How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

“I hate these time travel incidents. The past is the present. The present is the past. It all gives me a headache”~Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek “Voyager” Television Series

"Science Fiction is a kind of archaeology of the future."~Clifton Fadiman

"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labelled 'Science Fiction'....and I would like out, particularly since so many critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."~Kurt Vonnegutt

James Harold presides Tuesday night with a book that is clearly up to some inspired mischief. How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu, from its title and first page announces itself as perhaps one of the most bizarre literary journeys this or any book club will be making for the foreseeable future (so to speak).

Through mind bending flights of fancy that manage to sound convincingly like some pretty serious science, the author gives a bravura performance certain to delight as well as confound. In the telling a story of familial disintegration and oddly enough redemption, emerges. A literary feat if ever there was one.

James provided the questions below. I think we can look forward to a rousing conversation about time, loyalty, relationships, physics and love on Tuesday. We look forward to the discussion and to your good company.

Discussion Questions

A Visit To Civilization, by Sandra McPherson

"Poetry is to prose as walking is to dancing."~John Wain

"When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers."~Brian Patten

"Poetry cannot afford to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness, its joy in being a process of language as well as a representation of things in the world."~Seamus Heaney

As we do every year at this time, we join the rest of the nation in celebrating the world of poetry. I chose the beautiful, yet challenging poetry of Sandra McPherson as an opportunity to stretch ourselves into areas of modern poetry that we may not have explored.

A Critique of: A Visit to Civilization

In anticipation of the April meeting, I thought we could share are research on Sandra McPherson, who admittedly, may be one of the most accomplished, though difficult poets to be placed on our list in a while. I've forgotten where I found the following on the internet, but If I share other critical finds on McPherson, I'll be sure to also make available all such relevant material. As a lover of poetry, I have also developed an appreciation for those specialist in the field who are adept at elucidating the work of our poets for greater appreciation of their skill. Hope you'll join me this month in seeking out our best critics of poets and their work.

Durren

A Beautiful Place To Die, by Malla Nunn

"Murder itself is not interesting. It is the impetus to murder, the passions and terrors which bring it to pass and the varieties of feelings surrounding the act that make a sordid or revolting event compulsive fascination. Even the most ardent readers of detective fiction are not much preoccupied with whether a Colt Magnum revolver or a Bowie knife was used to dispatch the victim. The perpetrator's purpose, the 'why', is what impels them to read on. They need to find out what has gone on his head, whether revealed through action, dialogue, mental activity or the stream of consciousness. They need to follow what goes on in the minds of others who come within his range, observe him, fear him, or suffer at his hands."~Ruth Rendell

"If you want to show the violence that lives behind the bland faces that most of us present to the world, what better vehicle can you have than the crime novel?"~Julian Symons

"By the end he only read novels that began with 'A shot rang out'.~Martin Amis (of his father, Kingsley Amis)

Huey Mitchell serves up one of the more interesting police procedurals that has come along in a while. Set in South Africa in 1952 at the dawn of that country's disastrous embrace of Apartheid, A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE by Malla Nunn, proceeds to break new ground for the genre. The author's treatment of race, gender, sex, nationalism and morality sets it apart from conventional detective stories. It goes where others fear to tread, and does it with flare.

In most crime novels we expect the perpetrator to have a thing or two to hide. In this well paced yarn, it seems everyone is hiding something, including the chief investigator! It proves in the telling to be more than a question doing justice to the killer of one man, but to those holding a knife to the neck of innocence itself.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

The State Of Jones, by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time By Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
By Mark Haddon
Discussion led by T. Taylor

"[Our protagonist is] a literalist by neurology." Debbie Lee Wasselman

"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes." the literary character Sherlock Holmes

Hello book mavens,

The time is upon us when we look with excitement to the coming year of book club titles chosen by eleven intrepid members of the group. Perhaps bravest of all is Trudy Taylor, who not only volunteered to monitor the first discussion, but chose a most unusual story and narrator for our consideration.

Highly regarded and much discussed since its publication in 2004, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time draws us into the strange mindscape of one Christopher John Francis Boone, a mildly autistic 15 year old British subject bent on discovering the identity of the person (or persons) responsible for the death of a neighborhood dog named Wellington. What ensues may be one of the oddest gumshoe yarns written in English in the past century.

So, it seems we'll kick off the reading year in enjoyable, if bizarre fashion with a fiction designed to give us a new perspective on the anomalies of the human brain and what they can mean for communities and families encountering them.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

2013 Book Club List

Hallelujah,

It has taken a pinch of cajoling, and a modicum of nagging, but at last the 2013 book club list is complete! As always, all months (except April, February, and September) can be shuffled. Those needing to switch should move ASAP to horse trade with other discussion leaders over changes. Thanks to all for their interesting recommendations. Here's the list:

January - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon - Trudy Taylor

February - The State Of Jones, by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer (Nat'l Black History Month) - Jonna Anderson

March - A Beautiful Place To Die, by Malla Nunn - Huey Mitchell

April - A Visit To Civilization, by Sandra McPherson (Nat'l Poetry Month) -Durren Anderson

May - How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu - James Harold

June - Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell - Dick Smith

July - The Plague, by Albert Camus - Jay Noble

August - Made To Stick, by Heath & Heath - Vickie Echols

September - The Lottery and Other Stories, by Shirley Jackson (Nat'l Banned Books Month) - Brad Echols

October - The Bottoms, by Joe R. Lansdale - Gem Meacham*

November - Desert, by J. M. G. Le Clezio - Paul Cronemeyer