Teddy, an investigator, is posted to Shutter Island , the sight of an asylum for the mentally ill, to find a missing patient.
Hear About Shutter Island
By now our reading group knows that The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian is the story of Laurel, who after a brutal attack, goes to work for a homeless shelter. After discovering photos attributed to one of the men in the shelter, Laurel becomes obssessed and sure that they will uncover a dark family secret. You might want to visit Mr. Bohjalian’s website at http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/index.htm for all kinds of interesting information. Under the heading Books, select The Double Bind which not only provides the brief description, but contains the video trailer for the book as well as an interview with Chris. Or try the URL to get the the trailer http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/bohjalian-double-bind.htm. Also Chris Bohjalian has recently published Skeletans at the Feast. You can hear an interview with Chris about his new book and his own writing technique at http://www.authormagazine.org/archives.htm. Just arrow down to June 2008 to find his interview. I hope these links will allow you to know Mr. Bohjalian a little better before we meet again to discuss the book. And I truly hope you enjoyed this book as much as I when I first read it and then read it again.
You can find almost anything in a Library, and I bet you can find these! Try to put a title to these book covers. Put your name on a scrap piece of paper, number it from 1-14, and write down the titles. Submit your answers to the Library by April 17. We also have the contest posted in the Library with appropriate answer sheets. Use the Library to search out your answers. If you have been a member of Readers Anonymous this year, some of these should be pretty easy!
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
It is 1946 and Julia, a journalist of note in London, is searching for a more worthy topic to begin writing about when a Mr. Dawsey writes to her concerning his love of the writer Elia Lamb. And so starts the story told all in letters of friends who formed this reading group as a trick to deceive the Germans during their occupation of the Channel Islands during WWII. Members of the group begin to correspond with Julia sharing their special love of literature while also telling her their often harrowing and touching stories of their lives occurring as English captives of the German command. Plenty of humor mixed with these more serious moments create another delightful, insightful look at the war and the lives it leaves behind. I had to obtain this at the public library, but it was worth the trip. These were real people just like our reading group who love the printed word, but also lived through some gruesome times. This might be an interesting choice for one of our discussions, because it is a fairly short, easy read.
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
Teenagers are dying, but they aren’t staying dead. They’re showing up at Oakvale High School where the administraiton is especially tolerant of the ‘living impaired’ or the ‘differently biotic’ as they are called. But the students are’nt quite so happy about going to classes or eating lunch with the nonbreathing ‘living impaired’. All except Phoebe Kendall that is, a goth girl living on the fringe of Oakvale school society. When Phoebe takes a special interest in Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead teens, no one is more surprised than her best friend Meg and next door neighbor Adam, who has finally realized his feelings for Phoebe are more than just friendship. And what if the differently biotic want to go out for sports or run for a class office? Things may take a turn for the worse at Oakvale High. Read this witty, thought provoking novel about the challenge of being dead but still walking around.
Poverty to Park Avenue: An Interview With Jeannette Walls
- Click here to see an interview with Jeannette Walls about her book and life. It’s enlightening.
On Feb. 19 we will be discussing The Glass Castle over lunch in the library. Before you come that day think over the following and try to have an example to share with the group.
1. There are so many memorable stories that Jeannette Walls relates in her book about her life growing up. Try to come up with a story illustrating one or more on these categories of stories: memorable, funny, sad, or shocking.
2. What is the ‘glass castle’ and what does it signify to Jeannette and her father?
3. Why do you think she starts the story with her father running her out of the hospital when she was 3 years old after being burned and saying to Jeannette, “Now you’re safe!”
4. What do you think of Rex and Rose Mary Walls?
5. Just for fun here is a trivia question: How did Jeannette get her name and what did her mother say about it?
Our next discussion will take place on Feb. 25. I hope you are moved by reading this as much as I have been…even the second time around. I thought it might be fun to have us all thinking about the book before our next discussion so below I have posed some trivia questions. Have fun with this and provide me with your answers via email before the next get together. There may be a prize involved!
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Trivia Contest
1. What does harami mean?
2. In Kabul, what black market video became such a craze in Afghanistan?
3. Why did Kalil not marry Nana when she became pregnant with Mariam?
4. What is a kolba?
5. What is the main source of Kalil’s wealth?
6. What was Rasheed’s profession?
7. Nana says, “There is only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don’t teach it in school….And it’s this: tahamul. What does that mean?
8. What movie did Mariam want Jalil to take her to on her 15th birthday?
9. What did Mullah Faizullah teach Mariam?
10. Why were people painting their cars yellow during the bombings?
11. What did Rasheed make Mariam wear well before it was required by law?
12. Babi, Laila, and Tariq travel to the Bamiyan Valley to see what great wonder? What later happened here?
13. Why did Babi tell Laila that it was a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan under the communists?
14. Laila’s teacher was named Shanzai, but the children called her Khala Rangmaal or Auntie Painter behind her back. Why?
15. For a long time Babi and Mammy, Laila’s parents, were happy and very much in love. What changed all that?
16. Laila tells Tariq, “It’s the whistling , the damn whistling, I hate more than anything.” What is she referring to here?
17. How are Nana’s threat of “I’ll die if you go;” and Babi’s statement, “Sometimes I feel like you’re all I have, Laila” similar and what resulted from each?
18. What event took place that made Mariam begin to like Laila?
19. Why was Laila’s birth of Zalmai so much worse than with Aziza’s?
20. At the orphanage Aziza explains tectonic plates, the shift in the earth, earthquakes, and tremors. How does Laila compare this to Aziza?
21. The first argument that Tariq and Laila have as a married couple is over what?
Our next book to read is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. The story centers on the relationship of two female characters, Miriam and Laila over a half decade in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and Taliban takeover. Please note my email to access a Fact Sheet on Afghanistan so that we all have the basic information to make this novel meaningful.
So far you have seen several books I have enjoyed. Now it’s time for you to comment on the books themselves or share your own favorite reads with everyone else. For instance, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, offers a modern day Hamlet inhabited by a witch, ghosts, a wicked uncle, and of course, Edgar as Hamlet. And all this is told on a farm where Edgar’s family raises special, highly trained dogs. You will feel the deep, heartfelt relationship between Edgar and his dog Almondine.
On one of our snow days I read this book and literally could not put it down. It is a romance and mystery about Hannah yet at the same time telling the story of Sallie who lived 100 years prior to this. It is one of those books I hated to see end, and also that I do not have it to look forward to reading for the first time. Give it a try, it won’t disappoint.
