Discussion of Guns Germs and Steel

We met August 28th to discuss Guns, Germs and Steel.

In attendance were:

Dave & Mary
Darryl & Barbara (and a guest)
Jack & Shelia
Susanna
Catherine
Alice
Jeremy (and a guest)

A warm welcome to the guests, I hope you consider joining the bookclub!

Our poem was selected by Dave, who shared a poem featured on NPR, "Again, A Solstice" by Jennifer Chang.

Guns, Germs and Steel is our first non-fiction selection. This one was selected for August back in June, and prior to starting this selection, about half the club indicated they were looking forward to this read, and about half the club indicated they were not looking forward to it but would try it. In the end only one member completed the book, several members read between several chapters and about half the book, and a few members chose to skip this one.

Due to scheduling issues, this read was given 7 weeks, which it turns out was a good thing. Of the members who started the book, most (perhaps all?) found it slow going. At least two members said they found the book very interesting and planned to continue on with it independently of the club. In conversations with members who didn't make the meeting, a similar sentiment was expressed, regarding finding the book interesting and intending to read it.

The discussion was animated, focusing in part on evaluating whether the author substantiated his ideas in the book well enough, and on the qualifications the author brings to the subject matter. Questions of author bias were discussed as well, particularly with regard to his apparent preference for groups and societies he had spent years living among.

A 3-part documentary film series was produced about this content as well, and a couple of members watched some or all of the documentaries. One comment expressed was that the personality (ego?) of the author seemed to heavily influence the content of both the book and the documentary.

We touched briefly on the list of questions picked up from the publisher, but didn't go into depth on the questions.

As discussed in the previous discussion post of Gone Girl, the club is vague on purpose, selection criteria, and selection method. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy was selected for October, in part because it seemed the most "Halloween-y", with its association with fairy tales, terror, evil, and children lost in the woods.

Two suggestions about club mechanics have been put forward that make good sense and we should consider adopting going forward. The first is to keep the source of suggestions anonymous, so that folks may feel more comfortable suggesting things that might not conform to what we collectively think the club "wants to read". I personally like that suggestion very much. The other is a "show of hands" regarding the process of selection, to confirm the group members individually feel the selection process was satisfactory, which I also like very much.

We had selected Til We Have Faces for the next read back in July.  That meeting is scheduled for September 25th.

What have you read from this list?

I really enjoy lists of "100 books you should read".  I've added a page to our blog called Manliness, with an August Checklist of 100 books from the Art of Manliness blog.  Head over and check off what you have already read!  You can see the responses of those who precede you after you complete the survey.

My plan is to take the August Checklist page off the blog around 1 September or whenever everyone has had an opportunity to respond.

Discussion of Gone Girl

I feel I have procrastinated this post way beyond reasonable, so here goes:  If folks feel I missed important details here, please remind me I'll update the post for posterity!

We met July 10th to discuss Gone Girl.

In attendance were:

Dave & Mary
Darryl & Barbara
Jack & Shelia
Susanna
Catherine
Jeremy
Amy
Gayla

Our poem was selected by Barbara, who found two editions in translation of the same poem, with quite different tones.

At this point, I don't remember who finished Gone Girl and who didn't, but I think seven of us finished this one.

This was the easiest read so far for our club, and several folks expressed they were happy to have an easy read.  The three men who finished rather disliked the book, the women enjoyed it more. I think the female members liked having a strong female character to read, and probably didn't mind reading the somewhat bumbling and clueless man.  I said it before, but I personally rather identified with Nick in some respects, and other men indicated similar sentiments.  No women admitted to identifying with Amy, though at least one expressed appreciation for Amy's execution of her revenge plan.

We discussed at some length the relationship between Nick and Amy, and we spent a bit of time talking about what a "good relationship" is.  Some of us shared how much we identified (or didn't) with various characters in the book.  One of us tried lifting an idea from the book that seems romantic on first evaluation, and reported his experience trying to implement it ran very similarly to how it went in the book.

We ran through the list of questions picked up from LitLovers, but nothing new really came out of the questions.

Our club is at a strange point, where we are not well defined in terms of the purpose of the club, and there is a certain tension when selecting what to read next.  The vote approach shortened the discussion around what to read next, but I'm personally not really clear whether that is good or bad.  From votes, we have selected C S Lewis' "Til We Have Faces" for the next read.

We had already selected Guns Germs and Steel, and for various reasons the next meeting is fairly far away from the Gone Girl meeting (about 7 weeks).  That meeting will be August 28th (still 2 weeks remaining as I write this, a month late).

I've been bad

Well, things have been very busy for me, and I've once again been remiss in my duties toward the club.

I owe a post on the Gone Girl meeting, I will try to get that out tonight.

Other than that, I've updated most sections of the blog with the current and next selection where appropriate, and I've culled some entries off the candidates list that did not get votes last time.  The list is down to 10 choices, which may be perfectly appropriate, but if I can get Gone Girl off my list, I will see what I can add. I have several ideas of my own, and inputs from others (on the Dave's Notes page) that need to be genned up and added to the list.

I'll shoot an email out when I have the Gone Girl meeting post up.

Also, I owe a post on Guns Germs and Steel.  Folks are having a rough time with this choice, but I'll talk about that later.

Shelia says...

I have finished the book and loved it. I am almost too afraid to admit it but I like Amy, sure she is a psycho path but she is so organized, well thought out and disciplined, however; on that note I don't know why the author choose to have her have her money all in one place, why her first choice was to seek Desi instead of plot out a way to get her money back.  At first I liked Nick, the affair---- I understand the freedom and the excitement of an affair, I also understand oh too well the betrayal of an affair (book really makes me wish I had read it before I divorced my ex ;-)  In the end not so sure if I liked Nick or not its still up in the air. See ya on the 10th...

Gone Girl, Week 4

Ok, I've finished the book.

Warning! Spoilers!

Here's my main thought: I find myself identifying with the Nick character, in ways that make me uncomfortable.

Let me explain. 

Nick is revealed to not be overly concerned about the consequences of his actions.  I feel I am like that.  Frankly, like Nick, I never worry much about outcomes, I'm much more concerned about inputs, about doing what is "right" then letting the chips fall where they may.  Nick is described that way as well: he sees himself in the stereotypical role of "the provider".  He ascribes many of his own emotional troubles in Missouri to his inability to provide for Amy in the manner to which she had become accustomed, including the society available in New York, as compared to Missouri.

 Nick is "nice to everyone", in part due to the doing what is "right" thing, but in part because internally, his self-image is somewhat in doubt in his own mind.  I definitely feel that way myself, I worry about whether I have met the expectations of others, that kind of thing.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm doing what I think is "right" irrespective of the opinions of others, I just wonder how others see me, and whether my notion of "right" is close enough to what others think right is, that I can pass for "right enough anyway". 

Much like Nick, I am quite flawed in ways that (I hope) are not obvious to the casual observer.  When there is no clear "right or wrong", convenience becomes important to me, and I will likely half-ass something or not do it at all if there don't appear to be significant consequences.  My close friends have seen me drunk and angry, and listened while I raged of things neither they nor I had the slightest control over, and they probably had little interest, except for my well being. Hopefully they too were drunk and have forgotten some of that :-)  But, Nick's videos manipulating Amy to return to him, are representative of things I have done, putting spin on what I say or do, to influence others in ways that I believe are to my advantage.

I understand Nick's affair, both the opportunistic elements of it, and the emotional freedom from expectations that he felt burdened by when he was with Amy.

Amy on the other hand, should be institutionalized immediately.  No redeeming qualities to Amy at all.

One giant plot hole here, is that anyone who is as sociopathic as Amy, is really unlikely to be able to operate in society. 

Among my other criticisms:  Amy did not apparently punish her parents, yet she is very hostile about their expectations she will be "Amazing".  Amy did not punish the two folks at the cabins she hid out at who stole her money.  While she was able to orchestrate this multi-faceted frame-up of Nick, where was her backup planning and all that when they were taking her money belt from her? At least split the money into two hiding locations!  Why was it all with her, especially since she had become paranoid about them?  It seems to me she should have had a plausible amount in the money belt for them to steal, say a few hundred bucks, but the rest should have been in a hole in the ground somewhere.

I was rather enjoying the book until Nick figured out Amy was alive.  After that, I no longer enjoyed the book.


I did like this line, where Nick is describing Amy during their honeymoon:

"She'd made a grim figure on the Fiji beach during our two-week honeymoon, battling her way through a million mystical pages of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, casting pissy glances at me as I devoured thriller after thriller." Nick is describing to the police how Amy did not abandon a project (the ironing), with this being one example. 

Note that I seriously considered adding Chronicle to the candidates list a while back, when I was looking for a Japanese author... In fact I think I will do so.  623 pages, available on Kindle.

I liked this line as well, Amy narrating, describing what it is to be cool girl:

"I didn't worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber.  But also happy."

That is really interesting... the idea that not worrying and being happy leads to shallowness and stupidity?  I wonder if there is, in fact, some relationship there...

Anyway, looking forward to the 10th!

Alice Says...

I have completed our book. Thanks for the easier, interesting read.

Very interesting. Crazy people!

Susanna Says...

I finished the book last night. It was captivating and infuriating. Definitely worth reading to the end. It was an enjoyable read, not to tough. The author did a great job at toying with the readers emotion. When she wanted me to like a character I did, if she wanted me to not like a character I did, no questions asked. I absolutely hated (yes, I'm willing to use that strong of language) the characters at times, my blood boiled. Every character (besides perhaps Go) is at one time or another loved and despised

Discussion of "Butterfly Burning"

We met June 5th to discuss Butterfly Burning.

In attendance were:

Dave & Mary
Darryl & Barbara
Jeremy
Alice
Susanna
Catherine

Of these, Four of us had finished the book, the rest of us read somewhere between a third to half the book.

Prior to the meeting, we had a poetry reading from Darryl Hand. The selection was a poem by Anne Sexton, a Pulitzer prize winning poet, who died by suicide in 1974.

"Butterfly Burning" really brought out some lively discussion about women, and the roles of women in society, both in Africa in the 1940s, and in the US today.  Much discussion centered around the role of privilege, and around role models, for women.  One member specifically stated she was uncomfortable saying everything she felt from the book, due to concerns about the reactions of the men in the group.

This book was pretty much universally disliked by the group.  Some found the writing overwraught, and felt there were excessive use of simile and metaphor, so much so that the book was difficult to get through.  Others did not like the dark themes and the basically unrelieved tragedy.  One member described the book as a "perfect tragedy", having no relief from the suffering of the main character.

One member talked about having to re-read sections more than once, as he felt he missed something in the story and had to go back and re-read to understand what was going on.  At the end of the novel, he thought the main character had been murdered by her boyfriend, missing that her death was actually a suicide.

Several members indicated they would not have read the book on their own, but despite not liking the book especially, they were glad they had read it.

The discussion of this book was lively, with good participation amongst the members.  The discussion ran well over the allotted hour.

Following the discussion, a fair bit of time was spent talking about what the future reading of the club should look like, with most folks apparently agreeing that we should read "outside our comfort or familiarity zones", but that a lighter read between the heavier books would help folks enjoy it more.

With some debate, we settled on "Gone Girl", by Gillian Flynn, as the next novel.  It is a recent mystery/thriller, from which a movie is being (or may already have been) made, so should provide a somewhat lighter, easier read than other books we have been reading.  We also decided to read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" after Gone Girl, which will add a non-fiction book to our reading topics.

At least one member expressed their positive opinion about selecting books one reading cycle ahead, so we will continue to do so going forward.

Darryl Says...

Finished the book. I tried to be very thoughtful in my review:

Darryl reads a book. It is endless, nothing concealed, no one could survive. He reads, breathless, into the spaces between words. Inapt metaphors and inept similes. Fragmented sentences abound. Silence turns to words, and so on.

Taking drugs, the fire soon turns the ashes of the sun into nonsense. Words shouted noiselessly. Flying above the mountain, the ashes glitter like a train. The dust flies recklessly, like a note from a broken guitar string.

Darryl spoke wordlessly the question he could not answer, what the fuck?

Week Three of Butterfly Burning

We are in week three of Butterfly Burning.

Mary and I are neck and neck at the end of chapter 3, and I have heard from a few others who are further along.

The feedback I have received from readers is that the language the author uses seems overly "flowery" or ornamental.  My feeling at the end of chapter three is the author is painting as dark a word picture as she can of a subjugated people living in poverty and perhaps even slavery.  That will determine the cultural context of any characters she presents going forward in the novel.

The author, Yvonne Vera, is one of Africa's most esteemed writers. Her themes include many controversial subjects including the travails of escaping colonialism, the people of Zimbabwe's suffering during civil war, the plight of women in Africa particularly incest and rape, and feminism.

Vera's work is richly praised with literary prizes from African, European, and western literary organizations, so her use of language and choice of topics is apparently conveying something important to these audiences.

I challenge our reading group to temporarily suspend negative judgement on the unfamiliar structure of language and imagery Vera uses to describe the culture and action in Butterfly Burning.  Instead, read in the context of the cultural suffering and pain of her native Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, and consider whether the language she uses to express herself conveys something of her attitudes and perceptions, or brings us an improved understanding of her chosen literary subjects.  There are two perceptions to consider when crafting any message, after all: the sender and the receiver.  If we are going to read "the world" I think we should approach books originating outside the boundaries of our own western cultural experiences with an idea to both understanding the message that is being originated, and in determining whether there is value in the message that can be "brought home" so to speak, by improving our own attitudes and understanding.

There is, after all, cultural conflict here in our own neighborhoods, communities, and nation, along with rape, incest, and pain among the dispossessed in our own culture.  Does Vera help us understand? Can we take anything from her work that would be actionable on our part toward improving ourselves?  That would be the mark of a great literary work, if we happen to find that in Butterfly Burning.

On the other hand, the book could simply be over-wrought crap. Having that discussion is why we are in a reading club, after all.

Discussion of "Sound of the Mountain"

We met 8 May to discuss Sound of the Mountain.

In attendance were:

Dave & Mary
Darryl & Barbara
Wendall & Shelia
Alice
Susanna
Catherine

Prior to the meeting, we listened to some Hang music, which most of us who were here early for the meeting found very interesting. YouTube videos with different artists and play styles abound.

At the last meeting, Darryl offered to present a poetry reading to start this meeting off, but circumstances interfered with the implementation of that idea, so we will have the poetry reading next meeting.  If members enjoy that as a start to the meeting, we may pass the baton amongst the willing members, having one member select and read a poem to start each meeting, we will see how that goes.

Four of us finished the book, with the rest of us somewhere between pages 50 and 100.  Of those who finished, one person read it as an e-book, three read a physical book.  This book was a little harder to come by in print format, so several folks reading in print format could not start it until late in the 4-week reading schedule.

The prevalent feeling we expressed about the book is "Nothing really happens".  A couple members said they kept waiting for the "story to start".

In general, it was a pretty lively discussion, with lots of unanswered questions about the significance of various things in the book, including the Noh masks, the dog(s), the various plants and flowers, the "mountain", even what the sound of the mountain was.

This book did not have a reading group guide/questions. It's not clear whether that is a factor in how few of us completed the book. One member did employ the Cliffs Notes to gain a better understanding of the story and it's literary devices.

We spent some time talking about the direction we want to go in the group for reading.  Barbara suggested we find a novel that paints a picture of our American society and culture, as a juxtaposition to the portrayal of Japanese society, culture, etc. in Sound of the Mountain.  Several "Great American Novels" were considered for reading list inclusion, including those of Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Gardner (and others I don't recall right at the moment).  The group members were asked to consider what books we might add to the candidates list that would illustrate American society and culture, and email suggestions to Dave for inclusion in the list.  A couple members conjectured a book about American culture, written by an immigrant, might be very interesting for the perspective it offers.

Folks generally feel there should be more breadth to the candidates list, so we have more to choose from when we vote.  Guns, Germs, and Steel enjoys popular support as a selection, but several members wanted to hold off on that until summer when they have more time to spend on what may be a "homework assignment" type read. We seem to agree this is not a "Novels Only" club.  We seem to agree we want to select things that are outside our individual comfort zones, things we would not necessarily choose for ourselves.


After some discussion of the Dead White Males problem, and the somewhat vociferous rejection by some members of several works by women that were added to the list recently, we selected "Butterfly Burning" as the next club read.  This book is very short at a mere 144 pages, and some members have schedule conflicts in early June, so we settled on May 29th (3 weeks away) for the next meeting. Hopefully that will allow us to tackle something that presents a greater challenge, perhaps Guns, Germs, and Steel, or a biography for example the Biography of John Adams by David McCullough, which I will add to the candidates list this weekend.

Catherine provided links to a couple "around the world" reading blogs and lists that folks might check out, see if anything from these lists sounds interesting:
A Year of Reading the World
Around the World in 80 Books

A good time was had by all, and we sorely missed those who could not make it.

Week Four of Sound of the Mountain

We are in the final week of Sound of the Mountain.

Our meeting is scheduled for next Thursday, 8 May, at 7PM.

Mary is over half-way through the book, Jack and Jeremy are somewhere around a third through it, I haven't heard from others.

How is everyone else doing?

There are a couple of relationships that are juxtaposed to one another in the book, Im thinking of these pairs:

• Shingo and his son, regarding "success"
• Kikuko and the mistress, regarding their pregnancies
• Shingo's son and daughter, regarding their relationships with their spouses, and how Shingo sees/interacts with their spouses

Some other things I'm thinking about and may do some googling:

• What do the different flowers and trees signify to Shingo?
• Is the relationship between Shingo and Kikuko inappropriate?
• Why the dog? why the snake? why the birds? do these mean anything?

I'm very much interested in hearing what folks think about this novel, and about whether we want to read around the globe or read "closer to home".

With this entry, we've read from England, America, Columbia, and Japan.  Should we keep working around the globe?  Should we try some non-fiction?

I would like folks to shoot me comments about your reading experiences with Sound of the Mountain, or about how you feel about the club selections so far, and where you might like to see the club selections going in the future.

Week One of Sound of the Mountain

Week one of Sound of the Mountain has gone by, we are now in week two.

I've heard from a couple of folks who ordered the book on Amazon. I found my copy in a Half Price Books in Austin, and read it in one sitting one of the days I was ill from Allergies.

I really enjoyed the book, and plan on doing a second reading of it before we meet, to look more closely at things like use of allegory and symbolism. It is very clearly not a western novel.

One thing to look for is the use of flowers and trees as symbols of subjective activities throughout the book. I felt I saw a lot of that during my first read-through, and wanted to go back and see if there may be a deeper meaning there.  I remember once reading a story about Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, where a comment was made about the rapid regrowth of flowers and such.  I'll see if I can find a reference for that.  I don't have much experience with Japanese literature, but I'm thinking as a literary device, juxtaposing internal mental activities (thoughts, feelings, compulsions) with elements of nature serves as a means of making objective observations about inherently subjective processes.  In western literature I think we see more descriptions of subjective processes through bodily activities (blushing, trembling hands, the "fire in her eyes", that kind of thing).

I note another book club selected Sound of the Mountain in April as well, the Thursday Night Book Club, hosted by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  Interestingly, they selected Vonnegut's Bluebeard for May.

This novel was written between 1949 and 1954, in the aftermath of World War II.  It was first translated to English in 1970.  Kawabata died, apparently at his own hand, in 1972.  He was the first Japanese author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1968.

Hopefully everyone else will enjoy the novel as much as I did.

Slaughterhouse Five Discussion

I've been bad.

I was supposed to post about our visit on Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five last weekend, and update the current selection. Ah well.

Hopefully everyone can forgive me!

 Those in attendance last Thursday include:

Dave & Mary
Jack and Shelia
Darryl and Barbara
Alice
Jeremy

 Most of us had finished the book. In general it seemed Slaughterhouse Five met with some approval and some disapproval, more or less on gender lines. The men seemed to like it, and the women seemed to prefer not to read such things again.

One of the big complaints expressed was the way it jumped around, in short episodes that were not linearly related in time. On the other hand, some of us found that to be an interesting artistic technique, especially given the alien's ability to see all of time, compared to the human ability to only see the moment.

One of the unresolved topics from our discussion was whether Billy, the main character, suffered delusions from a brain injury, and simply imagined the aliens and jumping around in time, or whether that was all "real".

We touched on the meaning of "so it goes" and the "po-tee-tweet". I think we agreed the repeated use of "so it goes" was intended to be annoying or at least attention-getting, perhaps to overcome a general desensitization to death on the part of Vonnegut's readers. po-tee-tweet we thought might indicate nature's general indifference to the activities of man, e.g. after the Dresden bombing, nature represented by the birds kept on, essentially unaffected, while men sought for purpose or meaning from the bombing.

We then selected our next work, "Sound of the Mountain" by Yasunari Kawabata.

I look forward to our next meeting!

Week 3 of Slaughterhouse Five

We are in week 3 of Slaughterhouse Five.  Folks should be approaching the end of this 288 page book.

I've heard that several members have already completed the book!  This is a much easier read than our first two books were, and is somewhat shorter.  Hopefully everyone who has already finished will still remember the book during the discussion :-)

I read this one on Kindle, and about halfway through started using the highlight and notes features to record thoughts I had while reading.  The novel is somewhat disjointed as well, so I'm going back and rereading the first half or so.  I feel there are associations I missed in the early part of the book, perhaps I will pick up on some of those in the reread.

Memory is an interesting thing.  I was talking to Jeremy about the club and the book. He said he had read Slaughterhouse Five in High School, but did not remember the Tralfamadorians! One of my favorite science fiction novels is Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", in which one of my favorite parts was the church set up by the main character as a means of disposing of his wealth, by simply placing piles of cash in the tithing box, and letting folks take what they need.  However, so many people were tithing into the church, his wealth was growing instead.

Unfortunately, when I reread that novel a few years ago, that didn't actually happen in the book! If I were a good conspiracy theorist who had read 1984, I might think Newspeak had destroyed the original novel with the church-sponsored socialism subplot in it, and replaced it with a less heretical (huh?) rendition.  Then I would start worrying about whether the books we are reading in our group have suffered similar emendations...

Our meeting is scheduled for April 10th, at my house, at 7PM.  I look forward to seeing everyone.

Week 2 of Slaughterhouse Five

Here we are in Week 2.  Folks should be around or a little past page 100 of "Slaughterhouse Five".

I've been hearing some feedback on the "so it goes" phrase, I think it would be really interesting if a couple folks would shoot me some text of their own on how they see that phrase (I'm looking at Darryl and Mary when I say that, but it's open to everyone).

The book is reading very quickly for me, maybe 70 pages an hour.  In part that is because the density of the text is quite low, with breaks on nearly every page between the paragraphs and scenes in the book.

Anyone have any observations on vocabulary?  I found this word very interesting: rodomontades (page 121), meaning "boastful or inflated talk or behavior", an archaic term. I find it interesting that the old (compared to the Americans) English officers are described using archaic terminology.

There have been a couple sentences in the book that have really stood out to me, that I believe are really interesting comments.

The first I'll talk about here is on page 128, "So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe.  Science fiction was a big help." Billy is part of "they" in that sentence, and I think it says quite a lot about Billy's circumstances, but I found myself generalizing beyond the book, and thinking about "they" in the abstract, and about how people and even nations re-invent themselves all the time, rephrasing their understanding of their own past using modern or even post-modern vocabulary, thus changing the emphasis and importance of events in their history. I find Rosewater a very interesting character in the novel.

Not far from this sentence, on page 130: "She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all."   I feel this sentence captures something really important in how people interact with each other, with this internalized notion that we "owe" one another some kind of gratitude or perhaps acquiescence, because of what they have done for us (or to us) with no regard to what we might prefer if we could exercise our free will.

One more sentence, from page 149: "So-- " said Billy gropingly, "I suppose that the idea of preventing war on Earth is stupid, too." "Of course."  What a powerful statement! It completely rejects the notion of free will, and reduces the universe to a completely deterministic system.  For the Tralfamadorians, the universe MUST be deterministic, in order to be able to see the entire past and future.  It is very interesting that Billy, who sees the Tralfamadorian planet as peaceful, assumes it is always peaceful, that the Tralfamadorians somehow chose it to be peaceful, and that peaceful is a good or desirable state, compared to the horror he assumes the Tralfamadorians will see war to be.  Very interesting juxtaposition of ideologies.

What do others see thematically in the book, or in single sentences, that they feel speak to them strongly?

Love in the Time of Cholera discussion

The discussion of Love in the Time of Cholera was lively and entertaining.

Three members completed the book, all women:

Mary, Barbara, Shelia

The rest of those who attended the discussion had started the book but read as few as 30-ish pages, to as many as around 200, but did not finish.

Dave, Darryl, Jack, Alice

Jim attended as well but did not start the book.

I don't think anyone in our group especially liked this book. 

Some of us found the characters to be unsympathetic.  Fermina Daza is viewed as self-centered or self-absorbed, and Florentino Ariza as a womanizing man-whore.  There may be some cultural effects in play here.  Some of us tried to locate where the novel occurred on the map.  Some of us wondered if the open sewage and animal carcasses in the bay were historically accurate.

Shelia reported she watched the movie, and that helped her get through the book.

Some of the LitLover's questions we did not answer, such as the "conflict" between Dr Juvenal Urbino and Florentino Ariza.  This group of readers did not see a conflict between those two individuals.

Most of us reacted with ridicule to the "I've remained a virgin for you" line by Florentino.  Several of us had viscerally strong negative reactions to some of Florentino's relationships, including the relationship with his ward.

One question indicated the novel explores death and decay. While there were descriptions of death and decay, it was not clear to us the novel "explores death and decay, as well as love".  Also, it was not clear to us that Dr Urbino "refused to grow old gracefully".

Despite the lack of enthusiasm amongst our group for this novel, I still recommend Hundred Years of Solitude. I remain pleased with the quality and style of the writing in Love in the Time of Cholera, and plan to finish the book in the next couple of days.

If members have changes to suggest to this summary of our discussion, please let me know!

---

We had a couple items of club business to attend to.

1.  Should books beyond a certain page count be excluded from the suggestions list? (yes, 800 pages max)

We have a couple large novels on the suggestion list, so the question was put to the group whether we should restrict the list to books below a certain page threshold.  The decision was made to restrict suggestions to 800 pages or less, and when a book is over 400 pages, we'll meet on that book twice.  With that decision, we can plan on the club meeting monthly, instead of varying the time between meetings based on book length as we have done.

2.  Should we limit the suggestions list to only those book available as e-books? (yes, require suggestions to be available as e-books)

More than half our members are reading on e-reader devices, but Love in the Time of Cholera was not available as an e-book.  The question was put to the group whether we should restrict the list to books available as e-books.  The decision was made to accept only books available as e-books on the suggestions list.

3.  I requested more commentary from group members to go into the blog.

Some members expressed reservations about sending comments.  It is ABSOLUTELY NOT REQUIRED!!... I just think it would be nice if between meetings, we share even a couple lines about our reactions to the selected reading.  I think it was Darryl who said it best, when he indicated these comments help him get more out of the novel, either by commiserating with his suffering, or by pointing out alternate interpretations that bring greater insight.  (these are my words not his, but hopefully I captured what he was trying to say). 

4.  We need more (and different) input from members on the suggestion list

A few members have made suggestions for the list, but it would be great if we could get a greater variety of choices, from more of the members, in the list.

I will be working on updating the suggestions list to reflect these criteria over the next couple of days

---

After some discussion, we settled on Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" as our next read.

Last day for Love in the Time of Cholera

This is the last day for "Love in the Time of Cholera".  I am not finished with this selection, and probably will not finish it.  I'm at page 170, so about half-way through.

I enjoy the writing style, I enjoy the plot, but this is the slowest read I have attempted in a long while.  With diligent attention I can read somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 pages an hour of this book. I dont find the language particularly challenging, so I can't really explain why it is going so slowly.

At this point in the novel, I still don't see anything I think of as "magical".  There's some commentary on the Web that suggests interpreting events in the novel as "magical" may be a cultural thing. 

I haven't yet found anything in the novel I thought was odd or unapproachable due to my very protestant, very white upbringing.

Hundred Years of Solitude was a better novel in my opinion, though I actually think this is a fine novel as well.

I'm very interested to hear what others think of the novel at this evening's discussion.

---

On other topics, we have a couple of items on the agenda for this evening:

1.  Should we impose a page limit?
2.  Should we avoid books that are not available as e-books?

We have now read one European (British) author and one South American (Columbian) author.  Is this working for everyone?

From Darryl

Enjoyed the book early, but much like a marathon, it slowly beat me down until I completely hated it. The writing style, enchanting at first, began to tire me, and the lead characters were very unlikeable. Love story? Between a sociopathic stalker and a shallow, self-centered biddy?

Magical element? Hmm, how about "he no longer detected the fetid reek of the bay in the city, but was aware only of the personal fragrance of Fermina Daza." (p. 148) How romantic. That stink everyone smells? Reminds me of the girl I am stalking! It's the magic of love!

"I adore you because you made me a whore", declares one of the stalker's conquests - such a lovely ideal. (p. 151) At this point this book is making me angry. There is no love or passion here - just a disturbing sense of selfishness and misogyny - but I press onward.

"This pussy is mine", writes the romantic hero on the body of another victim, who is later murdered by her husband due to this transgression. Ah, but magically, the roses grew so beautifully in the cemetery where she was buried. (p. 217-218)

Finally, I cut my losses and quit. Well, actually I jumped to the end, hoping to read about their painful deaths - cholera for Fermented Ditza, and syphilis for Fornicato Arzehole. Alas, I was deprived of this relief. If it was the author's intent to make me suffer, to feel the pain of cholera, then his Nobel prize was clearly well deserved.

Final week of Love in the Time of Cholera

We are in the final week of Love in the Time of Cholera. I've been terribly busy with a new job and such, and very tired as well which I blame on the weather. I am, of course, very far behind, so one of my projects for today is to read read read.

How is everyone else doing? Mary completed the book back in February, but I know others are making slow progress, as am I.

Does anyone have a reaction at this point to magical realism as a writing style?

Is "Love in the time of Cholera" an example of that writing style? Some web sources suggest the parrot's ability to speak "with a clarity and rationality that were uncommon among human beings" is an example of introducing magical attributes next to mundane events, but I did not see that passage in the book as magical. I rather took it as a comment about the lack of clarity and rationality among human beings.

On the other hand, the parrot's repertoire does seem quite vast, including imitation of singing from what he hears on vinyl records, to latin Mass, sailors' curses, and who knows what else? Is the size of the parrot's repertoire magical?  Does the parrot's repertoire cover substantially all topics of "mundane" human speech?  Does the parrot's silence when the governor and his entourage visit imply the citizenry do not speak about politics (or to political leaders), possibly because such discussion is suppressed or dangerous?

Is the parrot's speech ability juxtaposed to human thoughts and speech intended to imply that humans are also merely repeating what is learned from repeated exposure rather than being creative or well reasoned? Here I am thinking particularly about religious beliefs and political ideology, which so frequently seems to me to be inherited from one's parents and social circumstance, rather than the product of enlightened reason. Is that what Garcia Marquez is conveying, when he juxtaposes the parrot's repetition against human clarity and rationality?

I invite others to share and discuss examples where "magical" elements are juxtaposed against "mundane" elements in the book.

Mary says...

Mary said this back in February, but I've been very bad these last two weeks at keeping the blog going. From Mary: Have finished reading Love in the time of Cholera. The first chapter was dry and had a hard time getting the names straight in my head. Reread several pages till I got that down. The rest of the book is an easy read, at least it was for me. Encourage every one to finish the book.

Darryl Says...

... Despite reading some every day, I am only on page 20.  The writing is very dense, and I find myself reading very slowly.  Also, I did not have the book with me for the recent down time at the Honda dealership.

Week One of Love in the Time of Cholera

Welcome to Thursday! Today starts week two of our group read of Love in the Time of Cholera.  Folks should be somewhere near page 100.

I am, of course, running behind as usual.  I'm at page 38.

My first problem was the appearance of the person in the car with dessert (hopefully that's abstract enough not to be a reveal for those behind me) whose name caused me quite a lot of confusion.  I had to flip back to the beginning of the book, and reread a few pages, to clear up my own confusion.

Here's something I know now, that I did not know before:  In Spanish, one does not have a "last name", rather one has an "apellido", or surname, comprised of a first apellido and a second apellido.  The first apellido is taken from the first apellido of the father, the second apellido is taken from the first apellido of the mother.

According to Wikipedia, Gabriel's parents were Gabriel Eligio García and Luisa Santiaga Márquez.  Huh? shouldn't his name then have been Gabriel Eligio Santiaga?  

Well, his mothers full name was Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán.  In practice, only the first apellido is  used for most purposes, the full apellido is used for legal proceedings and the like, so her name would be bandied about as Luisa Santiaga Márquez, omitting the Iguarán, just as it reads on Wikipedia.  His father's name is similarly said as Gabriel Eligio García, omitting his second apellido.

When Gabriel married Mercedes Barcha Pardo in 1958, I assume she took his paternal apellido (Mercedes Barcha Garcia, that would be, replacing her Mother's first apellido of Pardo, with Gabriel's paternal apellido).  She is named around the intarwebs as Mercedes Barcha, consistent with using only the first apellido in normal use, and she is also named as Mercedes Barcha Garcia, and, oddly, Mercedes Barcha Garcia Marquez, which may be the anglicizing thing popping up again, taking "Garcia Marques" to be his "last name" and replacing the Pardo with it, as though Pardo were her last name.

Anyway, that is why Gabriel Garcia Marquez is found in the G's at Half Price Books, not in the M's as our english and german naming conventions would suggest.  Interestingly, in Spain, the parents of a child may now legally reverse the mother and father first apellidos for their children if they wish, thanks to new gender equality laws.

There are all kinds of cool implications about identity management, sort orders, mailing lists, and such, for correctly handling Spanish surnames.  My bet is most U.S. organizations get it wrong, particularly when accent marks and that pesky space between the first and second apellido needs to be stored.

Mary Says...

I am on page 114 of our new selection and enjoying it very much. Started out slow, had to reread a few pages to get the names in my head. I like the story line and feel as though I know the people in the book. You can feel the depth of passion and love. 

What other book clubs have been reading

I was doing a little web browsing this afternoon, while thinking about the recent changes I made to the What's Next page, and thinking about an email Susanna sent yesterday about Garcia Marquez.

First, she pointed out that "Love in the Time of Cholera" is on the Oprah's Book Club list, as is "Hundred Years of Solitude", both of which quite surprised me.  When I think of Oprah's list, I think of the Franzen "kerfuffle", and James Frey, I suppose because those are the books and authors that got sensationalized air time on whatever media I was into back then.  I was also leery of what I feared would be books that made the best sellers' lists not on their own merits, but on the strength of an Oprah endorsement, which is backward thinking really as Oprah would presumably not select a book that didn't have sufficient merit to belong on a best seller list anyway, right?

I figured Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou would be there, for their influential works in womens' and race issues, and yes they are both there.  I did not expect Leo Tolstoy or Charles Dickens, as I thought of the Oprah list as containing only contemporary works, not canonical classics.  I also found it interesting that Steinbeck and Faulkner are both represented on her list.

Well, you learn something every day if you aren't careful.

The second thing Susanna commented on is Garcia Marquez is suffering from Alzheimer's, and has since mid-2012.  He will turn 87 next month.  Looking at his bibliography, the publishing dates stop around 2004, with new translations appearing in 2005.

The Oprah's club thing got me thinking about what other book clubs have been reading.  The site from which I get the review questions, LitLovers, has a list of top 50 "most popular books on LitLovers" though I note the date last updated says January 20th, 2013.  I wonder if that's a typo.

I also found this list, with books arranged by genre or other category, which might have some interesting choices to offer.

I invite everyone to check out these lists, and see if anything sparks an interest.

Once and Future King, concluded

Congratulations to everyone, for attempting Once and Future King.

We held our discussion on 13 Feb 2014, as planned.  At that time, four members had finished the book, all within a day of the discussion.

Most of our group found the novel very challenging, for a variety of reasons.  The vocabulary was a big challenge, with quite a few members commenting they either kept a dictionary handy or simply glossed over words they didn't know.

Quite a few members felt the pacing of the story was too slow, with excessive descriptions of the environment that didn't seem to advance the story or serve any other purpose.

Pretty much everyone felt the romance between Lancelot and Guenever was very under-represented in the novel.

We went through the LitLover's questions (they can be seen on the Past Selections page) and discussed about half of them.

The fantasy genre overall is not a primary reading interest for the majority of our group, and we will probably steer clear of this genre going forward.

The media choice seemed pretty evenly split for this novel, with about half of us reading a paperback, and about half reading on an e-reader.  I noted with some interest, that of the 4 that finished the book, two were reading a mass market paperback (the "normal" sized paperback) with fairly small print.  The print size was an issue for some of the folks reading the mass market paperback editions.  One of our finishers (myself) was reading a trade paperback edition (thank you Suzanne!) with larger print that was easier on the eyes.  The other finisher read an e-book edition.

At the time of the meeting, there were 7 titles suggested for the next read. We selected "Love in the Time of Cholera", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I have updated the Current Selection and What's Next pages to reflect that selection.

Some members had suggestions for authors they particularly like, and I have asked those members to be sure and send me titles and authors that I can add to the What's Next list.

I really enjoyed the discussion, and having everyone over!  I hope everyone else enjoyed it as well.

If anyone has suggestions or comments that would improve your enjoyment of the club, or of the discussion meetings, please shoot me an email or post a comment.

Finished reading Once and Future King

I have finished Once and Future King.

It seems White saved all the evil for the final short installment of his telling.  Here we have everyone's sordid past trotted out for all to see.  Here Arthur is forced by the same mechanisms he believed would save his idyllic Camelot, to instead lose his ability to remain innocent of Lancelot and Guenever. Here we see Mordred engaged in his treachery, and hear something of the back story to Arthur's "original sin", sending boatloads of innocent babies to their deaths in a vain attempt to avoid a prophesy.

I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone Thursday evening.

Final Stretch

I have finished the 3rd book, and am getting ready to start the fourth book tonight. We are scheduled to meet at my house this Thursday the 13th, at 7:00 PM to discuss the book.

 I look forward to having everyone over, and I hope everyone enjoys the discussion. Many of us have confided to me that they find this book a really difficult read, for various reasons. I have a short list of titles I'm interested in, on the what's next page of the blog, but so far I have had no suggestions from anyone else.  I would prefer to hear suggestions before Thursday, so we have time to consider whatever titles others may care to suggest.

I continue find the book quite enjoyable, for its overall light tone and somewhat slapstick comedy.  I see lots of humor throughout the book that would surely appeal to T H White's audience, if he intended his book to be read by teenage boys.  The cultural references continue to escape me, unless I take time to look them up, but I think most of the humor should be understandable to our group.

I agree with what others have said about the uni-dimensional quality of the characters in the story, but I think that is intentional on White's part as opposed to a failure in technique.  As I continue to read the story, my conviction that he expected his audience to be well-read and familiar with Malory and other tellings of the Arthurian legend remains strong.  I think the characters are written to express the characteristic that most defines them:

Arthur is noble.  Even as Wart, with one or two notable exceptions, Arthur shows the attributes of nobility.

Guenever is in love with two men, and is the apex of a love triangle.  Her background is completely omitted other than casual references to her father, and one mention of arranged marriage.

Lancelot is conflicted between his love of an eternal God (and its associated expression as hero worship of Arthur), and his love of a fallible and mortal woman.  Lancelot enjoys the additional attention from White, of his struggle to reconcile his strength as a knight which he ascribes to purity, and his betrayal of Arthur in his relationship with Guenever.  He has nearly no struggle with his loss of virginity regarding Elaine, except to the extent he believed it was Guenever and therefore he had sinned against Arthur.  I find it interesting how often Lancelot is the "Deus ex Machina" that arrives at the end of a situation to employ his great combat ability to resolve an otherwise lost situation.

Mordred is expressed by White as conceited and self-absorbed, but the sense of evil and treachery that is ascribed to Mordred in other sources is absent here (at least so far).  White doesn't even include in his rendition, any episodes of Arthur with his half sister Morgause, he simply assumes everyone understands that Mordred is Arthur's illegitimate son from an incestuous relationship.

Galahad has no human qualities (in fact he is so mono-dimensional, White openly tells us Galahad has no human qualities, rather than letting us figure that out), he is portrayed as having only the divine quality of his purity.  Galahad doesn't even seem to be tempted to sin, in White's telling.

Again, I look forward to the discussion on Thursday.  We may have some finger foods but won't have dinner, so plan accordingly, and please bring whatever you prefer to drink.

Please check the list of suggested titles for our next read, send me any additions you'd like to see added, and think about what we might tackle next.

Until Thursday, stay safe and good reading!

Darryl Says...

I have just finished chapter 16 in book three. Book two was good, but IMO there was too much about the questing beast. Very Monthy Python-esque, and didn't really seem to belong. Am curious to see how others felt about this. I am reserving judgement on book three, but thus far it seems the characters of Lancelot and Guinevere are very shallow. Intricate romance is not the author's forte. I am not surprised to hear rumors of his gayness. Still, the story has captured my interest and I will likely be finished before our meeting.

Alice Says...

I feeling like I'm letting everyone, including myself down but I'm really behind on reading this wonderful book. I'm having a hard time getting through the details. I will continue but am not promising to finish it.

Susanna Says...

I am a little more then half way through. I enjoyed how the first book finished everything rather quickly. He started at a slow pace, with a lot of little stories that didn't seem to have any great import to the story but at the end of the first book he wrapped it up and brought it all together quite nicely.

Fourth Week

I have finished Liber Primus, and must say I was quite emotionally affected by the concluding events of the book. I was touched pretty strongly by the crowd of "friends" who helped Wart pull the sword from the stone, I had to take a break and dry my eyes. I particularly liked the juxtaposition between the first few attempts he made to pull the sword with brute strength, and the method with which he actually drew the sword, having heard the advice of the friends. I'm not sure whether the implication is that his friends granted him so much power that he was able to draw it so easily, or whether with the support of his friends he did not try to force the sword but just drew it "naturally". Following that scene, and continuing my emotional instability I suppose, I laughed at the phrase "...but, as the Wart was prepared to go on putting the sword into the stone and pulling it out again until Doomsday...". I could so easily see the Wart at the stone and anvil, perfectly willing to put the sword in the stone for each person to try and extricate, then pulling it out for them. I imagine him offering to give the sword to each person who tried to pull it and failed, but no one taking it because there were witnesses. I have enjoyed this first book immensely. One of the high points for me in the later chapters of the first book is the Badger's dissertation, and the ensuing discussion about kings vs. tyrants. I think it somehow fitting that man (as Wart) sees mankind as a king over nature, but nature (as Badger) conjectures man is a tyrant, based not on what man does, but on how nature responds to man, even when man is not exerting his "kingly" power over nature. One question I am thinking about is whether there is some greater importance to the gifts sent to Arthur. Most gifts sent by folks from the Castle of the Forest Sauvage seem to reflect the person who sent them, which seems simple enough and maybe that's the point. The gifts sent by Robin's group seem to be more "aggrandizing", the pine martin gown and a bow Little John must know is taller than Arthur, therefore Arthur should not use it, as he would be "boasting", right? The gift from Lyo-lyok in particular seems to represent something different. Remember the horror and dislike when Lyo-loyk understood what Wart meant by War? Why would she then send weapons made from her own feathers? I am way behind, and will be focusing this week on getting caught up. Folks should now be at around page 400 or a little farther along. By this coming Thursday (the 6th) folks should be finishing up the second book, "Queen of Air and Darkness". I invite everyone to send some text describing their own impressions of the book, and letting folks know where they are in the book.

Darryl Says...

I'm in chapter nine of the second book, enjoying it very much. Had to look up another word "colleen", couldn't guess the definition by the context (something about telling stories without any colleens or battles). Turns out to be an Irish expression for a young woman.

Barbara Says...

Finally finished book one and know I am behind schedule.  Me favorite character so far is Merlyn.  I think it would be most confusing to spend your life in a timeline backwards from everyone else.  But I guess if you have to keep up with cross species communication and magic - attention to the details of time would be a minor concern.  I enjoyed the fantasy of learning by becoming an animal.  Though I dislike the books tendency to be so detailed about the environment and sequence of events, yet seemingly disconnected between chapters.  Admittedly there may be obvious connections and importance of said details that I am missing. I intend to read the referenced discussion questions before continuing with book two.  Hoping for some focus to spur my reading.  As usual I began reading without any information about the book and just recently realized there were three books.  A lofty goal for a monthly reading group, at least for me.  But I am newly inspired to keep reading about young Wart and his new found Kingship.  I just can't promise I will make the deadline.

Mary Says...

On page 275. Was really enjoying the book, the last 50 pages have kinda been boring and I feel I am struggling to make myself read again.

Its not that I don't like the book.  I just feel I got to the part where it's kind of stalled.

Third Week

Over at one of my favorite web sites, LibraryThing, they have started a group read project.  Running through February 10th they are reading "The Picture of Dorian Grey", by Oscar Wilde.  They are following that up with Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

I thought folks might like to check it out.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/onelibrarythingonebo

LibraryThing is free to join, they provide a web application that allows one to catalog/track books, and have a feature rich social platform as well.  The free membership allows up to 200 books to be cataloged, or something like that.

Also, today is Thursday the 23rd, and this is week three of our group read.  Folks should be somewhere near page 300 of Once and Future King today.  I'm still behind, but will catch up this weekend.

I'd like to ask folks to share any impressions you have so far, so I can post them on the site for others to think about.

Share your thoughts

I didn't get much reading done last week, various things going on around the house and at work.  But, that's why I thought a hundred pages a week might be a good rate of reading.  On some weeks I may read Once and Future King every day and knock out several hundred pages.  This week just past, I read a grand total of zero pages, so I am running behind.  I'm at the start of chapter 11 (about page 97)

As of Thursday the 16th, folks who are exactly on schedule should have been on around page 200, or the start of the Second Book, "Queen of Air and Darkness". This coming Thursday (the 23rd) you should try to be around page 300, or about the start of chapter 13 of Queen of Air and Darkness.

I'd like to ask folks to shoot me an email with your thoughts about what you have read so far, and about where you are in the book. I'll create posts (like I did with Darryl's status from last week).  I'm thinking everyone would like to know how others are doing, so share!

I think Nastasha is interested in reading with us, though her work schedule may keep her from this first meeting.  I'm adding her to the club list.

Update from Darryl

I am through chapter 8, and am enjoying it more than anticipated.  I am not taking the time to look up all the words I don't know and likely am missing many subtle meanings, but there is just too much of that stuff (for example, "this Beast has the head of a serpent, ah, and the body of a libbard..."  Now what the hell is a libbard?  Turns out to be archaic for leopard, but that is the only word I have looked up so far.  It would slow me down too much if I stopped for all these bizarre words and references, and I just don't care enough about falconry or jousting to research.  Instead I simply guess based on context and move along.  Still enjoyable though, the writing is good.

Early Reflections

I have read to the end of chapter 10, which occurs on page 96 in my edition of Once and Future King, and thought I'd share some observations.

I am really enjoying this book, more than I thought I would.  The tone of the writing was a surprise to me, I did not expect it to contain humor or tongue-in-cheek social commentary.  I take it T H White expected his readers to be young (teenagers at least).

 I really enjoy the Latin bits, from the discussion of declensions between the Lords early in the book, to the scattering of Latin throughout the story, in songs and in Merlyn's magic spells.  I think White expected his readers to be familiar with latin in an elementary way, and to have a rudimentary or better grasp of english history, particularly the timeframe of the Plantagenets, without which some of the allusions he makes might be missed.

Some info about the contents of Merlyn's room

The oddments described in Merlyn's room may be directly understood by readers from England, but I had to look them up, and thought I would share what I found regarding some of what is described there.

When I first read "under a fox's mask, with Grafton, Buckingham to Daventry, 2 Hrs 20 Mins", I figured it was a train schedule or something similar, though I did not get the fox's mask reference. Turns out Grafton is a real hunt club where they once did, and maybe still do, hunt foxes, with running land from Buckingham to Daventry.  Presumably then, the fox from which the fox mask was taken, took 2 Hours 20 Minutes to run down?

I was at a complete loss when I first read "a 40 pound salmon with AWE, 43 Min, Bulldog, written under it".  In Scotland, there is a River Awe, where salmon fishing used to happen.  The river was dammed in the mid-1950s, after T H White wrote Once and Future King, to the detriment but apparently not complete loss of salmon fishing on the River Awe.  40lbs is a big salmon, but far from a record holder.  I now assume 43 minutes was how long it took "Merlyn" (or perhaps White) to land the fish, and Bulldog was the type of lure used to catch the fish.

Again, "basilisk, with Crowhurst Otter Hounds in Roman print" had no meaning at all for me, but there really were  Crowhurst Otter Hounds that were used for hunting (otters, not basilisk).

An Ovis Poli is a Marco Polo sheep, noted for their large heads and curling horns.  And, Peter Scott artwork is featured on a set of 25 large format cigarette cards from 1937, showing wildfowl.  White wrote the component parts of Once and Future King between 1938 and 1941.

Merlyn's owl Archimedes is named for a "greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer", Archimedes of Syracuse.

I would like others to write something about their impressions of the book so far, ideally without any plot spoilers for those who may be running behind.  For those willing to write something, please email it to me and I will post it as a blog post with an attribution.

Enjoy your reading!

What's going on here?

It's a new year, and my personal reading accomplishments in 2013 were pretty weak.  According to my LibraryThing, I managed to check off a paltry 13 books from my reading stack.  Of those 13, 4 were Stephanie Meyers' Twilight, 2 were Harry Potter novels, and the remainder were similarly themed speculative fiction.

Now, that's not to say I didn't read other things... I did, just not complete books that I could check off.  What I thought might be interesting, and potentially motivating, is to start up a book club with a few friends.

So here it is.  I'll put it to a vote in February, but I'm tentatively thinking of calling this book club "One Hundred Pages Per Week".  I can read critically at about the rate of 50 pages an hour, and am asking my friends for a commitment around 2 hours a week, thus 100 pages a week.

We'll be reading "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White as our first book.  The edition I have runs 650 pages, so that's a 7-week read.  I've added a page to the blog where our current selection, start date, meeting date/time/place, and other info can be found.

I've surfed a few other book club how-to websites, so I know we need some procedures for things.  I've added a page to the blog where my initial thoughts on procedures can be found.