Wondrous Book Club March 30!

Our March pick is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

I for one, am very excited to read this one... as it was on numerous Best Books of the Year lists...

PW said: "Junot Diaz's dark and exuberant first novel makes a compelling case for the multiperspectival view of a life, wherein an individual cannot be known or understood in isolation from the history of his family and his nation"

I'll email the directions/address, but you will have to trek to Astoria (it doesn't really take THAT long). And there will be delicious Paula Deen French Toast Casserole Yumminess (With extra butter and cream of course).

This Is What We Call A Win-Win

Okay, I know we are all publishing types who have yet to hit it big in terms of $$$. However, I think there is something you should all know about:

These are available for sale from the blog The Written Nerd, which is written by Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, aka the events coordinator for McNally Robinson,* aka someone who was incredibly friendly to me and Josh when we met her earlier this year at a mixer (even though we had both been drinking two-for-one red wines for the better part of the evening at Botanica and were, as they say, feeling no pain).

ANYWAY, Jessica is working to get funding for a bookstore that she's planning to open up in Brooklyn--in *our* Brooklyn: Prospect Heights, or PLG, or maybe even South Slope. There's more about her business plan here. The money she raises from these shirts will help make the store a reality so that we won't have to trek so far to pick up our book club selections--it's a win-win!

I will be wearing my Book Nerd shirt to April's book club. And I hope that you all will be too! (How nerdy is that???)

* I always post to this section of the McNally Robinson website because I kind of can't process all the conflicting feelings it brings up in my on my own, and I want other people to have to read it, too. LOVE the bookstore...classism I am not so fond of.

A Reading Guide for Sunday

I hope everyone is getting excited for Book Club on Sunday! I am going shopping on Wednesday evening to provide us with all sorts of Roman/Italian goodies to eat, so get your requests in now! There will be olives, red wine, cheeses, biscotti (traditionally Roman), lasagna (not so much traditionally Roman, but good anyway.) If some sort of venison or game is available, I may get it, though I do have to say most of the food Ovid eats at Tomis is distinctly unappetizing.

As far as the book is concerned, I'm excited to dig into it and see what y'all think of it. In the hopes of guiding our discussion, I thought I would provide a few questions for people to think about as they read (don't worry, no spoilers). I would appreciate if everyone could provide 500 word typed answers for circulation at the meeting.

1. Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a set of poems with transformation between states of being as its main theme. In Malouf's book, what is Ovid transforming into, and what is the Child transforming into? How are these transformations related?

2. What does the Child himself represent? Why does he appear only at the edges of Ovid's life, in very early childhood and again near death?

3. Malouf is an Australian, and according to Wikipedia, "wrote this novel when issues with the treatment of the Indigenous people of Australia was under question, and the White Australia Policy and paternalistic mentality were inherent in society." What is Malouf saying in this novel about colonization, and interactions between powerful and 'barbaric' cultures?

4. My favorite passage in the novel is this one:

"But we are free after all. We are bound not by the laws of our nature but by the ways we can imagine ourselves breaking out of those laws without doing violence to our essential being. We are free to transcend ourselves. If we have the imagination for it."

Disregarding its potential as a Successories poster (I'm picturing a hawk flying over a dewy golf course in autumn), do you agree or disagree with this statement? Is there such a thing as transcendence of the self, or is one always within one's personality? Discuss, preferably with embarrassing personal stories.

5. As Malouf writes in the revealing epilogue, this novel has no basis in fact, besides that Ovid was exiled to Tomis. What do you think Ovid, an urbane poet not known for his belief or sincerity, would think of this presentation?

That's all I got for now, folks. I hope that people are enjoying this book that I very much love, though I would be curious to hear the opinions of those who don't feel that way as well. And we shall eat and drink well, regardless.

See the previous post for directions to my place on Sunday, and hope to see all of you there!

Mike D

Book Club in Exile

On February 24, Book Club is leaving the borough of Brooklyn for the first time! Journey to the isle of Manhattan, a dark and strange place with alien customs that are opaque to outsiders.

To best reflect this momentous occasion, I have chosen a favorite book of mine whose main character is highly literate and has been exiled to a foreign land, a dark and strange place with alien customs opaque to outsiders.

An Imaginary Life, by David Malouf

Jacket copy:

In the first century A.D., Publius Ovidius Naso, the most urbane and irreverent poet of imperial Rome, was banished to a remote village on the edge of the Black Sea. From these sparse facts, Malouf has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving novel. Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impale their dead and converse with the spirit world.Then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilization and nature, as enacted by a poet who once cataloged the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.

This book is great, short, and one does not need to know anything about the Metamorphoses to enjoy it. (Though anyone whose Ovid knowledge is half as deep as Clara and Andrew's Monkey King expertise would be most welcome to share it.)

This book, about a Roman poet, also allows us to eat Italian food and drink red wine. And as Malouf is Australian, Foster's will be supplied as well.

I know this will be the best-attended book club yet, so I'm sure all of you are eager for the details, so here's the nitty-gritty:

When:
February 24 at 1:30.
Some of you may note this is the same day as the Oscars, which anyone is welcome to stay and watch afterwards.

Where:
391 Convent Ave, Apt. 2

How to Get There:
Take the A-C or B-D to 145th Street. Exit on the north end of the subway (onto St. Nicholas Avenue). Walk one block west to Convent Avenue. 391 is between 146th and 147th Streets.

To Bring:
An empty stomach, an eagerness to drink, a passing familiarity with this (short!) novel and perhaps a thematically appropriate food. Or not.

I hope to see all of you there. As I missed the last meeting to see a family member get married, Megan has moved my book club grade down to a D. I'm hoping that a successful hosting can pull me back up to a C+.

Mike D.