Rin Tin Tin

At last, Diane revealed our next book: Rin Tin Tin: The Life And Legend by Susan Orlean. March 6, Tuesday at the shack folks. Check out the excerpt below for more on this fascinating book:

When I was very young, my grandfather kept a Rin Tin Tin figurine sitting on his desk. I wanted desperately to play with it, and even more desperately I wanted to have a German shepherd dog of my own, a dog just like the star of The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin, which debuted on television in 1954. I knew nothing about Rin Tin Tin other than that he was the perfect dog, and that he was a character on television. When by chance I learned that Rin Tin Tin was a real dog, not just a television character — a real dog with a real life that was extraordinary — I was drawn into the story and eventually to the idea of writing this book. After digging through hundreds of pages of archives and files and photographs, I came to understand that this was not just a story about a dog, or even the many different dogs who make up the Rin Tin Tin legacy; this is a story about a beloved icon who has played a role in decades of American popular culture.

—Susan Orlean

The Marriage Plot Discussion

Great discussion last night even though we missed out on a key contributor, who despite heroic efforts to finish the book caught the tail end of the cold bug that's been running rampant in our department, *and* we had a minor run-in with a surly conference goer hording bar tables and a discombobulated bartender. Still, we soldiered on, buoyed by Prosecco, vino, and tea, and had a fabulous discussion.

This post will mostly serve as a placeholder -- let's put our discussion in the comments if that works for everyone. Happy reading!

The Marriage Plot: A Novel

I've been dying to read something by Jeffrey Eugenides, but just never found the time -- thank you for the book choice, Lara!

The description for The Marriage Plot: A Novel on Amazon notes: "It's the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever." Hm...doesn't sound too different to the times we live in now, does it? In a decade that looked at relationships through the lens of "Kramer vs. Kramer," "Mr. Mom," and "Working Girl," what could the novels of Jane Austin and George Eliot that ended their stories with a happy marriage, have to do with anything? Looks like we'll find out along with Madeleine Hannah, an english major delving into the intricacies of marriage plots.

Our next meeting to discuss this book is Thursday, January 26. Happy reading!

The Dispossessed: Post quotes and suggestions in the comments to this post

Great discussion this last Wednesday at the Summer Shack. Some said that they felt that some of the ideas of revolution and propertarianism versus anarchy, played out as they were with states mirroring the US and the USSR of the middle to late 1970s, were dated and that the focus of the story was too much on the ideas and not the story or the telling of the story.

Of course, I can't speak for anyone else but myself. I really enjoyed this story and the characters, most especially Shevek. I grew up in a time with, in my opinion, a near unhealthy worship of the antihero, the cynical -- if you don't believe in anything, then no one is going to pull the wool over your eyes. Shevek is a man of moral integrity who enters any situation with empty, but open hands, ready to help and to trust. Is that more important than a readiness to see, and to accept, flaws? I don't know, maybe it's just as needed. But the book was so much more than anarchism, then competing philosophies. It's about how our language affects how we think, how we form notions of ownership, love, brotherhood.

What a great discussion we had though; we recommended books in a similar vein, maybe more on the dystopian side, by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, Orxy and Crake, etc.). If you've got more books to suggest, feel free to add them to the comments. I'll use the comments to also continue to put quotes from the book that touched me.

Our next book club will be on Thursday, January 26. Lara picked The Marriage Plot: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Can't wait to see you there!

More info for The Dispossesed

Here are some more interesting links.

This is a great study guide from WSU. If you're still reading, it's a thought-provoking series of questions arranged by chapter: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/dispossessed.html.

This is a great interview with Ursula K. LeGuin specifically about The Dispossessed:

Ursula K. Le Guin Interview from Jefferson County Library on Vimeo.

Book club next week! Discussion questions in comments

And the countdown begins. No, not to Santa arriving but to our fabulous book club meeting this coming Wednesday at the Shack. I'll paste in some book discussion questions into a comment for this post for all you naughty ferrets who aren't close to finishing the book to avoid revealing any spoilers.

Remember, Lara will be picking the next book (Lara feel free to add the book to this blog in advance of next week's meeting if you've already got one picked out. We may want to start adding books earlier to the blog so people have time to reserve them at the library).

We'll pick between Matt and Diane for the meeting following's Lara's meeting -- I foresee a bruising bout of thumb war or perhaps arm wrestling. Or, maybe Diane and Matt could just flip a coin. After that, we'll start the random picks again.

Happy reading!

The Dispossessed

After visiting a night-time world of magicians dueling against a circus backdrop, we take a jaunt to a no less fantastical tale about Utopian possibilities: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Do the words "anarchy," "mother planet," and "utopia" intrigue you? Ok, maybe only sci-fi/fantasy nerds like me, but we'll find out if this book breaks out of the genre ghetto at our next book club meeting at the Summer Shack: Wednesday, December 14 at 530 pm.

Happy reading!