Saturday Samplers

We Passed the Test!

2011-12-03T11:31:00.003-05:00

S.O.S. The Help

2011-09-30T20:31:00.003-04:00

Kathryn Stockett's first novel, The Help, has bloomed into a mega-hit regardless of criticism for its historical inaccuracies and racial insensitivity. One blog in particular, "A Critical Review of the novel The Help," is just loaded with interesting critical commentary. Nonetheless, many readers seem to adore it for the dialogue and punchy characters inhabiting a story the author thought would never be published. In fact, according to Stockett, the manuscript was rejected by 60 literary agents before hitting pay dirt in 2009. Since that time, The Help has enjoyed a great run on the book club circuit, has been released as a major motion picture, and will now be discussed this Saturday by our book group, Saturday Samplers.

The reaction to this particular book is all in one's point of view, but let's start with the book cover. The British book cover shows two black domestics caring for a white toddler in the 1950's or 60's. The U.S. book cover consists of a muted, pretty illustration of three tiny birds set against a golden background. What does this suggest? I don't know, but clearly you are meant to feel good about picking up this novel and going with the flow. If you read the first edition, would you notice that Medgar Evers's death was inaccurately attributed to a bludgeoning rather than a gunshot? In several interviews, one with Barnes and Noble on their Web site, the author repeats this error. Subsequent editions were corrected, but here is a screenshot of the mistake.

Stockett states in a Daily Mail UK interview that the story came about from her memories of her own family's black maid, Demetrie. Demetrie worked for the author's Mississippi family for 32 years, raising Kathryn and her siblings, and accompanying the family on vacations. Still, Demetrie was never allowed to use the family toilet, tub or dinnerware, and it never occurred to a young Stockett that this was unusual.

In an NPR interview with Michele Norris, Kathryn Stockett states about her book, "It's fiction, but some of the facts and the settings and the backdrops - sure, that was Southern life. Having a separate bathroom for the black domestic was just the way things were done. Certainly, in my grandmother's time and when I was growing up, yeah, Demetrie's bathroom was on the side of the house. It was a separate door. Still, to this day, I've never been in that room." Regardless, Stockett expresses her love for Demetrie and says, "Demetrie was treated like a queen, in my mind growing up, I should say." As I said, it's all in your perspective.

Elizabeth and Maeve

2011-09-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth Cunningham, author of our September book, The Passion of Mary Magdalen, was "called" by her main character through the medium of magic markers.

Yes, Cunningham possesses a delightful, fruitful, and fanciful imagination which she let wander one day after writing an earlier book. She decided to pick up markers and start drawing. What appeared on her sketchpad was a voluptuous naked woman whom she named Madge.

"Madge" had bright orange hair and an attitude. It wasn't long before Cunningham decided Madge would make a great book character, perhaps a retired prostitute who moves to Maine to take up painting. From there the idea morphed into a book about Mary Magdalen, imagined as a flame-haired Celt named Maeve, prostitute, healer and true love of Jesus.

Now that you are tantalized, read more about Elizabeth Cunningham, her series of Maeve books called "The Maeve Chronicles," and her interesting upbringing as an Episcopalian who became an interfaith minister and counselor. Check her Web site, http://www.passionofmarymagdalen.com/, and, if you like, follow her on Twitter as EliznMaeve.

Geraldine Brooks

2011-06-02T15:31:00.002-04:00

Geraldine Brooks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist whose first novel, Year of Wonders: a novel of the plague (2001), will be discussed this Saturday at our book meeting. Brooks grew up outside of Sydney, Australia, and resides there today with her family. She is a graduate of the University of Sydney and reported for a Sydney newspaper in the early part of her career. After attending a master's program at Columbia University, she also worked for The Wall Street Journal. Her writing demonstrates a wide-ranging interest in historical and cultural topics of an international scope. Among her books are Nine Parts of Desire: the hidden world of Islamic women, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel March, as well as People of the Book, a fictional piece based on the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah. The latest novel, Caleb's Crossing, has just been published to excellent reviews and concerns the interplay of cultures, Native American and English, during the American colonial period. Please visit the author's Web site for more information. You might also enjoy reading here The Guardian's July 14, 2001 review of Year of Wonders.

An Immortal Hit in Narrative Nonfiction

2011-05-07T12:03:00.002-04:00

Rebecca Skloot, author of our next discussion book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, has a very comprehensive Web site on which you can explore her biography, news and articles concerning her science writing career and her award-winning book, and other interesting avenues of information. Among the articles under the tab, About Rebecca, is an interview she did for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Here she discusses how she structured her complicated narrative of Henrietta Lack's story. Shown in the photo below are her colored cards for storyboarding this book. Enjoy exploring the many interesting links on the site.

Tom Rob Smith

2011-03-29T22:21:00.017-04:00

London-born writer Tom Rob Smith just may be the go-to author for people who are ready to move on from Stieg Larsson's Millenium series. Smith's first book, Child 44, bears all the hallmarks of a great crime thriller - enduring suspense, characters who grow with the well-plotted storyline, and a relevant setting of historical authenticity, in this case, post-Stalinist Russia. His subsequent novel, The Secret Speech, and an upcoming publication, Agent 6, carry forward the story of Leo Stepanovich Demidov, former member of the MGB, as he and his family adapt to his new position in the Soviet State security system.

At the heart of Child 44 is the mystery behind a seemingly inexplicable and horrible series of child murders occurring across a wide area of the Soviet Union. A secretive, paranoid regime is unable to acknowledge that such crimes are possible, let alone that they may be connected. Innocent victims face torture, character assassination, gulags and misery, all so that the myth of a perfect political state might be perpetuated. Meanwhile the vicious child slaughters continue unabated.

One man, Leo Demidov, develops the conscience and courage to investigate these murders as crimes of a serial killer. As the author notes on his Web site, "How a crime is investigated is a very useful litmus test for larger forces within a society, the priorities and prejudices of that world. I guess with CHILD 44 I wanted to combine both those elements, the puzzle and the period in which this puzzle is unraveling." Although the novel's child murders are based on the true crimes of Ukrainian serial killer Andre Chikatilo, Tom Rob Smith fits them into his own web of cause and effect, and once again it is Leo Demidov who is at the center of it all.

Smith shares that he was always a reader, loved adventure stories and took them in whatever form they came - mythology, history, science fiction, television, drama or film. Perhaps the author's work as a storyliner for various British television shows following his graduation from Cambridge helped shape Child 44 into a story that would translate well cinematographically. Apparently Ridley Scott, director of "Alien" and "Blade Runner," thinks so too, as he has bought the rights to the book for a future film production.

~Evelyn Fischel~

Jill Ker Conway

2011-03-04T22:06:00.000-05:00

Why reinvent the wheel? Here is The Harvard Lamplighter's brief bio of our next author, Jill Ker Conway.
http://www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/lamplighter/1999/spring/lowell.html

A slightly more extensive recap can be found on the PBS Web site. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/coorain/ei_conway.html

John Steinbeck: From Salinas to East of Eden

2011-02-02T23:42:00.002-05:00

John Steinbeck 1902-1968

Steinbeck and wife Elaine, 1963

John Steinbeck may be regarded as a quintessential "American" author. His fiction focused on the common man - the Dust Bowl migrant, cannery worker, the farmhand, prostitute - the lowly of the American earth. Nonetheless, he often cast his downtrodden characters in stories suffused with Biblical allegory or Arthurian references. The stories of Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve, the banishment from the Garden of Eden, were explored repeatedly in his writings, particularly in our discussion book, East of Eden, published in 1952.

Like the Biblical Adam who was created from dust, Steinbeck's literary life seems to have sprung from the dust of his Salinas origins, the setting for East of Eden. Born John Ernst Steinbeck III in 1902 to Olive and John Steinbeck in Salinas, California, the author spent his childhood, not entirely happily, in this transitional farming community in the Salinas Valley. A somewhat lonely child who loved reading, Steinbeck left the valley to attend Stanford, but could never quite buckle down to graduate. He worked odd jobs as a ranch hand, factory worker, and reporter to support himself while he wrote.

One of his first literary successes was Tortilla Flat, published in 1935, followed soon by Of Mice and Men in 1937 and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Cannery Row was published in 1945 and The Pearl in 1947, although there were many other books and short stories written in the intervening years. For his body of work, John Steinbeck received The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, ten years after the publication of East of Eden.  He married three times, his last marriage to Elaine Scott being a happy and sustaining one, and he had two sons by his second wife, Gwyn Conger, who was problematic in his life. His sons suffered from their parents' divorce and were never as close to him as he would have liked.

It is for these two sons, Thom and John IV, that Steinbeck wrote East of Eden.  In his journal he noted, "And so I will tell them one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest story of all - the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness. I shall try to demonstrate to them how these doubles are inseparable - how neither can exist without the other and how out of their groupings creativeness is born." In this same journal, which he kept as he was writing East of Eden, we learn that he thought this book "...perhaps...is the only book I have ever written. I think there is only one book to a man." This journal has since been published as John Steinbeck: Journal of a Novel.

Set in the Salinas of his upbringing, Steinbeck said that East of Eden was also an "autobiography" of this region. His original title for the book was "Salinas Valley."  Additionally, it is a history of his mother's family, the Hamiltons. Steinbeck asserted that all the episodes in it about the Hamiltons were true. I believe the Trask family, on the other hand, is a device to explore his stated subject of good and evil on a symbolic level and how it interplays with the Hamiltons on a personal level. Steinbeck was sure that East of Eden would be his greatest work.
~ Evelyn Fischel~

100 Years and Still Writing

2010-11-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

Harry Bernstein, author of our next book, The Invisible Wall, is a man with a plan. Having celebrated his 100th birthday this year, Mr. Bernstein's plan for 2010 is to finish his fourth book, based on his older sister, Rose. The Invisible Wall was his first major publication which came to print in 2007 when he was 96. Since then he has written two more memoirs, The Dream, about his family's immigrant life in the United States, and The Golden Willow, about his 67 year happy marriage to this wife, Ruby.

Ruby's death in 2002 precipitated a dark spell of grief for Mr. Bernstein, but he states, "I had this gap to fill. Writing was sort of therapy. When you're old, it seems you have no future. Where are you going to go? But I could go back to my past." The Invisible Wall takes the reader back to Harry's earliest memories of life with his hard-bitten family in an English mill town in the early 1900's. Bernstein credits old photographs with bringing back a flood of memories which he then turned into his family's story of poverty, prejudice, cruelty and love.

X-Rays of Madame X

2010-11-06T01:33:00.000-04:00

Technical analysis completed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and published in 2005 reveals some very interesting data about John Singer Sargent's struggle with the composition and shading of Mme. Pierre Gautreau's portrait before and after it was debuted at the Paris Salon of 1884. Museum conservator, Dorothy Mahon, and associate research scientist, Silvia Centeno, demonstrate through X-radiography that Sargent reworked Gautreau's profile at least eight times.

The placement of her arms was changed from a completely different pose, and the angle of the tabletop was revised after the Salon exhibition. Most notably, Sargent altered the falling strap after it had been exhibited, as we know both anecdotally and from a black and white photograph of the Salon painting. X-ray imaging shows the fallen strap underneath the repainted right arm of the sitter. As the article explains, Singer also changed the color background.

John Singer Sargent sold this portrait to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1916. Photographs in this posting are from the article cited: http://www.metmuseum.org/publications/journals/1/pdf/20320648.pdf.bannered.pdf

A Freudian Slip of the Strap?

2010-11-04T10:45:00.001-04:00

Saturday Samplers will discuss Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis on Saturday, November 6, at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Room of the library.

Strapless tells the fascinating story behind John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of Mme. Gautreau. This life-size oil painting caused an absolute sensation at the Paris Salon of 1884. Exhibited alongside hundreds of paintings by renowned and aspiring artists, Portrait de Mme *** singularly attracted the disdain of both art critics and the Parisian public.

Why should this particular painting of a Belle Epoch socialite arouse such instantaneous revulsion and criticism? After all, Mme. Gautreau was considered to be an exotically beautiful young woman known for her remarkable neckline and figure. Why should John Singer Sargent's work be so reviled when he had successfully exhibited paintings at previous Salons? Could the artist's placement of her loose dress strap be enough to inflame the French or were there other factors behind their general disdain for what is now considered to be a masterpiece? In Strapless, Sargent's career is examined in terms of the impact this portrait had on both the artist and the sitter, Madame X.

Jhumpa Lahiri

2010-09-30T17:02:00.000-04:00

Jhumpa Lahiri, author of our next selection, Interpreter of Maladies, started her writing career with a flourish, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for this collection of short stories. Interpreter of Maladies also won the PEN/Hemingway Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Addison Metcalf Award. Lahiri's subsequent publications are The Namesake, 2003, and Unaccustomed Earth, 2008.

Born in London to Bengali parents in 1967, Lahiri moved to the States and earned degrees from Barnard College and Boston University. She is married and the mother of two children. Although she was raised in Rhode Island, the author visited family in Calcutta, India, numerous times. India is the setting for some of her short stories as well as for The Namesake. Of interest to our group is the fact that the character Mrs. Sen is based on Lahiri's mother who babysat in the family home. About her mother the author states, "I saw her one way, but imagined that an American child may see her differently, reacting with curiosity, fascination, or fear to the things I took for granted."

In his Time Magazine article "Jhumpa Lahiri: The Quiet Laureate", Lev Grossman notes that "Lahiri's stories are static, but what looks like stasis is really the stillness of enormous forces pushing in opposite directions, barely keeping one another in check." He further comments that "It's difficult to quote from her stories: they refuse to sum themselves up with a neat final epiphany." Lahiri states that "Interpreter of Maladies" had to be the title story for this collection because she, as the writer, is like an interpreter of the emotional pain and distance experienced by her characters.

Here We Are

2010-09-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

Here's our great group!

(minus Evelyn who is lurking behind the camera lens)

Got Candy?

2010-09-10T23:50:00.003-04:00

Wow, I came right down to the line in finishing this epic book, The Candy Bombers. I started out in July listening to it, but realized I could read faster than the folksy pace of the audiobook narrator. Author Andrei Cherny did a great job weaving all the various content together to make sense of a complicated bit of history. Historical figures were given a breath of life that only narrative nonfiction can achieve, and I certainly found the book compelling and comprehensive, if rather long. Here's a CBS interview with Andrei Cherny and pilot Hal Halvorsen. What did you think of the book?

Yukking It Up With David Sedaris

2010-07-09T10:37:00.001-04:00

Saturday Samplers will be laughing and scratching this Saturday, July 10th, as we meet to discuss the humor of David Sedaris. Our chosen book is Me Talk Pretty One Day, but the group is welcome to share their own favorites by the author as well as other humorists. For instance, I really had a laugh riot over another Sedaris book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and look forward to more recommendations. Here are some short interviews featuring the author's offbeat humo r as well as the issue of comic exaggeration.

There are Mountains Beyond Mountains in Haiti and Rwanda

2010-06-11T23:27:00.004-04:00

In 2003 Tracy Kidder published Mountains Beyond Mountains which vividly describes the "mountains" Dr. Paul Farmer and his associates crossed to bring equitable medical care to Haiti. Although Farmer's pioneering treatment of multi-drug resistant TB in Peru and Russia is also chronicled in the book, Kidder's story begins and ends with Haiti. In fact he wrote that Farmer "would always return to Cange. It seemed to me that he didn't have a plan for his life so much as he had a pattern. He was like a compass, with one leg swinging around the globe and the other planted in Haiti."

Yet by 2004 Paul Farmer had journeyed to a new frontier and a new home in Rwanda. This country had made a remarkable recovery from the horrific genocide of the prior decade, but was still in dire need of medical care. Partners in Health established hospitals in the neediest regions with the help of the Clinton Foundation, and Paul Farmer was directly involved from the beginning in selecting sites. It might come as a surprise, but Farmer decided that Haiti had become too dangerous to raise his family, so he moved his wife, Didi Bertrand, and daughter, Catherine, to Rwanda with him. They have since adopted a Rwandan baby daughter, Elizabeth, in the same year that they had a new son, Sebastian.

Farmer's associate and co-founder of Partners in Health, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, has gone on to become the new president of Dartmouth College in 2009. Last month he invited Tracy Kidder to give a talk at Dartmouth to discuss Kidder's new book, Strength in What Remains. The imprint of Paul Farmer can be felt in this book, too, which follows the journey of a Burundi refugee, Deogratias, from homelessness in New York to Dartmouth Medical School and back to Burundi where he established a medical clinic. The common factor in this story is Paul Farmer, who introduced Tracy Kidder to Deogratias. And so it goes.

Paul Farmer and Partners in Health, Then and Now

2010-06-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures and links to articles about Paul Farmer and Partners in Health.

The first picture shows Pere Lafontant and his wife, fondly called Mamito, who passed away last month. Farmer wrote a nice tribute to her on the Partners in Health Web site.

Paul Farmer with the Lafontants in the 1980's

Recently Farmer has been working in Rwanda with PIH hospitals. His wife Didi initiated the adoption of a Rwandan baby girl while pregnant with their second child who was born just a few months afterwards.

Farmer with wife Didi, daughter Catherine, new son Sebastian, and adopted daughter Elizabeth (in pink) - Rwanda, 2010

Partners in Health and Paul Farmer in Rwanda, 2010

The following link provides many recent photos of the Partners in Health clinics/hospitals in Rwanda and Farmer's current activity there. He has also published a collection of writings called Partner to the Poor. On the occasion of this new publication, Tracy Kidder, author of our book Mountains Beyond Mountains, reflects on some of his experiences with Farmer, many of which were not included in the book.

Elizabeth Strout

2010-05-01T00:10:00.001-04:00

Maine is both a natural and, I believe, a conscious choice as the setting for Elizabeth Strout's book, Olive Kitteridge. Many of the thirteen stories which comprise this book take place along the rocky coastline of Maine which Strout describes with the subtle, true familiarity of a native. In fact, Elizabeth Strout was born in Portland, Maine, and grew up in remote towns in Maine as well as New Hampshire. Her parents deliberately protected Elizabeth from outside influences,and she describes her upbringing as being very strict. The stony, isolating, and lonely nature of some of her characters seems to be reflected in the natural landscape of Crosby, Maine, the fictional town in Olive Kitteridge. Read more here about the author's life and the fragments of her own family history that appear in bits and pieces in Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

Further Links: The Lost City of Z

2010-04-09T08:33:00.000-04:00

Kuikuro Men

Here are a few links and a video for you to explore, armchair-style, the question of lost civilizations or organized societies in the Amazon.

The first is a press release from the University of Florida announcing Michael Heckenberger's paper on his findings which were published in Science magazine. The second is a National Geographic article which provides some of the illustrations from the academic paper itself. And last is an interesting article and video about the bioengineering of Amazon Basin soil in ancient times. This "biochar" indicates that the unusually rich soil there was actually man-made centuries ago and would have supported cultivation, thereby sustaining organized settlements.

David vs.Goliath

2010-04-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

Percy Fawcett would never have picked David Grann to join his expedition to the Amazon. That much is clear. And yet, Grann has emerged from his own Amazonian quest intact and with a walloping good story to tell in The Lost City of Z.

Grann is a book author and writer for The New Yorker magazine who considers himself to be something of a couch potato. He certainly lacked camping and survival skills when he first sought answers to Fawcett's last (and lost) expedition. What a break for Grann that technology has advanced to the point where he had better odds than Percy Fawcett to survive a trek into this unwelcoming, unknown territory.

I thought you might find the interview above to be interesting. It was conducted last year by newspaperman Phil Bronstein and is quite extensive. You can hit the play button for the entire interview or link here to select topics in the interview you want to cover.

Stieg Larsson

2010-03-04T16:51:00.007-05:00

Stieg Larsson

Swedish author Stieg Larsson poured a lifetime of causes and interests into the few pieces of fiction, collectively known as the Millenium series, which he wrote before his untimely death at the age of 50 in 2004. Issues such as feminism, fascism, corporate crime and the role of media in Sweden propelled his life as an activist and as a writer. These same issues fall front and center in his books.

Professionally, Larsson was a graphic designer for Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, a Swedish news agency, but he devoted much of his time to investigative journalism, political activism, ethics causes and (to throw a curveball here) the promotion of science fiction. A member of the Communist Workers League and editor of a Trotskyist journal, Fjarde internationalen, Stieg Larsson put his political beliefs into action by founding the Expo Foundation, a Swedish organization formed to counteract racist and extreme right-wing Swedish groups. He was the editor for this foundation’s magazine, entitled Expo, which is more than a coincidence as the character, Mikael Blomkvist, also publishes a magazine, Millenium, in Larsson’s books.

Karl Stig-Erland Larsson was born in the northern town of Skelleftea, Vasterbotten, Sweden in 1954, but changed the spelling of his name to Stieg as an adult. He was intimately familiar with the culture, landscape and “personality” of the north, having been raised in the country by his grandparents. This knowledge is apparent in his descriptions of the towns and countryside in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As a young man he pursued interests in photography, and he enjoyed reading science fiction and mysteries.

His efforts to expose racism, neo-Nazism and extremist groups active in Sweden garnered him numerous death threats. For self-protection, he and Eva Gabrielsson, his partner of 32 years, sought to hide their personal information and address as much as possible, and this is why they never married because under Swedish law a married couple must publish their address. The fact that they were not married became a legal issue after Larsson died of a sudden, massive heart attack. Swedish law did not recognize Gabrielsson as his wife, and Larsson’s estate went to his father and brother, neither of whom were close to him nor had the intimate understanding of Larsson’s writings as did Eva Gabrielsson. The Guardian Observer just published an interesting interview with Gabrielsson which provides more insight into Larsson’s life and literary pursuits, which I recommend you read.

Stieg Larsson died having completed three books which he had hoped to turn into a long series. Known as the Millenium series, they are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish title being Men Who Hate Women), The Girl Who Played with Fire, and finally The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Swedish title being The Aircastle that Blew Up.) The first book has been released in film form by Swedish and English companies and the next two books are to be turned into television productions. The poster for the Swedish film is illustrated below, giving you some sense of how the characters have been portrayed on film.

Eva Gabrielsson

Movie poster for Men Who Hate Women (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Tim O'Brien

2010-02-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Tim O'Brien knows a thing or two about Minnesota where our book, In the Lake of the Woods, takes place (born there in 1946), Vietnam (served there in 1969), and writing (contributor to magazines , The Washington Post, and award-winning author of numerous books.) Among these awards is the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians for the 1994 book, In the Lake of the Woods. O'Brien's 1990 book, The Things They Carried, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. To learn more about Tim O'Brien, read his 1999 President's Lecture at Brown University. In addition, you can refer to a critical analysis of our book selection in the context of the My Lai Massacre.

After Dark and Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

2010-02-05T16:26:00.002-05:00

Well, here's a tidbit too fascinating to pass over!! I saw this on the news today and found a video link for you. I immediately thought of the character, Eri Asai, in Murakami's After Dark. Kleine-Levin Syndrome proves that truth is stranger than ficion, but Murakami has managed to straddle that gap by sheer force of his imagination. I am impressed.

In the Lake of the Woods

2010-01-21T11:29:00.001-05:00

Click on the title of this post to read a very brief blurb I wrote about our next book. It appeared in Bernardsville Public Library's blog, Book News and More, last year. I will be posting information about the author, Tim O'Brien, soon, and I hope you find this book to be intriguing and thought-provoking.

Heaven or Hell?

2009-12-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

Well, the knives came out at our discussion of The Five People You Meet In Heaven on Saturday, Dec. 5th. The group member who suggested the book was not in attendance, so we probably felt a little more liberated to let loose. We were unanimous in our disfavor, particularly about the author’s artificial construct of heaven. None of us wanted to go there! After all, who wants to be in an afterlife holding pattern waiting for someone else to die so that all can be revealed to that person?

Aside from a few neat tricks, like the lost key and the little girl’s hands, there was not a great deal to recommend about the book except that it’s brief. Yes, there are messages and morals herein, but we felt the author could have done a much better tribute to his uncle by writing a different kind of story. But then that story most likely wouldn’t have become the mass-market killer that The Five People You Meet In Heaven proved to be.

For a funny antidote to this book, I suggest reading the parody, The Five People You Meet In Hell by “Rich Pablum.” It is clever, jocular and filled with celebrity characters who fit surprisingly well into the storyline. Like the original book, it, too, is mercifully short.

Haruki Murakami

2009-11-04T23:58:00.002-05:00

Author Haruki Murakami was born and raised in Japan, but is notably well versed in Russian and English literature as well as American culture. Some of his favorite writers include Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Campbell and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He recently completed a meticulous translation into Japanese of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a book which he describes as his "textbook" for how to write.

Murakami is known for having turned his back on his own country's formal literary tradition. Rather, he seeks the inner search or quest which he believes appeals to younger Japanese readers, "my books can offer them a sense of freedom - freedom from the real world." He also states, "That's the beginning of the story. We have rooms in ourselves. Most of them we have not visited yet...From time to time we can find the passage. We find strange things...old phonographs, pictures, books...they belong to us, but it is the first time we have found them." (Author's quotations from World Press Review, August 2001, vol. 48, no. 8.)

Visit the author's webpage to get a good sense of his aesthetics and interests. In addition, here is a fact sheet elaborating on ten fascinating things you need to know about Haruki Murakami.

Some General Suggestions From The Group

2009-10-14T16:39:00.002-04:00

FYI - I have been keeping a list, more or less, of books various group members have enjoyed over the past year:

Soul Catcher - Michael C. White
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself - Harriet Jacobs
The Broken Shore - Peter Temple
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
Shalimar the Clown - Salman Rushdie
Five-Finger Discount - Helene Stapinski
Mockingbird - Charles J. Shields
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Stroudt
Lost City of Z - David Grann
Edith Wharton - Hermione Lee
The Madonnas of Leningrad - Debra Dean
Bad Cop - Paul Bacon
In the Lake of the Woods - Tim O'Brien
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
My Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor
The Wild Places - Robert MacFarlane
The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad

Please enter other books you want to share with the group under the comments link below.

Crashing Through, Just For You

2009-10-01T15:21:00.001-04:00

Robert Kurson is familiar to us as the author of the very exciting book, Shadow Divers, which we read last year. Kurson's Web site provides interesting information on his next book, Crashing Through, published in 2007. Here you'll find a photo gallery of Mike May, review comments, and animated illusions which were described in the book.

Further information on Mike May can be found at the Sendero Group Web site, where you can also read news releases. One of them dates from July of this year when May met with President Obama. Sendero Group also has a photo gallery of Mr. May.

Finally, here is the link to The New York Times book review of Crashing Through.

Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye

2009-09-11T21:17:00.001-04:00

Are we ready to tackle this impressive book by Canadian author, Margaret Atwood? I just finished reading it today (!) and finally get the significance of the cover illustration. What a powerful, mood-filled, thought-provoking book.

Born in 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Margaret Atwood is the daughter of a forest entomologist who reared her in the northern Canadian wilderness during her early years. In a Reading Group Guides interview she notes, "I grew up in the north under rather isolated circumstances, spending most of my early life in a forest with no electricity, no running water, without any radio or movies, and before television. I was read to a lot as a child." She graduated from the University of Toronto and earned a masters from Radcliffe College. Honored with many literary awards, Atwood is best known for novels such as The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake as well as Cat's Eye. Her newest book will be published September 22, 2009, and is entitled The Year of the Flood.

Loved The Histories

2009-07-13T08:37:00.002-04:00

The Saturday Samplers group loved discussing Case Histories by Kate Atkinson at our July 11, 2009, meeting. We enjoyed the way the author tweaked the normal detective genre, giving us a sympathetic detective-without-the-star-quality, Jackson Brodie, who must contend as much with issues in his own life as with the oddball cases that come his way. Set in modern-day England, there is no pretense of class or airs, and everybody is found to have their own "histories" which haunt them. The author's use of time and humor worked well to keep us engaged with the unfolding mysteries and the great characters involved.

About Kate Atkinson

2009-06-18T16:03:00.006-04:00

Author of our next book, Case Histories, Kate Atkinson was born in England (1951), but moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, after receiving her M.A. in English literature in 1974. While writing magazine articles and short stories, she also worked at a series of low level jobs in order to support herself and her two children before striking gold with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. This book was awarded several prizes, primarily the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for first novels. Atkinson broadened her writing repertoire with two plays, more short fiction, and a number of novels including Human Croquet, Case Histories, One Good Turn, and When Will There Be Good News?

Kate Atkinson is known for her sense of humor and parody which helps to lighten the storylines of her often dysfunctional characters and their family units. She also utilizes the device of flashbacks to reveal elements of her story in a non-linear, crazy quilt of unfolding action. And she has dabbled in Magic Realism as well. Case Histories offers us the first appearance of Jackson Brodie, down-but-not-out detective who will reappear in subsequent books, as noted in my June 12th posting. When interviewed by Publishers Weekly, 10/25/2004, she stated that in Brodie she "wanted to write a good man but with a darkness at his core, a world-weary kind of hero."

The First in the Jackson Brodie Series

2009-06-12T20:59:00.007-04:00

We will be reading Kate Atkinson's 2004 Case Histories for our July 11th meeting. If you like this book, you'll be happy to know that the author does, too. Or at least she likes her main character, Jackson Brodie, detective, enough to feature him in two subsequent books:

2006

2008

Blink Next

2009-06-05T10:11:00.007-04:00

Saturday Samplers book group will discuss Malcolm Gladwell's Blink this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in the Small Meeting Room of Bernardsville Public Library.

See my earlier posting from today to learn more about the author and his book.

Beyond Thin-Slicing Blink and Malcolm Gladwell

2009-06-05T08:19:00.008-04:00

Here is a 2006 New York Times article with lots of insight into Malcolm Gladwell and two of his books, The Tipping Point and Blink.

If you'd like to hear Gladwell deliver a short lecture (on spaghetti sauce, no less!) press play below.

Since both were discussed in Blink, did you wonder what an Aeron chair looks like or how Kenna's music sounds? Simply click on Aeron and Kenna to find out.

Finally, visit Malcolm Gladwell's blog and Web site.

More about Wright

2009-06-04T23:50:00.003-04:00

Just got an email today from book group member Jilana Dellal with this Smithsonian article about Frank Lloyd Wright. Jilana wanted you to note the photo gallery for some more pictures of Wright, his family and his architectural works. Thanks, Jilana.

Taliesin Photos

2009-04-29T15:04:00.006-04:00

Click on the photo above to view an extensive photo album of exterior and interior shots of Taliesin East. I found this album on about.com while searching FLW.

Read This...Read That?

2009-04-13T20:09:00.003-04:00

We are looking forward to discussing Nancy Horan's fictional account of Frank Lloyd Wright's relationship with Mamah Borthwick Cheney,entitled Loving Frank, for our next book group meeting on May 2nd.

If you have already read Loving Frank, you might be interested in comparing it to the 2009 fictional work by T.C. Boyle, The Women, which concerns Wright and four women involved with him, including Mamah. One book jacket suggests the next apparently.

Book Jackets for The Lathe of Heaven

2009-04-04T11:19:00.023-04:00

Ursula Le Guin on SF and Writing

2009-03-31T20:02:00.004-04:00

Ursula Le Guin is the author of our next book, The Lathe of Heaven, published in 1971. Here's a link to an interesting recent interview of the author in Vice Magazine. In it she is asked what constitutes science fiction, and this is her response:

"Science fiction—and the correct shortcut is “sf”—uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it’s doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors."

Asked how she can keep straight the many worlds that she has created in her fiction, the author shows her wit as well as her mastery of writing:

"No, no, thank you for saying so, Steve, but if I really had, I would admire myself tremendously. I would be in awe of my own staggeringly great mind. What I did was give the illusion of there being all those different worlds. That’s called art, or fiction, or something. The rule is, you only invent what you have to. And that’s pretty much what’s right in front of the reader. Let’s say it’s an ansible. I do not, in fact, invent the ansible. I do not explain how it works. I cannot, but shhh. I simply present the device as working, and as coming from a society which is far in advance of ours in science and technology, having spaceships that can travel nearly as fast as light, et cetera. And this background or context creates expectation and softens up the readers’ credulity so that they’re willing to “believe in” the ansible—inside the covers of the book. After the ansible had been around for a while, I invented the man who invented it, Shevek, in The Dispossessed. And he and I played around with some pretty neat speculations about time and interval and stuff, which lent more plausibility to the gimmick itself. But all I really invented was a) the idea of an instantaneous transmitter and b) a name for it. The reader does the rest. If you give them enough background/context, they can fill in the gaps. It isn’t just smoke and mirrors. There has to be a coherent vision of how things hang together in that society/culture/world. All the details have to fit together and be thought through as to their implications. But, well... it’s mostly smoke and mirrors. What else is any fiction?"

Asked whether she is pleased with the film adaptations of her books, the author states:

"The only good adaptation to film I’ve had so far is the 1980 Lathe of Heaven from PBS. It’s still available on DVD. It was made on a budget that wouldn’t pay for the hairdressers’ doughnuts these days, but the screenplay’s adequate, the directing is intelligent, the acting is super, and the special effects are really something else. Like, the spaceships are lighted Frisbees, being hurled into the air by Ed Emshwiller’s son. I love it."

To learn more about this author, visit Ursula Le Guin's terrific Web site. It is definitely worth exploring.

Shadow Divers

2009-03-07T13:42:00.003-05:00

Robert Kurson's Shadow Divers is today's topic of discussion for Saturday Samplers. Most readers should find this to be a fascinating story on many levels, not the least because it is true. Filled with daring divers whose personal lives presented them with challenges aplenty, the book churns with the excitement of high-risk underwater adventure undertaken by those on an extraordinary quest. One learns many interesting facts about diving and its dangers, but that is only one aspect of this multi-genre book. It is one part adventure story, one part a military history, one part character study, and one part dumbfounding mystery. "Breathless" is the way you will feel even as you read the last few pages.

Consensus on The Book Thief

2009-03-03T16:43:00.004-05:00

Everyone who attended our February meeting (and two members who couldn't attend) agreed that The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was a very special book. We all liked it quite a bit and found that it provided good discussion material. The characters grabbed us right away, and human nature in its different aspects was well represented by these characters. Death held his own and then some. Several of us found the story very moving (a few of us shed some tears,) and we all would recommend this book. We were slightly perplexed by the domino imagery on the cover, though.

About Neil Gaiman

2008-12-06T14:19:00.003-05:00

Neil Gaiman will be the featured author at this month's meeting of Saturday Samplers, a Bernardsville Public Library book discussion group, taking place today at 3:30 p.m. The library book group will be discussing Neverwhere, which the author turned into a novel after first writing the story as a screenplay for the BBC. Gaiman started his writing career in England as a comic book writer who developed a world-renowned graphic novel series, The Sandman, based on the earlier D.C. comics character of the 1930's and 40's. He collaborated with Terry Pratchett to write the wildly hilarious apocolyptic book, Good Omens, and he has branched out to write both adult and children's books which have been critically acclaimed. Among these publications are Coraline, a frightening children's story as well as American Gods, Stardust, and Anansi Boys. Neil moved from England with his wife and children to settle in Minneapolis where he said he wanted to live in a Charles Addams-style house. He found one complete with turret and possible ghostly history!

Neverwhere

2008-11-27T09:11:00.003-05:00

Saturday Samplers will discuss Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere for its next meeting on Saturday, December 6th, at 3:30 p.m. in the library. This urban fantasy takes place in "London Below" where the city's noted underground stations comprise part of Gaiman's alternate universe. Memorable, original characters inhabit this dark and menacing setting in which an everday Everyman from "London Above" suddenly finds himself. Forced by situations out of his control, this "normal" main character must undergo a quest of mythological proportions in order to save not only the damsel in distress, but ever so much more. This is an exciting, imaginative book which nicely balances darkness and light, good and evil.

Any Further Thoughts?

2008-11-02T08:09:00.002-05:00

Our group enjoyed discussing many aspects of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. If anyone would like to comment further or if you were not able to come to the discussion (or if you are just visiting this blog), please post your comments below.

About Anita Diamant

2008-10-29T14:28:00.008-04:00

Well, here's our author as the picture of contentment, in what I imagine to be her home in Newton, Massachusetts, where she has lived since completing her graduate work. Born in 1951 in Newark, New Jersey, Anita Diamant spent her early childhood years in the same Jewish community as Philip Roth. Although her family was not particularly religious, they nonetheless followed Jewish ways, and her interest in Judaism grew as she matured. Diamant is now a noted author on Jewish lifestyle and traditions, publishing such books as How to Raise a Jewish Child and Saying Kaddish. The Red Tent is her first fiction book, followed up by Good Harbor and The Last Days of Dogtown.

In writing The Red Tent, Diamant states that she was inspired by Virginia Woolf's idea that the relationship between women in fiction historically had been drawn too simplistically. Diamant initially considered the complex relationship between Leah and Rachel as her focal point for a story, but changed her mind when she read the very short passage in the book of Genesis about Dinah. Anita states, "I found Dinah's silence to be a great open door - thanks to Woolf and many other feminist writers who pointed out that there was a door. So I gave her a voice." You can read more about the author on her Web site.

The Red Tent

2008-10-12T13:38:00.006-04:00

Anita Diamant’s first novel, The Red Tent, introduces readers to a spellbinding story of life for women in biblical times. Told through the eyes of Dinah, Jacob's daughter who is barely mentioned in Genesis, The Red Tent is not only Dinah’s story, but that of all women who were relegated to the “red tent” during their menses, childbirths or illnesses. Anita Diamant reminds us that the voiceless, powerless and unknown figures of the past must have had sweeping, wonderful and tragic stories just waiting to be revealed to us.

Saturday Samplers will discuss this book at our next meeting on Saturday, November 1st, at 3:30 p.m. Please note that this is a change in reading selection for November. Although we were scheduled to discuss Cat's Eye on this date, our group voted to move Cat's Eye to a date in the future. I hope no one is inconvenienced by this change.

Follow Up to our Meeting

2008-10-06T20:41:00.002-04:00

Our group enjoyed sitting around a laptop looking at images of Caravaggio's work while we discussed this book. We all agreed that it was a fascinating selection.

For those of you who could not attend but who read the book, I shared with the group some interesting news about one of the versions of "The Taking of Christ." The Ukraine (Odessa) version was stolen from the Odessa Museum of Art in April of this year. The painting was cut from its frame and as of now has not been recovered by international authorities.

The Lost Painting

2008-10-02T17:26:00.003-04:00

Born in 1948, Jonathan Harr has worked as a journalist, a writer, and an instructor at Smith College. He is best known for his first book, A Civil Action, which was later made into a popular-release film. Published in 1995, A Civil Action garnered several book awards including the National Book Critics' Circle Award for nonfiction.

The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, published in 2005, is his second book. Like A Civil Action, it is engrossing narrative nonfiction at its best. Harr's The Lost Painting traces the actual search for a missing Baroque painting and turns it into an exciting narrative on art detection and intrigue in the art world. The true-life characters and the storyline of this book will take you through the dusty archives of an Italian villa, across the sea to a Jesuit residence in Ireland, and into the art restoration laboratories of the British National Gallery as the hunt for a long-lost Caravaggio treasure becomes a thrilling story in itself.

About Caravaggio

2008-09-20T15:55:00.012-04:00

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) lived a short, violent, but exceedingly fruitful life as an innovative Italian Baroque painter whose distinctive style influenced such noted painters as Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Honthorst, and Georges de la Tour. His oil paintings are known for their use of everyday characters (as if taken from the streets of Rome) placed in historical, allegorical or religious settings.

Bacchus

He hired locals as his models, and some of them can be seen repeatedly in his works. Rather than depicting the subjects of his paintings in heroic or historical garb, he often painted them in the dress of his time. As a consequence, his paintings have a sense of immediacy about them. All his works are bathed in deep, obscuring shadows and bright, defining patches of light.

Supper at Emmaus

Arranging his subjects in a dramatic fashion, such as in the moment of Peter’s martyrdom when he is about to be crucified upside down, Caravaggio employed the techniques of foreshortening, theatrical use of gesture, and a concentrated or a narrowed subject field (where your eye is drawn directly to the action/subject) in order to add drama and interest to his works.

The Martyrdom of St. Peter

Caravaggio painted primarily in Milan, Rome and Naples and enjoyed a degree of patronage; however, his personal life worked against his career as he outspent his income, brawled, gambled and even committed murder. He is said to have died on a malaria-ridden Italian coastline after escaping from prison.

The subject of Jonathan Harr's book, The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, can be seen below.

The Taking of Christ

Any Further Thoughts?

2008-09-06T22:49:00.002-04:00

The torrential rains kept some of our members away today, so if they would like to add their opinions about these books (Into the Wild and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), please do so here. Those who attended the discussion today and anyone reading this blog may also comment as well.

Outside on Chris McCandless

2008-09-06T12:22:00.004-04:00

Jon Krakauer began his investigation into the story of Chris McCandless with an article in the January 1993 edition of Outside magazine. I wasn't able to find an image of that cover, but the cover shown above is a typical example. Note the banner headline advising you that "Pain and Fear Are Good For You" and the article, "A Death by Snakebite," to get a sense of the amped-up reading experience awaiting you inside Outside.

I was able to find Krakauer's article online, however, so click to read it here.

Stephen King Interviewed

2008-09-04T17:08:00.008-04:00

Here are some excerpts from an interview with Stephen King which can be found on Bernardsville Public Library's electronic database, Literature Resource Center.

In your book On Writing [On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft] you mention that you plot out your stories "as infrequently as possible." How can a writer write anything without having a plot in mind?

I have a general story idea ... a situation. That's where I like to start. Then I let it play out. And that always works as long as I'm honest about what my characters would do in a given situation. If you start to make characters do things because it would be more convenient for you, things wander off course.

What themes do you see running through all your works?

I would say that if there's one theme that runs through my work, it would be, Live according to the truth and try to be brave. And, It's better to do the right thing than the wrong thing, even at costs.

Your books are filled to the brim with suspense. Is there any formula that you use to build up the suspense in a book?

The most important thing about building suspense is building identification with the character. You have to take some time and make your reader care about the characters in the story. I'm thinking about Misery, where you've got this writer, Paul Sheldon, and little by little you get to know this guy and understand him and you get to see different aspects of him. Then you start to empathize with him and you start to put yourself in his shoes and then you start to be very, very afraid because you don't want anything bad to happen to him. But because it's the kind of story that it is, you know that something bad is gonna happen. So one by one you close off the exits and things get more and more nerve-racking until finally there's an explosion.

What, if anything, scares you?

Scary things are personal. Clowns have freaked me out and scared me ever since I was a kid. To me there's something scary, something sinister about such a figure of happiness and fun. I guess that sometimes what makes a scary thing really scary is when we realize there's something sinister behind a nice face.

Many of the characters in your novels meet untimely ends. Do you ever feel bad about having to kill off a character?

Yeah. Yeah, I do. My characters become very real to me. I wrote a series of books called The Dark Tower, and I lived with those characters from the age of about 22 up until when I finished the last one when I was 56. That's like 34 years all told. I'd been with some of those characters longer than I've been with my children. Some of them had to die and that was tough. Anybody will tell you that imaginary friends are as real as real people sometimes. Lucky for me, I still know the difference or else they'd put me away in a room.

Source Citation: King, Stephen and Bryon Cahill. "Stephen King: Halloween's Answer to Santa Claus." Writing. 28.2 (2005, Oct. ) 8-13. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 8-13. Literature Resource Center. Gale. BERNARDSVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 4 Sept. 2008 .

Gale Document Number: GALEH1100074413

About Jon Krakauer

2008-08-29T14:21:00.006-04:00

Jon Krakauer

Here's some information from our library database, Gale's Literature Resource Center, about Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild.

Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and raised from age two in Corvallis, Oregon, within reach of mountains that drew him into a lifelong love of climbing. His father, an active alpinist himself, introduced Krakauer to the sport at age eight. Krakauer graduated from Hampshire College in Massachusetts in 1976, then spent the next few years working solely to fund his passion for mountaineering, taking carpentry and commercial fishing jobs for five months and spending the rest of the year climbing. His writing career began with a magazine article about a climb he completed in 1977, alone, during which he charted a new route to the peak of Devil's Thumb in Alaska. When he began receiving regular magazine assignments, he decided to take on journalism as full-time work. Krakauer married Linda Moore in 1980 and attempted to curtail his highly dangerous avocation for her sake, but found himself unable to resist; he told an Outside Online interviewer that the conflict almost ruined their marriage, but eventually Linda accepted climbing as an integral part of her husband's career. He published a collection of his articles, Eiger Dreams, in 1990, and his next two books, Into the Wild (1996) and Into Thin Air (1998) were highly successful. Into the Wild spent over two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Into Thin Air, also a bestseller, was named Time magazine's best book of the year and propelled Krakauer onto the list of finalists for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999 for Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. In response to the events he recounted in Into Thin Air, Krakauer established the Everest '96 Memorial Fund, which provides humanitarian aid to the peoples of the Himalaya region through royalties from the book as a tribute to those who perished during the expedition.

Krakauer's books have begun as articles on subjects that he wanted to investigate in greater depth than a short essay would allow. Into the Wild recounts the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man restless with conventional life who traveled to the Alaskan wilderness intending to live off the land; woefully unprepared, he died of starvation. Four months after he began his adventure, hunters found McCandless's body and a desperate plea for rescue scrawled on a torn book page. McCandless was roundly criticized as foolhardy, but Krakauer looked past his fatal choice and crafted a compelling story, providing a fuller account of McCandless's background, emotional state, and his objectives. Into the Wild was adapted for film, with a screenplay and direction by Sean Penn, and released in 2007.

With Into Thin Air, Krakauer unintentionally became part of the story, which began as an assignment from Outside magazine to write about the increasing commercialization of climbing expeditions on Mount Everest. Krakauer revived a childhood dream to scale the famous mountain and signed on to participate in a climb while chronicling the experience along the way. His group reached the summit, but several people, including a veteran guide, perished during the descent when a storm blew in. His account of the tragedy was published first as an article in Outside and sparked a backlash from other climbers. Krakauer changed topics with Under the Banner of Heaven (2003), which explores the closed world of fundamentalist Mormons, a group with whom he had some contact as a child in Oregon. Krakauer did not shrink from controversial subject matter in this book either, delving into the highly charged topic of violence in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also known as the Mormon faith, and the development of fundamentalist splinter groups that have created legal and moral problems for the modern LDS movement. One such splinter group is profiled in Under the Banner of Heaven, which examines the true story of Ron and Dan Lafferty, brothers who in 1984 murdered their sister-in-law and her infant daughter in the name of God.

Krakauer has been praised for his ability to make nonfiction stories highly engaging--an ability critics find all the more impressive given that he has no formal education in journalism or literature. Critics received Into the Wild with kudos bordering at times on amazement at the skillful freshman entry into the literary world. Suzan Nightingale echoed the sentiments of many reviewers who reported that Krakauer's portrait gave them a curiosity about McCandless--and what he was seeking and may have failed to find. Krakauer's mountain-climbing tales benefit from his personal experience with the subject, which he says is not a sport but a way of life. Into Thin Air received strong criticism from many in the alpinist community who argued that Krakauer had profited from the tragedy. Krakauer responded by noting that he had joined the expedition as a journalist on assignment and, as such, it was his job to tell the story. Literary critics lauded Into Thin Air as skillfully told, but some also recounted arguments from other witnesses to the events who disputed Krakauer's account. In particular, Anatoli Boukreev, a well-known alpinist described by some as a champion of Himalayan climbing, took issue with Krakauer's characterization of him and wrote his own account, The Climb, which cast the descent in a different light. Critics praised Krakauer for not shying away from difficult issues in Under the Banner of Heaven, a book that to some is considered blasphemous. Krakauer's presentation of the history of the Mormon faith was described as insightful and thought-provoking, and some critics found parallels between the author's examination of religious fundamentalism in America and that of the Middle East. Robert Wright concluded that, in this way, the book "may have broader relevance than the author intended."

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
Eiger Dreams: Ventures among Men and Mountains (essays) 1990
Into the Wild (nonfiction) 1996
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster (nonfiction) 1998
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (nonfiction) 2003

Clip About Chris McCandless

2008-08-29T14:10:00.001-04:00

Into the Woods

2008-08-07T16:38:00.004-04:00

September will take us down some scary trails as we read both a fictional horror story, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King, and a non-fiction accounting, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Each one involves a young person "lost" in the woods, but in one case the person doesn't realize this until too late. They are both exciting reads, and I hope you enjoy them.

John Gardner and Grendel

2008-06-05T12:25:00.002-04:00

Born in Batavia, New York, in 1933, John Champlin Gardner grew up in a farming family, although his father was also a preacher. His mother encouraged his literary interests, and he was introduced early to plays, operas and great literature. The accidental death of his younger brother when John was 11 years old scarred his life forever (John was unable to stop a 2-ton cultipacker he was towing from crushing his brother who had fallen off the tractor), and this event, written about in his story, "Redemption," caused a lifelong struggle with conflicted feelings of guilt.

In writing, at least, Gardner always stood for the moral choice. His book, On Moral Fiction, took a polemical view of fellow writers, who he believed were self-absorbed existentialists, disinterested in affirming the value of literature to move or inspire mankind. Gardner believed that art/literature should create models of virtue or heroism, visions of the possible, and should be agents of human transcendence over negative forces.

Gardner studied medieval literature on the graduate level and was an expert on Beowulf, among other texts. He was well-versed in philosophy and thoroughly conversant in literature, to the degree that he could interweave quotes, parts of poems and literary allusions from many sources into his own works. You will find this trait readily apparent in reading Grendel. He had taught Beowulf for 12 years before writing Grendel, and you may also detect some of his viewpoints about the author/art as agents of positive value in this work. Certainly his highly negative attitude toward existentialism stands out, particularly targeting Jean-Paul Sartre's book, Being and Nothingness.

John Gardner wrote with a love of words, images, and ideas that truly exceeds the ability of most writers. Author of such works as The Sunlight Dialogues, October Light, Nickel Mountain and Mickelsson's Ghosts, Gardner received national stature as an acclaimed author whose life was cut short by his accidental death in 1982 while riding his motorcycle to his teaching position.

Grendel Illustrated

2008-06-03T22:33:00.005-04:00

Grendel has captured the artistic imaginations of illustrators for the Beowulf editions and even South Park cartoons, but "our Grendel" inspired a wonderful series of portraits by Emil Antonucci which mark the beginning of each chapter in John Gardner's book. Here Grendel's complexity of expressions indicate his capacity for thought processes and emotional states of mind. Have the illustrations by Antonucci affected how you feel about Grendel?

Next We Nibble on Grendel

2008-05-16T10:10:00.007-04:00

Get ready to "tear into" Grendel by John Gardner for a reading experience that is both unique and engrossing....okay, and maybe a little bit gross, too! But we won't let a few dead bodies deter us from some great literary analysis of this critically acclaimed book!!

After all, this is a book about a monster/creature, but not the same monster that haunts the meadhall in the Old English poem, Beowulf, upon which the new story is loosely founded. Our Grendel is protohuman and poetic, philosophical and inquisitive, witty and awestruck. He is also a deeply flawed, murderous character trapped in his own mode of thinking and in his own inevitable role to be played out in the story. He is much more than a monster.

At a later date I will be posting some information about John Gardner, his moral vision and his hatred of existentialism, as well as some guideposts to help you navigate through the book. Please refer to the handout if you want to focus on any of the suggested points of interest noted there.

Saturday Samplers will discuss this great fictional work at our next meeting on June 7, 2008, at 3:30 p.m.

Share Your Comments on the Book

2008-05-04T12:49:00.002-04:00

Feel free to add any comments or follow-up on any points you made yesterday regarding ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. We had a good discussion, but there's always more to say!

Meet the Author - ZZ Packer

2008-04-18T23:22:00.006-04:00

ZZ Packer is an ebullient speaker and a spirited writer. Her short stories place keenly observed individuals in challenging or transformational situations, and she states, “When I am writing these stories, I am really concentrating on the characters and what are their circumstances and motivations and what do they want.” Indeed, her stories offer a strong sense of empathy for the characters, many of whom are young adults. Given the author’s age, 35, that is understandable.

As a child, ZZ changed her given name, Zuwena (meaning “good” in Swahili,) to “ZZ”, a family nickname. She says it made life easier for her, but it also demonstrates an individualistic flare. And, of course, ZZ Packer makes for a great author’s name!

Moving in her youth from Chicago to Atlanta and finally to Louisville, Kentucky, ZZ excelled at math and science and wished to become an engineer. She was accepted by MIT, but chose to attend Yale University where she developed an interest in writing. Graduate work in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University was followed by her participation in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She then became a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Several of her stories have appeared in “The New Yorker” and her short story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2003. This debut book was also nominated for the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. ZZ Packer is currently working on her first novel.

Here are a few interesting articles about her. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/innovators/packer.html

http://www.pitt.edu/~nidus/current/packer.html

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

2008-04-15T11:49:00.005-04:00

Saturday Samplers will dive into ZZ Packer's short story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, for our next discussion on Saturday, May 3rd at 3:30 p.m. Copies of this book are available at the circulation desk for you to borrow.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere offers eight short stories which explore interesting characters in thought-provoking situations. Some of these stories fairly swoop along in a marvelous narrative; others move forward relentlessly toward a shattering or unsettling conclusion. Still others simply leave you with new insights into what it must be like to walk in someone else’s shoes… someone you might not normally consider to be in your realm of concern. These are memorable stories full of humor, sadness, and insight.

Share Your Comments On The Book

2008-04-05T18:34:00.004-04:00

Thanks to all who attended our group discussion of Isaac's Storm this afternoon. We touched on a few areas of criticism and discussed a number of topics, but you may want to comment further on the book. Simply click on the comments link below and type in your thoughts.

If anyone is interested in writing a review of the book, I can post it on the library's book blog, Book News and More, http://bernardsvillereadersadvisory.blogspot.com/ at some point.

Galveston Rises

2008-04-04T22:08:00.002-04:00

The Galveston Tribune printed this placard entitled "Galveston Was Not Born To Die" at the end of the year 1900, including a calendar for 1901. Scenes contrast the 1900 storm ruins with an inspirational drawing of a revitalised port. See an enlarged view of this placard at http://www.gthcenter.org/exhibits/storms/1900/Manuscripts/Placards/index.html

To learn about the rebuilding, the raising up of all the existing buildings, and the construction of a seawall, visit the Rosenberg Library's Galveston and Texas History Center webpages at http://www.gthcenter.org/index.html.

Isaac Cline - Other Dimensions

2008-04-03T14:21:00.004-04:00

Following the tragedy of the Galveston Hurricane, Isaac Cline moved his family to New Orleans where he managed the U.S. Weather Bureau Station, among other jobs. He is credited with saving the city from a flood in 1903, having predicted that the Mississippi River valley was vulnerable to growing floodwaters at the time. While the U.S. Weather Service disagreed with his predictions, Cline persuaded the New Orleans levee board to temporarily raise the levees, which did, in fact, avert a spillover of floodwaters into the city.

Isaac Cline is seen here walking in New Orleans where he also owned the Art House, a glassware and art restoration shop. To read more about this man, please click on the link below.
http://www.1900storm.com/isaaccline/index.lasso

Victims of the Storm

2008-03-28T22:12:00.007-04:00

Lithographic copy of the painting, Galveston's Awful Calamity, 1900.

Artist's rendering of victims on Tremont Street, Galveston.

Flood map of Galveston showing loss of property.

Orphans and sisters of St. Mary's Orphanage before the storm.

Isaac Cline's family.

"Time and Tide Wait for No Man"

2008-03-16T21:45:00.005-04:00

Our first discussion book, Isaac's Storm, is now available at the circulation desk of Bernardsville Library, so borrow your copy soon. You'll find the book to be a gripping story propelled forward by the drama of true events as well as by the author's clever use of characters and historical context. It is moving and artful in its delivery, so readers of fiction and readers of nonfiction alike should find this book to be of interest to them. Meet to discuss this book on Saturday, April 5th, at 3:30 p.m. in the library's Community Room. All are welcome.

Storm's Destruction - Galveston

2008-03-12T23:52:00.006-04:00

Photographs show the devastation to both frame and mortar buildings in Galveston, Texas, following the 1900 hurricane.

http://www.1900storm.com/photographs/index.lasso

Beware - The Storm Clouds Gather!

2008-03-06T00:22:00.014-05:00

Isaac's Storm has to be a dream read for weather wonks who savor detailed descriptions of monster storms. It offers an exhaustive, but highly readable speculative account of the storm's slow development into a meteorological cataclysm heading Galveston's way. The sense of suspense and dread evident on the very first page of the book is there, indeed, for a good reason. If you'd like some information about this hurricane from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then investigate "The Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900" and related articles at http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/galv_hurricane/welcome.html.

Meet the Author - Erik Larson

2008-02-29T21:31:00.007-05:00

Erik Larson certainly knows how to craft a great story from a blend of fictional elements and historical fact. His writing style, known as narrative or literary nonfiction, has been used to great effect not only in our first reading, Isaac’s Storm (1999), but also in other works by him, such as The Devil in the White City (2003) and Thunderstruck (2006).

Larson’s interest in history can be traced back to his studies in Russian culture and history at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his undergraduate degree. Yet he notes, “I'm not a historian; I’m a writer who tries to find stories and bring them to life.” Larson developed his writing skills at Columbia University, earning a graduate degree from the School of Journalism in 1978.

Quoted by Writer in September of 2003, he states, “I love trying to capture atmosphere, landscape, events, in prose. I love sinking into the past. What I’m trying to do for my readers is allow them to just fall into another time, and ideally not emerge until the book is done, with a changed sense of the past.” He attributes his literary influences to Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Leo Tolstoy, among others.

Erik Larson lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and three daughters. Mornings are dedicated to writing, either on a computer or legal pad, but he knows when to quit – around noon!

For further information on narrative nonfiction as a literary form or to read an interview with Erik Larson, click on the link to The University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication webpage.
http://lnf.uoregon.edu/index.shtml

TIP: For biographical information on Erik Larson or other authors, go to Bernardsville Public Library’s webpage http://bernardsvillelibrary.org/ and click on the online resources link which will take you to a Wilson Web biography database. That is where I found most of my information for this article.
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Let the Reading Begin

2008-02-03T19:28:00.007-05:00

Saturday Samplers announces the first three titles we will be reading for our discussion group:

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

Grendel by John Gardner

Isaac's Storm, a gripping piece of nonfiction, will be discussed first on April 5th. For a change of pace, we will next explore the humorous, insightful short stories of ZZ Packer on May 3rd, followed by John Gardner's unique fictional work on June 7th. Start your engines!