PBR Book Club Is Mad Organized (bump)

What, we have a schedule this year?

Thanks to everyone who called dibs on a month in 2014 to pick what we're reading and figure out meeting details for that month.  Here's what we got (3 books are about the sea!*):

• February: Nate & Rose, Transcendence by Chris McKitterick
• March: Erin, The Circle by Dave Eggers
• April: Beth, The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide
• May: Allison, On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball
• June: Rachel, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• July: Jon
• August: Laura
• September: Richard
• October: Emily Jane & Carrie, The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch 
• November: Steve

*edit: Disappointingly, only 2 books are about the sea. Someone else pick a book about the sea!

 

The See

 

Month of May

This month we are reading Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball. The meeting will be late, but good news. Jesse Ball has agreed to answer any questions. So read up and send your questions. This one should be good.

A Title for this post, written by me

Well folks, it was a really great weekend. Good Friday was actually pretty great and Easter was on a Sunday this year.

In case you missed it (or don't want to scroll down a few posts) we were able to corral a couple of authors to come join us for some hijinks on Friday.

There are some photos on this young woman's website:

http://larryvilleartists.blogspot.com/2014/04/literature-devotion-friday-night.html

It was a great night and if you weren't able to attend you really missed out and there isn't really anything I can say to you that can make you understand what you now lack. I will leave some space between this paragraph and the next one so you can reflect on that.








The question came up at breakfast: Who is next? The brain trust that orchestrated part of the Great Friday has a shortlist, it is as follows:

William Faulkner
Don DeLillo
Thomas Pynchon
Jonathan Franzen
Jeffrey Eugenides

This is obviously not an inclusive list, but it is a start. We need to talk about this at the next meeting.

I don't remember what we're reading next, but it has a great cover and they have it over at the Raven. It is also titled Silence Once Begun and was written by Jesse Ball. Here is his website
 http://www.jesseball.com/ 
or perhaps it is this one
http://jesseball.tumblr.com/

Throwback post to The Circle book selection from last month ....

Reference material!

Scientists Link Selfies To Narcissism, Addiction & Mental Illness

"To pay close attention to published photos, controlling who sees or who likes or comments them, hoping to reach the greatest number of likes is a symptom that 'selfies' are causing problems"

Whoooooaaaaaaa there, friend. Criticizing sharing? That is theft, plain and simple! 

Duckface selfie

Acceptable selfie!

Ok, back to Chiba the Lightning Catching cat!

And don't forget to check out our in-house two author event co-sponsored by the Lawrence Public Library at 7 pm at The Roost in downtown Lawrence  this coming Friday, April 18th -  Scott McClanahan (of Crapalachia fame) and Sam Pink (Rontel).

April Selection: Takashi Hiraide's The Guest Cat

Two years and I finally get posting power. HEYO!

Even though I'm a dog person, I've selected The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide as the April selection. Why? Because I read an NPR review titled "Even Dog Lovers Should Read 'The Guest Cat'" (and, apparently, a few million other people read it, too).

Honestly, I haven't started the book so I don't have much to tell you. It's about an unhappy couple who moves into a huge house and makes friends with a cat who lives nearby. And then something happens ...

It's gotten a lot of positive reviews, but there are some haters on Amazon.

It's short and sweet, so even I'll have it finished.

Karen Zings about the Circle

1. The Circle is a nice pick for The PBR Book Club.  (smile face)
2. It has great one liners that can be zinged. ( smile face) ( like)
3. Example “You’re like part human, part rainbow.”  ( Smile face) (followed by 100 likes). 

The Circle is at its best when it describes the workplace environment. For the main character, Mae, the Circle seems like a great place from the start; "My God, it's Heaven." It is clean, open to innovation, and has many amazing extra curricular activities and events on its campus.  People are hanging out on sunny days going to yoga and viewing Koyaanisqatsi.

Mae learns that working at The Circle is emotionally draining with long hours.  The memorization of the "isms" of the company are daunting. By the end of the book, employees in her department look and react to nine screens simultaneously. Each aspect of her job is rated by a competitive number system, and her work and personal life are relentlessly watched and maintained by superiors. Realistically, no one could maintain this workload.

The book's main point is not about the politics involved in working in a big corporation.  The Circle is a cautionary tale about privacy and social media issues. However, the second half of the book gets preachy on the topic. Perhaps the book should have ended midway.

My rating on a scale of 1-100?  The book needs more love.

March Selection: Dave Eggers' The Circle

PBR Book Club is getting dystopian in 2014 with a couple of our selections:  Dave Eggers' The Circle in March and Chang-Rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea in May.

The last time we read one of the heralded young literary hotshots (Chabon's Telegraph Avenue), most of PBR Book Club was not impressed, and some were downright hostile.  So how will a Twitter-loving book club react to Eggers' vision of social media dystopia?  Come join us at the end of March.  In the meantime, keep tweeting!

Margaret Atwood likes the book pretty well:

"Eggers treats his material with admirable inventiveness and gusto. The plot capers along, the trap doors open underfoot, the language ripples and morphs."


Read her NY-Times piece here.