Book Club Experience

For my book club blog, I attended Professor Erin’s Lisa Simpson book club. I live really close to the library she works at, so I thought stopping in the book club would be fun! The book of the month was Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, which I was lucky enough to have read a few weeks prior for fun! I was a little nervous going into the book club, I have never done one before! Sure, I’ve met with friends in bars to discuss a specific book we were jazzed on for hours, but that is infrequent, informal, and buzzed. My undergraduate degree is in English Literature, so discussing books isn’t foreign to me, but I had read The Old Man and the Sea for fun, I didn’t really take notes or prepare for a discussion of the book on an academic level. Either way, I decided to jump in, and I had my fears alleviated within the first couple of minutes.

I’m habitually early, awkwardly early sometimes, before job interviews I tend to sit in the parking lot for at least 45 minutes. This was also the case as I arrived in the community room of the library. I was so early the lights were off, but luckily another book club member was early too, who happened to be more familiar with the room, she found the light switch and we stepped inside. Making small talk that turned to us taking a seat in the room and staring at our phones for a bit, I felt much more normal. I was wondering how many people show up to book clubs on a Wednesday night, the room could have uncomfortably held 50, a comfortable 30 or so, and when we started we had six around two tables that had been pushed together. I was even more relieved, six is a comfortable size for new social interactions for me, I once took an undergraduate Latin class that had only 3 students, if someone missed a day it was the worst! So now that I’ve set the scene, and you know what I felt like going into the book club you probably want to know how it went right?

Who cares?! Erin brought popcorn! Food has a way in general of greasing conversation and making people comfortable (especially me), and I can’t tell you how much more comfortable I felt when a bag of popcorn was passed my way with a Styrofoam cup to dump it in. I know it sounds silly, but it was just a feeling, I didn’t challenge it, I just remember it. As we were passing the popcorn around, we also had some arts and crafts! I don’t think I’ve colored anything since I’ve been a grown man, but Erin passed around half sheets with Hemingway in a wool sweater with a marlin jumping in the background, and everyone started coloring, so I joined in. Craft-time bookended our discussion, pictures of Hemingway in the beginning, and making magnets of the book cover and Lisa Simpson at the end.  Now that I’m reflecting on the experience, I am appreciating the setup of the evening even more. The book club I attended was full of friends, friends who have known each other or been connected for a decent chunk of time (college). Their lives are interconnected in the ways we all are connected with our social groups, one member didn’t have time to finish the book, and another didn’t bother with reading it at all but still showed up. For some reason, I never would have guessed this about a book club, but the social interactions can be the most important part of the club. The craft time at the beginning and the end allowed the group to talk about other things (cats mostly) before talking about the book, getting all the normal questions you have for a friend about your last meeting or the last thing you talked about out of the way, while still doing a quirky little activity. I should also say that I felt very welcomed, everyone there treated me like I wasn’t a random guy who showed up at a gathering of longtime friends, which I pretty much was, but I had a great time.

Since this was my first book club I have no way of comparing the actual discussion of the book to another book club. Compared to my English classes in college, it was a little briefer, but felt similar. Erin had prepared some talking points/ questions for the group, some were written by her, some were thought up in the moment, and some were borrowed from the web. Everyone participated, even the people who hadn’t read or finished the book! I wasn’t taking notes because it just would not have been appropriate in the situation, so I can’t remember everything we talked about. I recall a discussion of wondering how strong the old man was, the sadness of the boy, what period of time the book took place, the role of poverty in the book, and a touch on the role of symbolism (or the lack thereof if you ask Hemingway) in the book. The book club was more a group of friends that morphed into a book club when called, so there was no one talking out of turn or stealing the spotlight. Honestly, I know I can be long-winded, taking a long time to say something simple, so I may have been the one who talked most out of place. Nevertheless, I still felt welcomed, and the rest of the club was kind enough to respond to what I had said so I felt like I was fitting in.

In all, I had a great time, and I hope my surprise appearance wasn’t unwelcome! This has been a particularly weird blog to write because usually I would just assume my reading audience all has the same experience. Yet this time, Erin was there, but you the rest of my classmates were not, so I have framed this blog to your experience level. I’m going to switch now, and talk directly to Erin.

Thank you so much for making me feel welcome!  Your friends are funny, kind, and wonderful and I had a great time at your book club! Your setup (crafts and snacks) really help a new person coming into the club feel comfortable and you lead a great discussion!

Essay Summary

To begin the summary, I want to cheat a little and include the introductory paragraph. I tried to make it explain everything my paper attempted to do….

It is the right time for readers’ advisory services (RA) to grow into whole-library advisory services. Joyce Saricks has spearheaded the work of RA becoming the base text in the majority of graduate level RA classes, including our own. Her firm foundation has established a concrete way to step around talking about genre and finding out why readers like books. This essay argues for an expansion for her theories along with a critique of some of the factors Saricks’s overlooks about library patrons. Whole-library advisory becomes a welcome addition to Saricks’s method both enriching RA and expanding advising theory across library platforms allowing patrons easier access to all formats. After a discussion on theory and method this paper will dive into a discussion of how whole-library advisory meets a need of access for patrons.

For a critique of Saricks, I used the work of Karen Dali along with an explanatory example of whole-library advisory with video game research. Dali’s work claims that Saricks misses that mark of ‘why’ a reader picks up a book by focusing on appeals. Dali believes social and personal reasons need to be taken into consideration to have a great RA conversation. Her method has merit, but needs work on establishing the ‘how’. My thought was to argue that combining the appeal-based conversation with the ‘why’ factors would be easiest with incorporating all formats a patron consumes, this why there is always something to point to as an example.  A paper I found on video games provided the basis and research for my theory to be shown as workable as in that format, just like in books, there are both appeal-type factors and personal/social factors (mood, fellowship, challenge) that need to be applied to grasp the real reason a person enjoys the media.

The last main idea of the paper was that whole-library advising is a need that has not been filled in the digital age. Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple are trying to figure out how to offer their users a movie based on what book we bought in their digital store, and the companies that do this best are enjoying great success. I state that libraries can become a leader in this to stay relevant, as we offer this service in a very personal way.

Reader’s Response to the James Frey Article

James Frey has had to endure a lot of backlash from people finding out that A Million Little Pieces was not factually based. Ranging from exaggerating blood alcohol content levels to claiming to be a victim of an accident he cannot prove he was ever at, Frey’s work is probably more fictional than true. To make things worse for himself, he lied to Oprah, telling the woman who rocketed his book to the top of the bestseller list that the stories were true even though it seems they were not. The Smoking Gun quotes Oprah talking about her tears for the author and his harrowing life events. Does it matter that this was mostly a lie?

Not at all. If a work has the power to make you tear-up or understand a truth about the world, maybe the lies were necessary. Many controversial books claim truth, for another annotation I read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a work of fiction that promises all the facts are true, but the story is fictionalized. The opposite of the case here, but they are both best-sellers and seem to be able to move people. I can understand the frustration of being ‘had’, but the question is why did you sit down to read the book. Was it to understand the gross details of another’s life? Most likely not- the book was probably read for entertainment or for enlightenment, to see the world through another’s eyes.

Now on the book marketing side this is a disaster for Frey, and it is his fault. He lied to millions of people, a poor choice that rarely ends well. Nevertheless, he gave them a book they loved, and the readers wanted to love the author. Not reading the book, but only the Smoking Gun article, it seems an author who would spend his life on a drug/alcohol induced rage through life would be the type of person who would lie to his readers. Ironically, Frey’s lie seems to be an action I would expect his character to preform. The readers are upset that he did not live the life he said he did, but are not impressed with his lie. I find this somewhat interesting.

I’m not standing up for Frey, I believe he made a bad moral choice. I also think the readers of his work are also taking the controversy out of proportion. I can’t quite understand why they feel so betrayed. It is fairly common in Memoir to stretch the truth. Did Frey take it too far? Probably, but he also became a famous writer out of the bargain.  Would the readers have loved the novel the same if it was a work of fiction? Why do we trust authors with ‘true stories’ in the first place? If a person at a bar told us an outlandish story verbally we’d probably enjoy it and call bullshit. I don’t see the difference here. P.T. Barnum also stretched ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ with his exhibits, telling customers they were paying to see some rare creature couldn’t exist. Most of the time it was trick of the light, people still loved Barnum’s shows and his controversy fueled his fame. If Frey politician lying about a budget, I would have a much different feeling, but people who tell stories for a living shouldn’t be fully trusted. 

Science Fiction Annotation

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

By Douglas Adams

Synopsis:

Arthur Dent wakes up to find bulldozers ready to tear down his house to make way for a new freeway. While he is lying in the mud in front of a bulldozer protesting, his friend, Ford Prefect, walks up and convinces him that it is supremely important they go down to the pub for some beer immediately. Ford uses his telekinetic powers on Arthur and the head of the construction crew to convince them to switch places, so they could grab a drink. Once at the bar, Ford tells Arthur not to worry about his house because the world is going to end in less than ten minutes. It does, and that’s when the story really gets going! The rest of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an Odysseus-esque romp through the galaxy filled with misadventure. The true draw of Adam’s book is the tongue-and-cheek comic mood that oozes through every paragraph.  You’ll appreciate this book if you’re in the mood for some cynical dry wit with a lot of whimsy on the side.  

Elements of Science Fiction:

Story Line

The main character Arthur, finds out his best mate is an alien who travels the cosmos writing for the best selling book in the universe, you guessed it, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy. Earth is demolished for an interstellar highway, but Arthur is saved by his friend, thus he is one of the few humans left in the universe. The resulting story opens up fun filled adventure through the universe. Thoughout this adventure, the universe is explained to the reader, including the answer to the meaning of life. Adam’s work is constantly humorous, needing to survive extremely absurd situations like being captured by lab mice, the smartest beings on earth and enduring a session of the universe’s second worse poetry! All the science fictions elements are here, artificial intelligent robots, spaceships that fly faster than light, and multiple-headed aliens, but the real reason you will get sucked into this book is the witty social commentary that is a flowing undercurrent through the pages of the novel.  

Setting

The readers first find themselves on modern-day Earth, but the story quickly expands to multiple worlds and cultures that science fiction fans will find bright and enjoyable. “Home-base” becomes the fastest spaceship ever conceived, called the Heart of Gold. The Heart of Gold is special because of the improbability drive, which uses the most unlikely ways in the universe to produce its speed algorithm. This algorithm was developed by an intern who combined the new science with making a cup of tea! The ship is outfitted with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s personality software, but as the reader learns, Sirius is one of the most hated companies in the universe because their products are always annoying! As you can see from a few of these examples, all the science fiction tropes are here in the setting, but the comedic experience is interwoven throughout every noticeable part of the book!

Pacing

Adam’s book can be read as a page-turner or more slowly to digest all of its humorous quirks. Even when lingering in the comedic mood of the book, readers will find themselves quickly entering and leaving a many scenarios. Though the settings are descriptive and brilliant, Adam’s strikes a wonderful balance between moving the story along and explaining his alien settings. Being a rather short book, most readers will find their afternoon flies by as they laugh and enjoy the pace of this work. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy can be taken seriously, but not too seriously, the author ensures you will smile along the ride.

Mood

Adams excels at many things in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but most excellently delivers a witty mood throughout. The tone of the book is focused on humor, those looking for a serious critique of life like those offered by popular science fiction writer Frank Herbert in Dune will find a much different novel. Nevertheless, this shows the ability of the science fiction genre to offer the reader a wide assortment of ways to experience a science fiction setting. Adams must have had a wonderful time writing the novel, so much is fueled by a lighthearted tone that the reader can really walk away from the work happier from having experienced it.

Read-A-Likes:

Peirs Anthony’s A Spell for Chameleon

Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber

            

Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Horror Promotion

A clever and fun way to promote Horror at a local library could focus on the success of the 2017 It film adapted from Stephen King’s novel. There are a few benefits from highlighting this work in particular, one is that Stephen King is a well-known name, even to non-readers and they might be willing to try a name they are familiar with. There is also the sequel to the 2017 film, which features a Hollywood Star-filled cast that is sure to bring attention on its release in October, which is when I would run this promotion. Integrated advisory is at the heart of this little marketing campaign since the King novel has two successful film adaptations along with the novel, the invitation into the patron is to enjoy all forms of It as a gateway into the horror genre as a whole. To actually market the book, which heavily features a library, I would mimic a scene from the novel where the protagonists see balloons appear around the library. The balloons could say “I love (town name)” to mimic the book or be blank, but they would surely be noticeable in the stacks. This is a great way to promote the horror genre to adults without worrying about scaring their children. I’m sure a lot of children would love to take some of the balloons home too!

Horror Annotation

Meddling Kids

By Edgar Cantero

Synopsis:

Combining the overarching threat of a Lovecraftian ancient menace with a nostalgia-driven plot that borrows heavily from Stephen King’s It, Cantero asked two questions of himself while writing Meddling Kids. First, what would happen if the Scooby-Doo gang actually got involved with real evil when they were crime solving teenagers instead of just a man in a mask? Secondly, How would those characters cope? Edgar’s characters are twenty-something’s who cannot deal with the things they have seen in the past and in their present nightmares. One drinks too much, one is too aggressive, one was in a mental institution, and the fourth member committed suicide, but the mental patient frequently hallucinates his dead friend. The ‘meddling kids’ and their dog are not Scooby and gang, but their ‘Blyton Hills Summer Detective Club’ is a direct nod to the cartoons. This especially shows as the team remembers past cases with examples such as using elaborate traps to literally catch a criminal in a net or simply the often mentioned color of one of the female protagonist’s hair, orange (think Daphne).   The detective club realizes they need to reopen a past case from their youth to gain peace in their adult and respite from recurring nightmares. As the crew dives deeper into the mystery, they start to realize how great of a force they are up against. Fans of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show will enjoy the underlying romance subplot and humor as a group of broken friends try to save the world while it falls apart around them.    

Elements of Horror:

Mood

The eerie mood of the book blossoms like a crescendo; in the beginning pages the reader is uncertain of established mood, then the reader will feel haunted, and finally with full knowledge of the supernatural evil before the reader, terror. The book approaches horror in the style of creeping feelings of unease, there are not any passages intended as ‘jump-scares’, but the plot twists, turns, and grows out of its Scooby-Doo framework and becomes a love letter to H.P. Lovecraft’s work.   

Pacing

Holding true with many other books of the horror genre, Meddling Kids has chapters of page-turning adventure preceded and followed by moments of character reflection and plot development. This may feel jarring to readers who are not used to the horror genre, but the slower progression aids the establishment of the feeling of dread. Especially, once the reader knows the evil monster and its minions are now a threat that could attack from anywhere! In Meddling Kids the reader is rewarded for their patience with an action packed ending with hordes of ancient monsters flooding the town, their overload causing a (super) natural disaster, and a zombie!

Setting

Meddling Kids really offers a tour-de-force of classic horror tropes, but since so much of the novel is a nod to Scooby-Doo cartoons, the reader allows the tropes to fly by largely unquestioned. Cantero writes a haunted house on a small island where ritual magic is performed,  a cave filled with lava and ancient monsters, a mental institution, and a run-down middle-American town that holds the geography altogether. These settings benefit from a large amount of description aiding in directing the reader’s emotions of fear and unease with dusty rooms and thunderstorms (literally).

Graphic Violence and Sexuality

Meddling Kids shies away from the classic horror conventions of an excess of gore and sex. There are some scenes where a monster’s head explodes or an autopsy is preformed, but Cantero’s goal was not to gross the reader or fuel any bloodlust. Cantero treats sexuality in a similar manner, offering a love story and quick mentions of past sexual encounters, but the most sexually explicit scene in the book is between the two female protagonists (one who longs for the love of the other) holding each other while trying to calm down from a terror induced anxiety attack. While this book will not scratch the itch for a gory romp, the nostalgic cartoon inspired plot would have probably seemed forced and awkward with added levels of sex and blood.

Characterization

The characters of horror novels are often emotionally worn out and indulge in destructive practices to run from their demons. The ‘meddling kids’ very much fit into this trope, the challenge for the protagonists is to not only stop the world from ending by horrible monsters, but achieve a peace within themselves so they can live up to the task. The villains are also important in Meddling Kids, borrowing from the mystery genre (Scooby-Doo) the reader doesn’t really understand all the villains and their motivation until the final showdown, but their deeds are sinister and deceptive throughout the novel.    

Read-A-Likes:

John Connolly’s The Gates

Stephen King’s Joyland

Joe Lansdale’s Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers