book club

18 posts

You’re Probably Trying Too Hard on the Things that Don’t Matter

A therapist friend recently asked me for advice. (No this isn’t the opening remark at the American Psychiatric Association convention.) She was feeling remiss about starting, and not keeping up with, a blog. What with her practice and her actual life, her energies didn’t seem to be directed into blogging. I actively listened (until she took a long breath, I’m only human after all) and asked her “why do you want a blog?” “I guess I don’t, I just thought I should” she replied. I assured her that no one is watching. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: A Dance with Dragons

HBO’s critically acclaimed Game of Thrones TV series introduced George R. R. Martin’s brilliant A Song of Ice and Fire series to a mass audience who may never have been interested in fantasy fiction. But it also happened to air at a particularly auspicious time, with the first season ending shortly before the long-awaited fifth book was released.

Considering that the 1510-page length of A Dance with Dragons (available on Amazon) only makes it the second-longest book in the series, plunging into the text version of a world so well-constructed on screen is no small undertaking, but it is well worth it. As a prose stylist, Martin is no Nabokov, but the point-of-view chapters full of flashbacks and internal dialogue give his world and characters a historical and personal depth that can only be hinted at in the screen adaptation. And despite their daunting length, the pages turn so quickly that one could easily plow through a third of the book in a single sitting without even realizing it. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club Discussion: Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

The time to discuss our latest book club selection has come, friends! So, what did you think? When the book choice was announced, I posted some topics to keep in mind as you read. I’ve come up with some additional topics to discuss, but I hope you have questions and thoughts of your own to add. Let’s bust out the mojitos and get to discussin’.

The first two lines of Eire’s preamble (Preámbulo) read “This is not a work of fiction./But the author would like it to be.” Did you all think Eire was telling the complete truth? Eire’s writing style is a lot less structured than most of us are probably used to reading. Much of the book seemed to be pure stream of consciousness and written like a diary. Did you think that was detrimental or helpful to Eire effectively telling his story? Was this book a bit of a tall tale or could these memories have been vividly seared into Eire’s mind? Remember, he was only 8 or 9 when the events began to take place. It is all so dreamlike and poetic. Would Eire be better suited for writing novels? Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

READ THIS OR ELSEWelcome back to Book Club, amigos. Didn’t you guys just love our last book club hosted by boobookitteh?

Well, it looks like I am your hostess this go-around! And you know what? It’s gonna be good because we are reading Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy.

On January 1, 1959, Cuban dictator Fugencio Batista’s government was toppled by Fidel Castro’s movement. 8 year old Carlos Eire’s childhood ended abruptly that day. He was the son of a wealthy judge, just the type of person Castro was out to destroy. Before Castro came into power, Eire lived a charmed life full of firecrackers, torturing lizards, and trips to the beach where his father would drive their family car through the surf. After the revolution, life changed dramatically. Eire eventually became one of the unaccompanied 14,000 children sent to Miami as part of Operación Pedro Pan. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club Discussion:
The Preservationist by David Maine

Hola Book Clubbers!  It’s time for our official discussion of our latest Book Club selection, The Preservationist by David Maine.  I posted these topics a couple of days ago and hope you have had time to read and think about these questions.  I also hope you have questions and topics of your own to share.  So without further ado, let’s revisit these questions and start with the book nerd fun!

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Crasstalk Book Club: The Preservationist by David Maine

Welcome to Book Club: The Next Generation.  Before I present our next book to be discussed, allow me to get some housekeeping out of the way.  You may have noticed that this book choice was not a result of several voting rounds.  That is because there has been a decision to have Book Club operate under the purview of DogsOfWar.  Dogs will select the person to lead each book group.  If you wish to be considered for leading a discussion, email Dogs at CommentsOfWar at gmail dot com and present your book for consideration.

Now that we all are on the same page (heh), allow me to present our next book, The Preservationist by David Maine.

Although it would be easiest to describe Maine’s debut novel as a retelling of the Noah’s Ark story from the Bible, it is much more than a simple reinterpretation.  His narrative takes the few chapters about God’s judgment and punishment of his failing creation and expands and adds essential missing characters, as well as filling in the holes and questions left by the incomplete Biblical narrative. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: Discussing The Warmth of Other Suns

Good evening everyone, I’m really glad you’re here.

Welcome to the Crasstalk Book Club discussion of Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Suns.

In the great tradition of  Crasstalk Book Club selections this was not exactly an uplifting book. It’s oppression and degradation with the occasional “They made it!” moment. So, pretty much your typical immigrant story.

But these people weren’t immigrants. They were Americans, many with ties to this country older than the white people who shit on them for sport. The people of the Great Migration put up with the worst the United States had to offer and still kept hoping and striving for better. The thought that kept running through my head on the second reading was something right out of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney’s favorite book,  Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”

Ok, Jesus, sure. But WHEN exactly will that be? Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: Discussing Ethan Brown’s Shake the Devil Off

Sorry about the brief delay in the discussion post! Hopefully this gave those of you who waited until Friday night to open the book (I know who you are) time to finish.

On that note, I would much rather have been writing this post than hard-restraining tornado refugee pit bulls for fourteen hours on a weekend. So if you’d like to help me get my posts done on time in the future, donate to the ASPCA or HSUS.

So. Shake the Devil Off. Did you find it uplifting? A story of triumph over adversity? If you did, give it a quick re-read. But though it wasn’t the feel-good book of the year, hopefully you appreciated the book. And if you didn’t, hopefully you want to tell everyone why.

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Crasstalk Interviews Shake The Devil Off Author Ethan Brown

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Those of us living in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005 dealt with a number of challenges in the aftermath: where to live, how to rebuild, and how to cope with the changes in the city. In the midst of rebuilding their lives, New Orleanians were stunned by the suicide of Zack Bowen in October of 2006 and even more shocked by the event preceding it: the horrific murder of his girlfriend, Addie Hall.

The city, once again, was under a microscope after the crime. Nearly every news organization focused on the grisly details of the crime; some poked fun, some tried to extrapolate meaning, but few dug deep into the background of the two people involved and tried to find a real answer for how their lives ended in the ways they did. Ethan Brown, after writing an article about the murder for Penthouse, packed up and moved to the French Quarter to try to answer the questions so many had. Continue reading →