I am curious about what other book group leaders do to prepare themselves and their groups for discussions.  There are so many aspects to “preparation,” so I am just going to share one.

Every month, one week prior to our meeting, I send out an e-mail reminder.  Because it is a Library book group, I find that this helps tremendously.  This way I hear from members if something has come up, if they have gone on vacation, or if they need an extra push to get through the book.

It is also my chance to provide some background materials for discussion.  When I hand books out the next month’s books, I generally provide discussion questions that I find online or that I create myself.  But when I send my one week reminder, I like to send articles or interviews that will enhance their reading experience.   Sometimes, too, group members will get inspired to do some searching themselves on an author or book, and take this as an opportunity to share with the group.

Next week we are discussing Richard Yates’ 1961 classic Revolutionary Road.  Since a film directed by Sam Mendes and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is slated to be released later this year, I found an article by a Yates biographer about Yates’ own tragic relationship with Hollywood during his lifetime.  I also shared an NPR “You Must Read This” spot and audiofile entitled “An Emotional Journey Down ‘Revolutionary Road.’”

One reader responded to me with a 1972 interview with the author in “Ploughshares” which I forwarded to the group.

So what do you do to enrich your group’s experience?  What do you do to prepare?  Do you share articles, interviews, biographical essays?  Do you compare the book and the movie? 

And if you have anything to share with me or my group about Richard Yates or Revolutionary Road in particular, you have one week.

Has anyone else seen this commercial? It opens with a trim, perky blonde woman talking to the audience about how much she loves books and reading and talking about reading. She’s so excited because she just found a book group where the women (apparently the group is solely composed of women. Is that redundant? A women’s book group?) always choose the best books. She can’t wait to talk about these great books with these intelligent women! By now she’s got her hands in little fists and she’s pumping them excitedly. Her hair is swinging around, all bouncy and perfectly cut. I’m scowling at the television because I am not lithe and blonde and I need a haircut and I should be reading, not zombieing out in front of the cable box. So I grab my remote and I’m about to channel surf this Oprah-tastic broad right off my screen when she gets pouty and says the women in the book group nudged her out because she actually read the books and wanted to discuss them.

My heart and grip on the remote melted. I felt for her. I do. How many book groups have I gone to where steering conversation to the book is like driving Ben-Hur’s chariot? And then, I knew I could be in a book group with this gal. What does she do to make herself feel better? She busts out the spreadable cheese and crackers and lobs a joke at the viewers at home. She gets it. Books and food are a winning combo. She’s gonna keep on reading. To heck with those gossipy hens.

And Madison Avenue? When did those marketing culture vultures learn that book groups could be used to sell product besides books? Today, smoothy cheese and crackers. Tomorrow,  beer and pick-ups. Woot.

The publication of Steampunk, an anthology of reprinted stories and excerpts, provides a great opportunity for adventurous book groups looking to explore an unusual theme.

“Steampunk” derives its name from its mixture of steam-driven 19th century technologies and a punk attitudes that subvert the staid social and political conventions of those times. Stories and novels in this style feature intrepid inventors, genteel lady adventurers and social activists, frontier dandies, and other period characters using airships, mechanical robots, and other contraptions in science fiction and fantasy settings. This hot subgenre is spawning books, films, music, fashion, and even lifestyles. Even the NY Times has noticed the trend: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/fashion/08PUNK.html
 

The anthology Steampunk, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer is a collection of stories originally published between 1971 and 2007 by the likes of Michael Moorcock, Michael Chabon, Mary Gentle, and Neal Stephenson. Combined with brief essays that define the subgenre’s scope and history, it makes a fine introduction.

But a book group would be well-served by handling this subject as a theme, encouraging members to read other superb steampunk such as Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates, China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels (such as The Scar), Jane Lindskold’s The Buried Pyramid, or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass) or Sally Lockhart (The Ruby in the Smoke) series. Michael Chabon has edited two collections for McSweeney’s (Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories and Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales) with all-star casts of writers that largely fit within the steampunk framework.

Other readers might choose speculative fiction classics by H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, or H.P. Lovecraft originally written in or near the period to which contemporary steampunk hearkens back. The visually-oriented might choose to review Alan Moore’s graphic novels about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, films like The Illusionist or The Prestige, or a season of The Wild Wild West on DVD. Those with a less speculative bent could read historical fiction or nonfiction that reflects the era and provide comparison or contrast.

Steampunk provides a fine blend of fun, alternate history, and social engineering that will please many readers. Let your book group join the ranks of those who are finding it can be good to get steamed!

In honor of my recent visit to Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, a veritable mecca for booklovers, I thought I would share some of their unique resources for book groups.

Powell’s has staked its reputation over the years as a robust independent bookseller with knowledgeable staff and one of the biggest general collections of new and used books in the world.  They have been boosting their online presense over the years, and have begun a series of author interviews from their extensive reading series.  I often send their interviews along to my group members before our discussion to give them additional insight into an author or title.  And with interviews with the likes of Sherman Alexie, Jodi Picoult, Ian McEwan, and Aimee Bender, there is something for every group out there.

Another section in Powell’s Author section that may be useful are the INK Q & A columns.  Powell’s also features some Original Essays from authors that can also round out your reading experience.

Powell’s also has a blog and we love those, don’t we?  But one of my favorite Powell’s perks is their “Review-a-Day” e-mail service where you receive a book review in your e-mail inbox each and every day.

So there you have it, my homage to one of the best book stores out there, bar none!

This weekend the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art hosted its second book group for members. I mentioned this project a couple of months ago and wanted to let everyone know how it turned out.

On Friday night, registered readers gathered at the Visitor’s desk and were brought to one of the museum’s special events rooms. Guests mingled and chatted while nibbling on the platter of international cheeses (mostly French) and drinking wine. Museum staff had thoughtfully piped in French music of the late 19th century to add ambiance.

After a quick greeting from the project leaders, the guests were taken on a brief tour of the Museum’s Impressionist Galleries. The docent discussed the rise of the Impressionist movement and had the participants carefully examine certain paintings for differences in the work of the artists and examples of Impressionist brush strokes. She also pointed out why this movement caused such a stir among the French art community.

The tour concluded, guests were led back to the main room and a lively discussion of Luncheon of the Boating Party ensued. Participants were very eager to discuss the roles of women, in both the painting, the novel, and French society, the meaning of la vie moderne and what it meant to the models and Renoir, and how the author also “captured a moment” by only writing about an eight week period in Renoir’s life and the brief, intense relationships formed between his models.

The tour and presentation about the place held by Impressionism in art history lent an added depth to the discussion of Susan Vreeland’s well received historical novel. Our musuem’s gift shop purchased trade paperback copies and sold them with a discount to Museum members. I created a powerpoint presentation with other Renoir paintings featuring model/characters from the book and also put the discussion questions on the slides for all the attendees to read, thus cutting down on the amount of paperwork I felt I had to bring along.

Consider moving the book group out of the library or coffee shop and taking it to a related location that may stimulate more discussion. It’s a partnership worth pursuing at any size library. Cost is minimal and entertainment value is high.

Last week I highlighted book group support web sites where discussion leaders can find reading guides and discussion questions for their book club selections. Another excellent source for these are the publishers themselves. Most major publishers of literary fiction have figured out that distributing reading guides is a good way for them to increase word-of-mouth and sales for their new titles.

It’s too bad that a wider variety of genre fiction and nonfiction publishers aren’t cluing in to the value of including reading guides as well. Book clubs would love to take on their books in larger numbers with a little encouragement. If a publisher does not have a discussion guide for a book you would like to use, I would suggest that you send them an email request or letter. But I digress…

To locate online discussion questions, either find your book’s publisher and visit their web site or use the magic keywords at Google or your favorite search search engine: Add “reading guide” after the book’s title. I experimented with this method for all of the publishers below, and the discussion guides consistently came up in the top twenty hits.

Because of the consolidation of the publishing industry into huge conglomerates, most of the discussion guides can be found on a few big web sites, but “smaller” publishers like Beacon’s , Hyperion, or Algonquin also have reader guides. I can’t list all of the sites here, but here are some of the larger collections. These sites are also good places to browse when you’re selecting the next book.

HarperCollins has about 800 titles with discussion questions at http://www.harpercollins.com/Readers/readingGroups.aspx. Their imprints include William Morrow, Amistad, Eos, and Avon. The guides can be browsed by interest area. You can also invite their authors to an event, sign up for a monthly newsletter of reading group books, or sign up to get word of author events near you.

Random House, which includes imprints like Bantam, Dell, Knopf, Vintage/Anchor, Crown, and Doubleday, has around 700 guides on their site, http://www.randomhouse.com/rgg. Their list can also be subdivided into particular reading interests.

Penguin, which is also home to Riverhead, Signet, and Daw, has guides for over 600 books collected at http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/readingguides.  Like other sites on this list, they also have newsletters, contests, and advice for starting a group.

Simon & Schuster counts Baen, Atheneum, Downtown, Fireside, Free Press, MTV Books, Scribner, and Atria among their imprints. They have over 500 reading guides and other goodies for book groups at http://www.simonsays.com/content/index.cfm?pid=523081&tab=7.

MacMillan collects nearly 300 reading guides at http://us.macmillan.com/macmillansite/categories/General/Guides/Guides. Their imprints include Picador, St. Martin’s, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Tor/Forge, and Metropolitan Books.

Houghton Mifflin has over 100 reading guides. For fiction, visit http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/fiction.shtml and for nonfiction try http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/nonfiction.shtml.

If none of the publisher sites work, try the NoveList database (assuming your library has access.) Their site includes over 500 discussion guides.

All told, that’s over 3500 reading guides on just a few web sites. Maybe your group will need to meet more often!

There is no doubt that I write a lot about Seattle and The Seattle Public Library, where I work.  Chances are, I will go on writing about both of these topics again and again, so please forgive me.  Today I wanted to draw your attention, dear reader, to a relatively new blog called Shelf Talk.

 Shelf Talk is The Seattle Public Library’s staff blog.  Library staff (meaning not just librarians) have been contributing posts about books, culture, library resources and services and local interests.  The posts are varied, informative and fun.  It’s another great way for us to serve our patrons near and far.

So what’s it to you?  Well, it’s yet another web resource for your book group, another place to look for new and interesting titles to consider.  Take, for instance, Duan’s post on Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, or this post about reading on local buses, or Jen’s article about parallel stories, or Hannah’s post on books for new moms, or even David Wright’s post on “evil scary children” in literature (sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?)!

Library staff at The Seattle Public Library keep coming up with great ideas that could benefit your book group in brainstorming new books to try.  So sign up for an RSS feed, put us in your list of links, and stop by often.  And please share links for the rest of us of some other stellar library blogs!

This week I have immersed myself in Seattle Reads The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu.  Incidentally, Mengestu’s book recently won the LA Times First Fiction Award.

My week started with the Book-It Reperatory Theater’s staged reading of excerpts from the book.  The actors brought such life to the characters and to the words on the page.  Not being much of a play-goer, I forget how inspiring such performances can be.  I walked away invigorated for my book group discussion the next day.

When my group discussed Dinaw’s book, we talked about the immigrant experience and about the melanchony and loss that pervades the book.  The book’s main character, Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant, lives in Washington D.C. and owns a corner shop in Logan Circle, a neighborhood that is starting to change.  Sepha lives a quiet life; in fleeing the violence in his home country, he did not move to America with any grand plans or expectations.  But when Judith, a white academic, and her biracial daughter Naomi move into the neighborhood and restore and old mansion, it awakens in Sepha a sense of what has been missing in his life.  He longs for connection, but fears it.

We talked about the positive and negative aspects of gentrification.  Some members questioned the main character, Sepha’s, actions and choices, his inactions.  Why did Sepha decide not to write back to Naomi? Was the ending hopeful or not?

The following day I saw Dinaw speak.  He answered questions from the audience and was so poised, well-spoken and thoughtful, wise beyond his 29 years.  I should have expected this from his book; he is able to write about old age and nostalgia and melancholy with the depth and wisdom of someone much older.  As I listened to the audience’s questions and Dinaw’s thoughtful responses, I wished that my book group could have been there.  So many of the questions that had been asked the day before were illuminated or touched upon in a new way by the author.

At one point in the novel Naomi brings The Brothers Karamazov into Sepha’s store for him to read to her (she chooses it because it is a big book and will keep him reading).  Several readers questioned Dinaw as to why he chose that book, and he explained his love of the book and how the quotation that Sepha memorizes provides a turning point for him:

“People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education.  If a man carries such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.”

These beautiful words from Dostoevsky’s masterpiece resonate in a wholly different way in Mengestu’s book–illuminating the immigrant experience and the disappointment, hardship and loss that every human being experiences in life.

Encouraging your group to expand their experience beyond just the monthly discussion, to see an author read or watch a film or see a dramatic adaptation, can be so valuable.  It needn’t be your city’s One Book program (if you have one).  But in this case, I was so grateful to have so many opportunities to celebrate Mengestu’s book on my own and with others.

The list of Man Booker Prize winners and shortlist titles can be a wonderful source for book group ideas. For its 40th anniversary, the Man Booker Prize had a contest this spring  to determine the best Booker-winning title. The official contest is closed, but the online bookseller ABEBooks is conducting its own customer poll.  

An ABEBooks panel will announce a shortlist this month, and a public vote will decide the winner, to be announced in July.  Here are the results of the poll so far:

1) Life of Pi by Yann Martel (12.4%)

2) Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (10.5%)

3) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (8.8%)

4) The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (8.5%)

5) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (6.9%)

6) The Bone People by Keri Hulme (5.5%)

7) Possession by AS Byatt (5.4%)

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (5.2%)

9) Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (4%)

10) The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (3.3%)

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Erda M. Göknar,
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 [original title: Benim Adim Kirmizi].

While we are supposedly reading crime and mystery fiction at my library’s book discussion once a month, I stray a little out of the box when I help the group select our titles for the year.  The book we end up reading often engenders comments like, “I would have never chosen this book to read.”  Yes, even the occasional “who the hell picked this book?”

Last night’s title was My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.  Chances are if a group has selected a title by someone who has been bestowed the Nobel Prize for Literature, the book is not going to be a quick read.  This proved true with this story of 16^th Century Turkish miniaturists who are struggling to maintain the purity of their craft against the influences of the West.  When one of the artisans is murdered, a young diplomat named Black is charged with figuring out which of the three remaining artists committed the murder.   

That outline of the plot is a skeleton frame for a very complex narrative which tells us more about the nature of Islamic thought, the process of making miniatures in Turkey, the nature of art, man’s relationship to God, and man’s relationship to women (and occasionally little boys).   

In case that does not sound daunting enough, each chapter has a distinct narrator who manages to divulge the truths through such dissembling methods as answering questions with a fable or outright lying.  This novel may set some sort of record for unreliable narrators.  And then there are the chapters narrated by a coin, a tree, a dog and the color red.  Oddly, the chapter narrated by Satan may be the funniest part of the book.

Then, what to make of the role of the central female in this book?  One of the most hotly debated questions we answered last night was:  is this book a romance?  Key to the whole story of Black is whether the love of his life is the classic femme fatale so familiar from hard-boiled American crime novels of the 1930s.  

Pamuk may be as interesting as any of his narrators.  Born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1952, he managed to talk his parents into letting him live at home until he was thirty.  This was necessary because he studied journalism and architecture before deciding he would grow up to be a Nobel Prize winning novelist. 

So how did the group like this book?  I was afraid to enter the room last night out of fear that the group would not like this book.  Instead, what I found was that the power of the story held the group’s interest with one understanding:  nobody cared who the murderer was. 

The reason for that is that Pamuk is so adept at showing a society of unfamiliarity to Western readers that shocks, dismays, frustrates and educates us while pulling us through the narrative.  Perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned from this novel is that no passage of time changes the nature of people.  The same issues that separated East from West in the 1500s is still present in the world today.  Perhaps no one knows this better than Pamuk.  In Turkey, because of his opposition to fundamentalist religion his comments on the Armenian Genocide, and his outspoken criticism of Turkey’s war on the Kurds, he has been criticized by the government and criminal charges were pressed against him.  As is the fate of the storyteller in his novel, Pamuk has learned that satire is still a punishable offense in some places in the world. 

I now know the depths of my love for a certain novelist.

This morning on the way to work, NPR did an advance promo for today’s Fresh Air. Special guest Helen Hunt, four-time Emmy winner, Oscar winner and recently turned director, will be discussing her new film. It stars Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth in addition to Ms. Hunt.

The film? Then She Found Me. I took that moment to harangue Terry Gross via my radio that this movie is based on Elinor Lipman’s first novel and that I wasn’t going to go see it because Ms. Hunt directed it. I’m going to see it because it’s Elinor Lipman!  One of the funniest writers I’ve ever read! I suppose I’ll go for Colin Firth, too.

But, please, Helen, props to Elinor for providing you with such great material! And if you think Then She Found Me is good, you haven’t read The Way Men Act. Favorite scene? The description of the floral delivery. Chapter 29. Do. Not. Miss.

Don’t discuss without me!

Everybody loves Nancy Pearl.  Okay, well, anyone who loves books loves Nancy Pearl.  If I had my way that would be everyone!

Nancy celebrates books in everything that she does.  And she has a masterful way of describing books that makes you want to run right out and buy, borrow or steal anything she just raved about.  From her librarian action figure doll to her books, Book Lust and Book Crush, she is the ultimate cheerleader for the written word.

But I wanted to alert all of the book-lovers out there to Nancy’s weekly book reviews on local NPR.  You can even subscribe to her weekly reviews and get them e-mailed to you, or listen to the podcasts.

Let Nancy choose your group’s next book!

Arlington Heights, Illinois, the community where I live and lead book discussions, has never conducted a “One Book, One City” reading program.  However, the public library does participate in a regional program organized by The Daily Herald, the newspaper that serves Arlington Heights and the surrounding towns.  It’s called “Suburban Mosaic,” and focuses on books that promote diversity.  Every year a new book is selected for adults to read and talk about, and there are also titles chosen for young adults and children.  Library staff members have provided input into the selection process, along with teachers, clergy, and representatives from the newspaper.  The books are widely promoted, and discussions are held in libraries, schools, churches and coffeeshops — so it’s the same idea as the “One Book, One City” model, except for the use of a continuing theme and wider coverage than just one town.  In past years, the adult readers have read and discussed The Kite Runner, The House on Mango Street, Dreams from My Father, and Enrique’s Journey.  

I’ve just learned that next year’s choice for the adult discussion groups is Digging to America, by Anne Tyler, and I’m very excited by this news.  To me, Anne Tyler is the ideal author for a satisfying book discussion.  Over the years, I’ve used many of her books with my groups, both at the library and in workshops illustrating how to lead effective discussions. So I’m definitely looking forward to talking about Digging to America.  In describing this book, Tara Gallagher of The Wall Street Journal states that Tyler has “a reputation as a master of the fine threads of human relationships,” which I think is the perfect way of summarizing the qualities that make her books so fascinating to read and talk about.

Digging to America centers on two families who become intertwined when they meet at the Baltimore airport on the evening both have come to pick up the Korean girls they are adopting.  One family has deep American roots, while the other has an Iranian background, although the adopting couple is fully assimilated to America.  Over the subsequent years, Tyler explores the closeness — and the tension — that develops between the two couples, their children, and their relatives.   This is her 17th novel, and it’s subtle and assured, as her fans would expect, but new readers can’t help but be drawn to this absorbing story of what it means to be an American, worked out on several different levels.  If you’re interested in looking at complex characters caught in a clash of cultures, please consider adding Digging to America to your list of titles for future discussions.

A couple of lists of top books for book discussions have popped up recently.

This list of the top ten book group choices in 2007 was posted on Reading Group Choices. It was selected with the help of book group leaders representing more than 50,000 book group members.

1. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen

2. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

4. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

5. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

6. TIE: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

7. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

8. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

9. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

10. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

All of the books on the Reading Group Choices list are familiar and you may have already discussed them in your group. If you’re looking for something different, Kristen at Book Club Classics posted this list of the books that readers of Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust thought created the best discussions.

The Boy on the Bus by Deborah Schupack

Heart, You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen

The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy

Spilling Clarence and The Disapparation of James by Anne Ursu

The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer

How do you prepare for your book group discussion? 

I know that everyone has different methods and approaches.  Everyone does different things in order to feel “ready.”  Some of us may take copious notes while others may like the thrill of going by the seat of their pants. 

I guess I come somewhere in between.  When I have the time, or if I think the book is particularly complex, I like to page back through the book and take notes.  I comb through each page, each chapter, for foreshadowing, relationships, events, and sometimes copy down entire lines or paragraphs that I find meaningful or beautiful.  I make note of page numbers where characters are introduced or where turning points occur.  Sometimes this turns out to be a couple of pages and sometimes ten.  Sometimes I write discussion questions for my group if there aren’t any available.  Or I do some reading about the author and their body of work. 

Other times doing a quick scan of the book and of the discussion questions is enough.  Other times I go in without giving it much thought.   

Once I filled in for a colleague for a book I had not read.  The group told me I did a great job and they wouldn’t have known that I hadn’t read the book if I hadn’t told them!  There went all of my theories about reading thoroughly and being prepared! 

But really, when it comes down to it, I never feel completely “ready.”  You never know what someone is going to say.  You don’t always know what you’re going to say!  I also enjoy how the conversation organically evolves, how one question or comment leads to the next.  I like to be prepared to be surprised.

But please share your secrets.  I’d like to learn something new!

I’m not trying to be contentious. Far from it. I welcome ALL readers to my book groups. Especially those who haven’t finished the book or never even heard of it. But after flipping through this morning’s news, I’m wondering: If someone brings this to the book group with an e-book on it, is the Library responsible for any spilled coffee on the keyboard?

David Rothman over at Teleread is musing over the use of the new HP Mini for e-book readers. The “gadgette” is compact, light-weight and easy to use according to a review David references from jkOnTheRun.

I thought it looked promising. I’m all about less poundage in my reading and faster access. What makes me grin at these techno-perts is how they focus on the electronics (which, I know, is their jobs, I shouldn’t expect more than that) and sort of gloss over how the newfangled things will work with everyday living. But that’s for us folks on the ground to work out.

So, I’m just wondering. How would an e-book on the HP Mini work if that techno-savvy soccer mom brought it to her book group? How does she turn to page 97 with everyone else to read the passage that holds the key to the character’s motivations? Does the Library’s food and beverage policy regarding computers apply to her? And how do you know she’s paying attention to what others are saying and not surfing her email? If she hates the book the group chose to read and discuss, does she throw her computer against the wall?

I jest, I know. This is how I make technology fit in my reading life. Can I eat with it? Can I slam it on the table if I loathe it? Can I take it in the bathtub with a glass of wine?

Of course, the e-book on the computer probably has the entire book and Scott Brick narrating to boot. When the soccer mom wants everyone to turn to her favorite passage, she keys up ol’ Scott to serenade the gang. Hmmm. There’s probably something to all these biblio-tronics, after all. 

In the most recent Libraries Unlimited Readers’ Advisor News newsletter, a colleague, Abby Bass, wrote a great article about book covers and readers’ advisory. It’s called “Today’s Cover Story: New Trends in Book Cover Design and Their Impact on Readers.” 

In the article, she mentions Penguin’s “Graphic Classic” series–updated covers for some old classic titles.  And these book covers did need a makeover. It can be difficult to persuade a book group, especially if it includes any younger members, to read Cold Comfort Farm or Lady Chatterley’s Lover if they get a hold of a particularly bland looking cover.

We are a visual culture.  And as Nick so eloquently put it in a previous post, we respond to the physical aspects of books.  I am more likely to buy or read a book that is a pleasure to hold or behold.  Here is an example–I usually only buy books I intend to reread, but I just had to own a hardcover copy of Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish after I returned my library copy. It’s got beautiful illustrations of 12 fish and the color of the text changes throughout because the character/author of the tale uses whatever is at hand to scrawl down his story, from seaweed to blood.

I know that I responded to the McSweeney’s aesthetic of making beautiful books from the outset for this very reason. This early missive remains one of my favorite mission statements:

From McSweeney’s Issue No. 5, Very Late Summer, 2000

“In short, we are talking about smaller and leaner operations that use the available resources and speed and flexibility of the market (ie., the web and other consumer-driven methods), to enable us to make not cheaper and cruder (print-on-demand) books or icky, cold, robotic (electronic) books, but better books, perfect and permanent hardcover books, to do so in a fiscally sound way, and to do so not just for old-time’s sake, but because it makes sense and gives us, us people with fingers and eyes, what we want and what we’ve always wanted: beautiful things, beautiful things in our hands—to be surrounded by little heavy papery beautiful things.”

So even though I know that slapping a new, hip cover by a popular graphic artist is just marketing and that I am being pandered to as the Gen-X “insert 80’s song or reference here and they’ll buy X or Y product” consumer that I am, I also see that it cannot hurt to make something old new again. 

This year the Seattle Reads program, originally titled “What if Seattle Read the Same Book?” when Nandy Pearl and Chris Higashi started it in 1998, celebrates 10 years. Ten years of community discussions and events around amazing books or author’s works from Russell Banks to Isabel Allende to Marjane Satrapi to Jhumpa Lahiri, to name a few.

This year’s inspired choice is Dinaw Mengestu’s debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Mengestu is an Ethiopian-American author living in Paris. After the book was chosen for Seattle Reads, it received the prestigious Guardian First Book Award.

This year, as we have done in years past, the events planned around Seattle Reads extend beyond the author’s visit and book discussions. There will be a Horn of Africa Cultural Day; a panel discussion echoing the themes in the book entitled “Immigration, Gentrification, and Small Business: A local perspective;” films on Africa; and more.

I am so excited to discuss this book. I had the pleasure and the honor, along with my colleagues, to work on the Reading Group Toolbox, writing discussion questions and writing annotations for fiction further reading suggestions.

Because I could do no better, I am stealing the Library’s description of this spare, elegant book:

“Set in a poor neighborhood in Washington, D.C., The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears tells a story of the African immigrant experience through three main characters: narrator Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant, who runs a small corner grocery store, and his friends, Joseph, from the Congo, and Kenneth, from Kenya. All share nostalgia for their home countries; none has come close to achieving the American dream. When a white academic and her biracial daughter move into the neighborhood and befriend Sepha, tensions build and it becomes clear they are not welcome in the gentrifying neighborhood.

The novel explores themes of race and class relations, what it means to lose family and a country, what it takes to create a new home, what it means to be an immigrant in America. The book’s title comes from Dante’s Inferno, where the poet is about to leave hell, on his way to purgatory, and catches a glimpse of the stars.”

  Detective Story by Imre Kertész

From his prison cell, we receive the rationalization of an interrogator.  Do not call this a confession because the narrator makes it clear he had little to do with the sad affair that he relates.  Yet, he will receive the ultimate punishment. 

Antonio Martens was a police officer in the Criminal Investigation Division who is given the opportunity to be promoted into The Corps, the state police who study their own people under the dictatorship of The Colonel.  Operating without any rules except their own, abuses will occur. Diaz, the head of the unit, works with Martens and a torturer named Rodriguez.  Throughout the book, Martens refers to himself as the “new guy,” and acts as an observer of The Corps and less as a participant.  Yet, he predicts his fate when he knowingly says when this all blows up, he will be the one who suffers and Diaz will disappear without punishment.

When The Colonel’s regime falls in this unnamed Central American country, and Martens ends up on death row for his “crimes,” he asks for the opportunity to write out his account of the Salinas affair.  Federigo Salinas is the head of a department store chain in this country and he believes he is a man who can stay between the central power and the people.  He is wrong.

Imre Kertész certainly knows how the state can impact on a person’s life.  He was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1929.  Kertész was imprisoned in two concentration camps during World War II.  He survived his state imposed incarceration and served in the Hungarian Army from 1951 to 1953.  He has worked as a journalist and a translator.  As a writer, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002.

Federigo’s son, Enrique, is a restless twenty-two year old, ashamed of his family wealth and the uselessness he feels in the current political situation.  Decisions that the young man makes will have consequences for his father.

This book, although written thirty years ago about a different country, is a reflection of the dangers of hiding investigations under the mantle of state preservation.  Hidden prisons, denial of basic legal rights and torture are not unfamiliar subjects to contemporary Americans. The most chilling theme in the book is how the father, a good man at heart with only his family’s best interest in mind, is dragged into the abyss by one simple choice.  In a sense, this book is the ultimate noir tale.

This book should make a great book discussion title as it has so many contemporary echoes.  Also, it has a huge advantage in that it delivers a major message in a minor amount of space, one hundred and twelve pages, thus endearing itself to readers challenge by time.