A is for Aesop, Anderson
My parents–my mom, really–bought several leather-bound book collections when my brothers and I were little. I think it was called the World’s 100 Classics or something, and every month we would get a new book. I loved the crackle noise the spines made and the way the gilt pages felt like glass. One summer I was actually old enough to read a few of the books. I read them in my mom’s leather wing chair because I thought it made me look all the more important.
My mom still has that wing chair. Same chair, same dark brown leather(ish) upholstery, in the same spot in her office twenty-eight years later.
Since that summer, I’ve wanted my own collection. I’m moving at a much slower pace. I have these four, a not nearly as sophisticated Chronicles of Narnia edition from Barnes and Noble, and Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, which was a birthday gift from my mom this year. I told her I would love a leather or cloth bound book for my birthday every year. She thought that was a great idea. For some reason, she’s really big on giving the same or similar gift every year. She finds traditions in the strangest places.
Rules of Civility: Giveaway!
I bought my book last week, but I’m buying every book the Phenomenally Indecisive Book Club reads because I am a sentimental fool. Some of you, though, are still on the waiting list for your library’s copy–even the electronic versions! Melanie noticed the same thing in the comments yesterday and offered to give away two copies of Rules of Civility to those who still need a copy.
I don’t know how many of you know Melanie, but you will be hard-pressed to find someone who reads more than she does across all genres. Because of her lighting fast reading, publishers like her. A lot. So she gets to read books. A lot of books. (I’m insanely jealous!) Check out her Good Reads shelf. It’s ridiculous. She reviews them all on her blog and frequently does giveaways, like today.
Melanie has been working quite hard behind the scenes telling her contacts about our club. This should help people who are overseas, on tight budgets, or have libraries with mediocre fiction shelves–like mine. Gardening fan? Visit any of the Inland Empire libraries for your pick of tomes. We’re big gardeners here. Fiction fan? Put your name on the list and in three years you might have a chance at 1 of 3 copies of the latest bestseller.
Melanie is giving away two copies–of course she’s already read the book–to anyone who still needs a copy. Since time is of the essence, I’ll close this giveaway tomorrow evening (5pm, PST) and pick two winners using the random number generator. Melanie will ship the book to the winners.
Thank you, Melanie, for doing this for us!
Some rules:
- One entry per person.
- To enter leave a comment.
- Only U.S. residents 18 and up.
The Phenomenally Indecisive Book Club Starts Tomorrow!
What does that mean? Absolutely nothing! (If you have the book and are ready to go. Otherwise, chop-chop!)
February Book Pick: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Read by: February 29, 2012
That’s it. This book club is going to be fun, no-stress, and, hopefully, something that exposes us at least once to a book we would normally not read. Other than that, I don’t have many concrete goals. I love books and want an excuse to gush about what I’ve read on a regular basis with people who have read the same book. That sums up the mission of our club.
Now, some answers to a few frequently asked questions.
- Is it too late to join?
Never. - How do I join?
You don’t. This isn’t a traditional book club, at least not yet. For now, all you need to do to consider yourself a member is to read the monthly pick. Participation in the discussion would be great, but I know what it’s like to be shy. Think about it. The majority of us don’t know what we’re doing, either. - By when do I need to finish the book?
We’ll be discussing Rules of Civility, at the very latest, on Wednesday, February 29, 2012. Some members of the book club have already finished the book. From what I hear, it goes by fast and is an easy, enjoyable read. Inspiring, too. - Are there discussion questions we should keep in mind?
Sort of. Amor Towles, the author of Rules of Civility, created a discussion guide with the members of his own book club. This is what I plan to use. I have only skimmed it because it, at quick glance, appears to have mild to moderate spoilers. I don’t do spoilers, but if you do, go for it.
Now, I have two questions of my own.
- How often do you want to meet and discuss the book?
Option One: We can meet and discuss twice per month. The first meeting would occur in the middle of the month and discuss the first half of the book. The second meeting would occur at the end of the month and discuss the book in its entirety.
Option Two: We can meet and discuss the book in its entirety once per month at the end of the month.
Note: All dates will fall M-F so we don’t eat up weekend time. - Where do you want to meet and discuss the book?
Option A: Right here, in the comments section like we discuss everything else.
Option B: On the P&FF Facebook page.
Option C: Twitter, with hash-tags so that anyone can follow along.
Option D: Google+ has a chat room thing I know nothing about, but it’s been recommended.
Option E: A private forum, set up here.
Okay, that’s it. Are you ready? Excited? I have to say, I’m really nervous! I’ve never done anything like this, and I don’t want it to suck. I really want everyone to enjoy themselves. Fingers crossed…
Gentle Giant Octopus
A good book makes me think, learn, or research. That goes for any genre, any age group. Of course, I’ve loved books that have done none of the three for me. But, I’m not talking about those today. Today I’m talking about Gentle Giant Octopus. I’ve been thinking about these creatures ever since. I’m hoping this random post will finally get them out of my system.
I bought this book for Nicholas last year. He was obsessed with sea creatures, and I thought the nonfiction book about an octopus would be someone he liked. Oddly, it wasn’t until recently, when he was sick, that we decided to sit down and read about giant octopuses. Octopi. Octopodes. (More on that, later.)
Although the story is nonfiction, it’s written in story form. Nicholas and I followed the life of a mama octopus jetting through the shadows, huge like a spaceship. First fact I enjoyed and filed away in my extensive file of useless information: the tentacles of the largest giant octopus ever found were a heart stopping 15¾ feet long. I will never step foot in the ocean again.
The watercolor illustrations by Mike Bostock are incredible.
We learned how the mama octopus moves, feels, and protects herself.
But under a boulder, a Wolf eel is waiting. His mottled gray face darts from the shadows. His teeth strike like daggers. He rips off a tentacle. Then sinks like a nightmare deep into his den.
Not to be outdone by a Giant octopus, Nicholas’s eyes opened to 16¼ feet in diameter. Nightmare, indeed.
This is my favorite illustration of the book. The mama octopus finds an easily guarded cave she can squeeze into and uses her tentacles to pull in pebbles all around her. Once inside, she lays her eggs, which hang from the roof of the cave like grapes on a string. She lays as many as 60,000 tiny eggs! As you can imagine, no sooner did we finish the last page, I was off and googling Giant octopus eggs. Amazing.
This is Nicholas’s favorite illustration. The eggs grow for five months, and during that time the mama octopus never eats and never rests. She’s essentially the Italian/Latin mother of my childhood, but without the guilt trips and high-pitched screams to clean my room.
No, mama octopus doesn’t do guilt trips. She takes it to the next level and dies.
A mother Giant octopus rests in her cave den. She watches her babies swim up through the water. A gentle Giant octopus shrinks into the shadows. Her life is over as their lives begin.
Well played, mama octopus. Well played.
As for those baby octopuses, they get their own. Only two or three out of 60,000 will live to become adults.
Which brings me my first act of google after we finished reading the book. Octopuses? Octopi? Octopodes? I thought it was octopi, but the book said octopuses. So confused!
I love learning something new.
The Phenomenally Indecisive Book Club
Tagline: We couldn’t decide, so we’re reading it all.
The name of our new club started off as a joke that stuck, made all the more appropriate by my inability to think up a memorable name with staying power. It’s fitting. We never did come to a consensus on what genre to read other than everything, please. Like me, many of you experienced mild angst when it seemed one genre was in the lead. When everyone called out “Contemporary Literature and Fiction!” I immediately thought of no less than 12 young adult books I wanted to read, and all of a sudden the idea of a book club centered on anything else pained me. Those dozens of young adult books about dystopian societies overthrown by packs of time-traveling mythical creatures in love with humans dangled above my head like forbidden fruit. (Weird how the fruit hung in series of 3-5 and came with optioned movie rights.)
Once I decided we should read whatever sounded good, I sat down with a few avid readers to decide on our first book. It was as easy as eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
Lies!
I don’t need to tell you how crazy I drove Andrea, Gail, and Erin. I don’t need to tell you because I’m sure they’ll tell you in the comments. Let me explain. It’s not that I’m indecisive. No, seriously. Nicole described me best when she said, “It’s not that you are indecisive. It’s that you over-think every decision you make.”
I do. By training or nature, I’m a strategist. I plot, and anticipate, and foresee, and predict, and then act. Then I reevaluate and course correct, often when it’s completely unnecessary. To pick out our first book I consulted several book club forums, The NY Times, The LA Times, National Public Radio, Good Reads (you can friend me at that link), Facebook, Book List, Amazon, and countless other sources. I even consulted Pinterest (you can follow me at that link) to see if I could get a feel for popular book club pics. (Don’t ask. I don’t even know.) (In my defense, there were a lot of book club boards.) (Lots of pins on The Help.) (Even I’ve read that one.)
In the end, thanks to a flurry of emails and mad Googling skills, I decided on Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles.
Here is the description:
Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year-old named Katey Kontent. Armed with little more than a formidable intellect, a bracing wit, and her own brand of cool nerve, Katey embarks on a journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool through the upper echelons of New York society in search of a brighter future.
The story opens on New Year’s Eve in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, where Katey and her boardinghouse roommate Eve happen to meet Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a ready smile. This chance encounter and its startling consequences cast Katey off her current course, but end up providing her unexpected access to the rarified offices of Conde Nast and a glittering new social circle. Befriended in turn by a shy, principled multimillionaire, an Upper East Side ne’er-do-well, and a single-minded widow who is ahead of her times, Katey has the chance to experience first hand the poise secured by wealth and station, but also the aspirations, envy, disloyalty, and desires that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her orbit, she will learn how individual choices become the means by which life crystallizes loss.
Elegant and captivating, Rules of Civility turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come. A love letter to a great American city at the end of the Depression, readers will quickly fall under its spell of crisp writing, sparkling atmosphere and breathtaking revelations, as Towles evokes the ghosts of Fitzgerald, Capote, and McCarthy.
I picked this book (with the help of Andrea, Gail, and Erin) because it was the one book several people suggested in the comments a few weeks ago. It’s not a new release, so it should be available in most libraries. The reviews have been favorable, and it sounds like an enjoyable read.
“The new novel we couldn’t put down…in the crisp, noirish prose of the era, Towles portrays complex relationships in a city that is at once melting pot and elitist enclave – and a thoroughly modern heroine who fearlessly claims her place in it.”
-O, the Oprah Magazine“This very good first novel about striving and surviving in Depression- era Manhattan deserves attention…The great strength of Rules of Civility is in the sharp, sure-handed…evocation of Manhattan in the late ’30s.”
-Wall Street Journal“Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent…[Towles] clearly knows the privileged world he’s writing about, as well as the vivid, sometimes reckless characters who inhabit it.”
-People“Even the most jaded New Yorker can see the beauty in Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility, the antiqued portrait of an unlikely jet set making the most of Manhattan.”
-The San Francisco Chronicle“The best novels are the ones that completely transport you to another time and place. This beautifully written debut does just that. With wit, wisdom, and rich language, Towles introduces a cast of unforgettable 1938 New Yorkers, who change the book’s heroine in surprising and absorbing ways.”
-J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Maine“Terrific. A smart, witty, charming dry-martini of a novel.”
-David Nichols, author of One Day“Part love story, part social observation, 100 percent absorbing.”
-Redbook“It’s the Depression, and a gal Friday with a mouth like Dorothy Parker’s is dallying with the smart set…turns out she’s not the only climber. A joyride through the ups and downs of 1930s high society.”
-Good Housekeeping“A smashing debut…remarkable for its strong narrative, original characters and a voice influenced by Fitzgerald and Capote, but clearly true to itself.”
-Publishers Weekly“The characters are beautifully drawn, the dialogue is sharp and Towles avoids the period nostalgia and sentimentality to which a lesser writer might succumb. An elegant, pithy performance by a first-time novelist who couldn’t seem more familiar with his characters or territory.”
-Kirkus Reviews
I’m excited to read it, but I’m really excited to start The Phenomenally Indecisive Book Club (PIBC). (I’m still not sure about that name. I know. Kill me now.) This is a book I would normally walk past, only because there are so many books to read that I am prone to making safe selections among authors I have already read. I hope each book we pick falls outside our comfort zone and exposes us to something we wouldn’t normally experience. To me, that’s what makes a book club great.
PIBC officially starts in February, so we have two weeks to secure our copies of Rules of Civility. Next week we’ll talk about where we will “meet” and how often. And, because I’ve had this question a few times now, I want to confirm that anyone is welcome to participate. There is no official membership, unless we decide to move to a private chat area like Google +, Yahoo Groups, Facebook, or Good Reads to discuss the books.
