Blogging & Musing...
Just to let everyone know…we’ve hit the 800 mark! That’s the number of Reading Guides we have on our main website, LitLovers.
We add new guides all the time, keeping track of titles book clubs want to read. Many are added by request from our users. So to the wonderful readers in our community of LitLovers—thank you! With your help, we’ve built a terrific index.
I think our guides are the best—the most in-depth and thorough on the web. Along with author bios and discussion questions, we include both negative and postive reveiws, not just promotional blurbs from publishers. If discussion questions aren’t available, we often develop our own set of ”talking points” to help get discussions off the ground.
A search bar is next—a real grown-up search bar to make it easier to find the title and guide you’re looking for.
Anyway…1,000…here we come!
* As of this date, 11/1/2013, LitLovers has 2,200 Reading Guides!
Treat yourself to an evening out and head to your local library. After a rat-race kind of day, the peace and quiet a library offers is refreshing.
Take a leisurely stroll through the stacks ... or browse through the periodicals … just spend some time exploring all the resources. And if your library is like the one in my center city, there’s a cool cafe with terrific snacks, pastries, and sandwiches.
Go as a book club, or make it a couple's date—it’s an inexpensive night out. If you’re a parent, take the kids. If you’re single, where could you find a cozier spot to just hang-out?
I always come home feeling refreshed…and regenerated with new ideas for books and things to write about–like this blog post!
Oh, that’s one of the libraries I use pictured at the top—Pittsburgh’s Main Carnegie Library (Andrew was a Pittsburgh boy, just so you know).
Short update—I’ve just received a terrific invitation to be a guest on a local NPR station in Hampton, Virginia. We’ll be discussing book club issues—the how-tos of starting and running a club, and handling difficult issues.
The show is HearSay with Cathy Lewis. Maureen Corrigan will also be on, as well as Susan Coleman who is leading Virginia’s Big Read! Call letters are WHRV 89.5 FM.
Most of you won’t be within reach, but for those in Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina…tune in on Thursday, September 3, 2009, from 12 noon to 1pm.
Apparently, I’ve got a good face for radio. Two days ago, I was on the air again, this time on Martha Stewart’s Living Radio—Sirius Radio/XM, the satellite radio.
No, it wasn’t Martha but instead two shock-jocks, Kim and Betsy, who banter their way through morning drive time. They’re a hoot. We talked about starting a book club, how to talk about a book, etc.—the usual book club stuff. Here’s the short version (6 min.):
A real challenge for any author is the remaking of a classic story. The new novel might set the older work in the modern era (Hamlet → Edgar Sawtelle). Or it might use the older novel as a starting point—for a sequel, or a retelling of the story from a different perspective (Wizard of Oz → Wicked). Here’s what I’ve come up with so far...
Makeovers
Resetting a classic in the modern era.Anna Karenina .......... What Happened to Anna K by Irina Reyn
The Great Gatsby ...... Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Hamlet ...................... The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David
Wroblewski
The Illiad .................... The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Howard’s End ............ On Beauty by Zadie Smith
King Lear ................... A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Mrs. Dalloway ........... The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Odyssey ............. Ulysses by James Joyce
Pride & Prejudice ....... Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Sense & Sensibility .... The Three Weissmanns of Westport (added: 1/2011)Starting Points
Writing a sequel, ”prequel,” parody, or using a secondary character’s point of view.A Christmas Carol ...... Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard
Dr. Jekyll &Mr. Hyde ... Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin
Gone With the Wind ..... Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley
Gone With the Wind ..... The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
Great Expectations ...... Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Great Gatsby ........ The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
The Great Gatsby ........ Jack Maggs by Peter Carey
Jane Eyre ................... The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Ryhs
Huckleberry Finn ......... Finn by Jon Clinch
King Arthur ................. The Mists of Avalon
Mansfield Park ............. Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd
Moby-Dick ................... Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Pride & Prejudice ......... Pemberley by Emma Tennant
Pride & Prejudice ......... Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
Rebecca ...................... Mrs. DeWinter by Susan Hill
The Scarlet Letter ........ Angel and Apostle by Deborah Noyes
A Tale of Two Cities ..... A Far Better Rest by Susanne Alleyn
The Wizard of Oz ......... Wicked by Geoffrey MacGuire
Wuthering Heights ....... Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire Sargeant
What have I missed? Surely, there are more.
A recent quip from the New York Times about book clubs caught my ire. It’ll probably catch yours, too. So here it is…
Gaggles of readers get together monthly to sip chardonnay and discuss the latest Oprah selection.*
Ouch. Don’t know about you, but that sounds a little…oh, I dunno… condescending? Not to get too upset about an analogy to unruly geese, but it’s kind of a potshot to all those who get together, out of a passion for literature, to talk (not honk) about something of value—books!
So…are mindless cocktail parties better? I’m just asking….
And what’s wrong with Oprah selections? —Breath, Eyes, Memory; Edgar Sawtelle; 3 Faulkner novels (Faulkner!); House of Sand & Fog; We Were the Mulvaneys. That’s some pretty good reading.
To counter that unfortunate “gaggle” image (nothing against geese…understand?), I offer, again, two defenses of book clubs: one by moi and one by Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony:
- Book Clubs—Smarter than Critics?
An April 2008 post on LitLovers Blog quoting Josh Henkin- Saving the World—One Book Club at a Time
My March 2009 guest post on the literary blog, Books on the Brain
Oh, heck…maybe I’m just over reacting. Honk. Honk.
* Mokoto Rich. ”The Book Club with Just One Member.” New York Times, “Week in Review” section (1.24.10)
Years ago a friend came across a sex scene in Nelson DeMille’s Gold Coast—a couple playing a masquerade to juice up their sexlife. It was so offensive to her she tossed the book across the room—all of which she proudly announced to our book club. (The offending passage involves Lady Godiva...on a horse, of course...very funny. There's an even funnier pirate scene later on.)
What about you? Ever throw a book? I nearly did the other night. In my case, it had to do with the book’s heroine—dense, bratty (her own words turned on herself), and stubborn, in a very stupid way. It was all the more irritating because the book had started out with such promise.
What makes a book toss-worthy? What gets us so riled up that we want to throw it across the room? Is it anger … revulsion … disappointment … fear? And what sparks those emotions?
What's a toss-worthy reason?
• graphic sex or violence?
• offensive language?
• gross injustice?
• irritating characters?
• predictable plot lines?
• unrealistic coincidence?
• just plain bad writing?
But here's the thing...isn't it wonderful how literature evokes such passion? Think about it—books come to us as nothing more than tiny black squiggles on a flat white page…which we use to create meaning…which in turn inspires powerful responses. Astonishing…when you think about it.
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