Wednesday, June 22, 2016

All the Little Birdies Go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet for The Goldfinch

For the month of June, our intrepid book group members tackled Donna Tartt's tome The Goldfinch. We enjoyed a golden bird cake (pictured below) with our discussion of this hefty novel.


Please find below various resources regarding this Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Movie Adaptation


The Goldfinch Painting


Discussion Questions


Book/Literary Reviews


Author Interviews
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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Summer Reading

Summer will soon be upon us, which hopefully means we'll have some extra time to vacation, relax, and of course read!

For the summer, our book choices are...

June 21 – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
July 19 – A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
August 16 – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
September 20 – The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach



Please join us for any or all of these upcoming discussions. We will meet at 7pm in the library's Sivess meeting room. Light refreshments will be served.

If you have any questions, contact jen @ southriverlibrary.org.


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Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

It's that time again ... let your voice be heard for the next few months' book choices!

Please visit our survey to select your top three choices:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KRJHRXV

The three books with the most votes will be our reads for July, August, and September.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Law & Order: Pemberley

For the month of May, we dabbled in murder and mayhem ... only on paper, of course! The group discussed Death Comes to Pemberley, a murder mystery sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice written by P.D. James, and enjoyed tea and iced rose cakes from a recipe via The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye.



Multimedia tie-ins

Regency culture & other stray tidbits

Jane Austen "Easter eggs" hidden in Death Comes to Pemberley
  • Sir Walter Elliot (briefly employs Wickham) - father of Anne Elliot, the protagonist of Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion
  • Mr. & Mrs. Martin, Mr. & Mrs. Knightley (mentioned in the last chapter before the epilogue) - main characters from Austen's novel Emma

More resources on Jane Austen

Hindsight is 20/20

James makes little nods to what we now know happens in the future. For instance ...

    ... Dr. Belcher conducts “experiments on the time taken for blood to clot under different circumstances and on the speed with which changes took place in the body after death.” - p. 94

    ... Sir Hardcastle jokes that scientists should find “a way of distinguishing one man’s blood from another’s? We would welcome such assistance although, of course, it would deprive me of my function and Brownrigg and Mason of their jobs.” - p. 95

    ... Alveston surmises that “surely war and a first-hand experience of the realities of battle could corrupt the sensitivities of even a normally peaceable man so that violence becomes less abhorrent? Should we not consider that possibility?” - p. 141

    ... Darcy argues for a system of appeals to court verdicts; Alveston imagines a future where the defense can make a closing speech just like the prosecution. (pp. 146-147)


Professional reviews of Death Comes to Pemberley

Discussion questions
  • Has anyone read any other works by either author before? If so, how do you find this book compares? Are the characters similar to or different from Pride and Prejudice?
  • Jane Austen never wrote scenes in which only men were present. She also wrote very little about the servants, especially never from their point of view. Why do you think that James chose to depart so drastically from Austen by doing both of these things? Could this story have been told without hearing from the menfolk and servants directly?
  • In a similar vein, Austen revealed very little about wars that were ongoing, even though several of her characters were in the military (as were some of her brothers in real life). What do you think lead James to include details about military exploits within the pages of Death to Pemberley?
  • Do you find it troubling, surprising, or short-sighted that the investigation totally negates any possibility of female involvement? The investigators are quick to say no woman could have caused the wound, Lydia’s bags are not confiscated with Denny’s and Wickham’s, and Georgiana is nearly outcast to her aunt’s as having no bearing or insight to bring to the case.
  • Based on the depiction here of the court proceedings and sentencing being an object of entertainment, does it seem like the publicity of capital cases is actually a deterrent to crime? What do you think makes the courtroom drama so interesting to people?
  • Do you find Wickham at all a redeemable character? So many of the people he knew in his youth (and later burned) were convinced that, despite having not been in contact with him for years, that it was impossible for him to be a murderer. And, Reverend Cornbinder insists “his virtues outweigh his faults” (p. 261) and that Wickham is a changed man for having gone through the ordeal of the court system. Do you think that Wickham will keep on the straight and narrow in the future or is a leopard unable to change his spots?
  • Were you surprised by the reveals? Was the mystery satisfactorily explained for you? 

About P.D. James
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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

April 2016: Finding the Lost Generation

For the month of April, we got together to discuss Therese Anne Folwer's Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, a fictionalized account of the wife of famed author F. Scott Fitzgerald and a dancer, artist, and writer in her own right. One of our very creative members made sure we were in the appropriate 1920s atmosphere by fashioning us all feathered, sequined headbands in the Flapper style.

                

We also enjoyed some of own bubbly (non-alcoholic unlike the raucous Fitzgeralds we were reading about in the book!) and light refreshments. 

Below are a number of resources for those who want to unearth more about this famous couple and the celebrity circle they traveled in throughout the United States and Western Europe.


Learn more


A range of articles on everything from Zelda’s life and work, to her daughter’s, to the homoeroticism between Scott and Hemingway...




Multi-media tie-ins


For your further reading or viewing pleasure...



Discussion questions
Thoughts to ponder...
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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

March 2016: Nostalgia, the Pain from an Old Wound

For March's meeting, we met to discuss the book The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes while enjoying the light refreshments of tea and fruitcake cookies (very apt to the book in which a character is given the nickname "The Fruitcake"). Additional resources on the book can be found below.



Professional reviews of the book:



Discussion questions:
  1. Why do you think Tony, Colin, and Alex all became so enamored with Adrian as schoolboys to the point of forgetting their earlier friendship of three?
  2. What did you make of Veronica’s mother, Mrs. Ford? What do you surmise her intentions toward Tony to be during that weekend trip? What did her comment about Veronica mean? What did her farewell gesture mean?
  3. Do you think Mrs. Ford’s willing Tony 500 pounds was indeed “blood money”? Why did she feel compelled to “confess” or “atone” her guilt to Tony rather than to her daughter or her son? What were her motivations in sending the money and the diary to Tony?
  4. Do you think that Tony was ever on some level in love with Veronica?
  5. Tony observes: “If you’ll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn’t experience ‘the sixties’ until the seventies. Which mean, logically, that most people in the sixties were still experience the fifties--or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing.” Do you agree or disagree that a person is often ‘between decades’?
  6. Tony also says at one point: “You might think that I behaved towards Veronica like a typically callow male, and that all my ‘conclusions’ are reversible. For instance, ‘After we broke up, she slept with me’ flips easily into ‘After she slept with me, I broke up with her.’” Given Veronica’s reaction to this incident and her accusation of ‘practically rape,’ do you think that the latter is the case even though Tony presented the former as the truth?
  7. “Two other things she said over the years: that there were some women who aren’t at all mysterious, but are only made so by men’s inability to understand them. And that, in her view, fruitcakes ought to be shut up in tins with the Queen’s head on them. I must have told her that detail of my Bristol life as well.” Is Veronica actually mysterious or is it because Tony can’t/doesn’t understand her? Is your answer the same whether it’s the younger Veronica or older Veronica?
  8. Why does Tony harbor so much resentment toward “Brother Jack”? Is it a question simply of class and feeling / being made to feel “less than”? What do you think of his little vengeance of telling Veronica that he got her contact details from her brother?
  9. What do you make of Adrian’s diary musings on accumulations? Did your interpretation of this passage change radically after the reveal at the end?
  10. What do you make of the ‘stupid’ kid from their schooldays (a minor, easily missed character) having the last words of the book?
  11. Is Tony essentially happy with his life before the start of the novel? What about by the end?
  12. Were you familiar with this author before? Would you read something by him again?
  13. This book is one of the “1,001 Books to Read Before You Die” and won the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Do you think it deserves all the acclaim?

Random tidbits / observations:




  • Saloon = British slang for sedan car
  • Barnes frequently quotes from or makes reference to various poems, most by Philip Larkin -


  • He also references Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man with “Who said that thing about the eternal hopefulness of the human heart?”
Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 
Man never is, but always to be blessed: 
The soul, uneasy and confined from home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
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