larger event? I’d be curious to hear about your experiences. But only after MarsCon is over. Until then, I’ll be busy.

The folks at The Millions are at it again, with a couple of strong recent posts. If you prefer to look back at 2011, try their Year in Reading, which asked a long list of authors, including some well known ones like Colum McCann, Jennifer Egan, Charles Baxter, Philip Levine, and Jonathan Safran Foer, what they liked best in their 2011 Reading. If you’re not familiar with this fine literary website, you might also enjoy perusing the 20 most popular pieces published there last year.

If you’re more forward looking, you’ll prefer their Most Anticipated: 2012 Great Book Preview feature.  Book group readers may recognize Dan Chaon, Marilynne Robinson, Lionel Shriver, Ron Rash, and William Boyd among the authors with books in the first quarter of 2012, but many of the authors highlighted are new, up and coming, or newly translated writers whom you might enjoy getting to know. Some of the biggest guns come out later in the year, with Toni Morrison, Richard Ford, Peter Carey, Paul Theroux, John Irving, Mark Haddon, Martin Amis, and Michael Chabon on the agendain May or later.  I can safely predict that whatever the future brings, we’re not going to run out of interesting books any time soon.

One would hope that in a nation of immigrants, defined by the immigrant experience, we would get it right.  The evidence does often point in the opposite direction and certain voices are able to capture the dysfunctional attempts to bring people into American society and find a use for them.

Unfortunately, on occasion, the use is as a political device.  Years ago, when anarchism was a political and social tool for change by some radicals, American society reacted.  One true story involves a Jewish immigrant who had survived the pogroms of Russia only to be shot dead by the Chief of Police in Chicago in 1908.  This historical fact is used by contemporary writer Aleksandar Hemon for one half of his novel, The Lazarus Project.  Readers not only see the tragedy that played out in  Police Chief George Shippy’s house but we also see the massive cover up that occurred after including sensationalized journalism and manipulation of the event for political and social gain.

That story is paralleled with the tale of the contemporary narrator, Vladimir Brik.  Brik is a survivor of the Bosnian and Serbian wars who has immigrated to America, like Averbuch, only to discover a bit of dillusionment.  While Brik does not suffer the poverty of wealth and purpose that Averbuch did, he is adrift in a society where he does not fit.

When Brik wins a grant to write Averbuch’s story, he uses the money to travel across the European landscape with a photographer named Rora.  Their journey is made through the poverty of this landscape, devastated by the ethnic wars that have been going on for centuries.  While the tensions in these areas are palatable, they are made even more meaningful by Rora’s personal history and the fact that he is a Muslim.

Book groups will find the appeal of discussing this title includes not only the parallel of anti-Semitism and prejudice against Muslims but also the depth and richness displayed by the characters who populate this novel.  The historical context and the photographs that grace the text will also create more issues to be reviewed.  This novel should be relevant to any book discussion group who wants to tackle these issues. 

For additional information about this title, revisit the posting by Nick DiMartino on February 15, 2009, called The Aleksandar Hemon Experience.