Top 10 Book Club Selections

What were the top 10 books selected by book clubs this year? Goodreads has an Infographic for this.  I can't believe that our book club has not read even one on the list.  I started reading Wild on my own and never finished. It just never held my interest. There is a mix of books on the list. According to amazon,  Gone Girl is a thriller. J. K. Rowling's book, Casual Vacancy is described by one amazon reviewer as a book you either love or hate; brilliant, disturbing and not for everyone.  Insurgent is for the Young Adult and falls in the category of dystopic fiction. It's the second book of a trilogy in the Divergent series and is set in Chicago.  Quite a mixture!

Take another look at the Okefenokee Book Club selections for 2012.

Hunger Games

I have dropped everything to read The Hunger Games.  It is the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  The first few pages just pulled me in. I could not put it down.  It's a very exciting dystopic fiction even with the gore and the sadness we readers feel as we read about children being sent to kill other children as sport. Their communities watch and listen in on them on television as if they were watching the TV show Survivor.   The 24 young children are brainwashed to think this is a good thing to represent their district by murdering each other to win a life of comfort meaning a house and regular meals.

Killing as entertainment is not such a fictitious scenario.  Think of  Rome.  Think of the coliseum.  We know adults fought each other or fought animals to their death as others watched the "entertainment". 

I am on page 376 and I can't wait to see how this turns out for Katniss and Peeta.  How do they survive and keep their humanity?  Peeta, the baker's son, has never been brainwashed.  Before the Games begin, he is intent on maintaining his naturally kind and loving self and on keeping Katniss safe. 

I am looking forward to reading all three books.  How are the starving struggling people in the Districts going to defeat the governing fat cats in the Capitol?  I hope I will find out in the end. Also, I am now looking forward to seeing how Hollywood transformed this on the big screen.

Book Club Meeting at Matt's Italian Postponed

We'll meet next week Friday at Matt's Italian Restaurant instead of today.  Some members did not like The Passage.  I like dystopian fiction so I am not completely turned off this book.  I can say however that I preferred Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

I am on the last few pages. The group from the Colony led by Peter with Amy are featured in Part X1.  Alicia was infected and saved from turning into a viral but now has Superwoman qualities. I am getting some understanding of the virals in this section.

The original 12 persons in the Noah Project, former death row inmates, were infected with a virus and morphed into vampire-like creatures that have bee-like qualities.  The original 12 are like the Queen bees.  They infect hosts.   They travel in swarms and send out scouts to check out new hives.  The Haven, with the zombie-like people that reminded me of  the fictional characters called The Others in the TV show Lost, was one big hive.  There should be 11 more similar hives.   At this point in the story the group has a theory that when the Queen dies, the hive dies.  Since I am close to the end and this book is the first of a trilogy, I am guessing that killing the "Queens" will be the focus of the next book.

Dystopian Fiction

I found another dystopian fiction, on a blog called bookasm.com, where some states have left the union to from independent republics. It's Flashback by Dan Simmons.  So this idea in The Passage of California seceding from the union is not that unique. 

For other interesting Science Fiction books found on this blog, link here.

Links to The Passage

I love these links to The Passage on Scribd.

Book Club Selection: The Passage

I found an interesting book trailer and a Reader's Guide for discussing The Passage by Justin Cronin.  Of all the questions on the list, I would say the key questions are the following: 

• What do you feel were the main themes Cronin was wrestling with in this novel?  Survival must be one. At the end, I will think about this again. 
• Did you think the national response to the crisis was realistic (ex. California seceding from the U.S.)?  Yes.  If Governor Perry of Texas in this day and age can allegedly suggest the secession of Texas because of taxes and/or a stimulus plan, I would imagine in a viral disaster such as this, secession of California is believable. 
•  Did you have a hard time transitioning from the first third of the book to the last two-thirds? Why or why not?   I ceratinlydid. I had to get to know a whole new cast of characters.
• Was there any point in the story where you felt you couldn’t read anymore? Oh yes, especially the part when Amy was not included in the story.

Fiction Therapy

Seen in September 2011 issue of Prevention magazine: Research proves that relating to fictional characters creates a sense of belonging.  What does this mean? Pick up a novel and read to avoid loneliness! Or, I would suggest that you join a book club.

Still reading The Passage.  I don't feel a sense of belonging. I feel as if I am in a scene in Lost, the TV show.  A Colorado bound group consisting of Amy, Peter, Alicia, Sara, Michael and about three other characters whose names I've forgotten are with a group of strange people that I could call The Others as in Lost.  These Others seem nice and helpful but there are few children among them, most of the women are pregnant, and they seem to be administering a drug to Michael that keeps him in their sick bay.  They have taken away the weapons from the group presumably for safe keeping and have invited the group to stay with them in their Haven.  What will happen if the group wants to leave and continue their journey to Colorado where they think they may find the answers to their questions such as why is Amy over 100 years old and looks like 15 and what is her link to the virals.

Dystopian Fiction

Are you still reading with me people? I am in a strange world in this dystopian fiction titled, The Passage.    I am in a new post Project Noah world with virals which are vampire-like with glossy teeth and new characters who work in their Colony of 94 souls as Builders, Watchers, and Runners. They work to protect themselves from the virals who travel in threes.  In this world there are also Walkers. I believe these are the survivors; the ones on the run from the virals. Mysterious Amy has not been the focus of the story for quite a while. I'm on page 291, a group is about to step through a hatch and this reminded me of the fictional universe in the TV show Lost.  The station crew that was supposed to be working in the hatch is missing.

I am not enjoying this part of the book but I am hanging in there.  I'm hoping Amy will turn up soon.

A Brave New World and  Ape and Essence, both by Aldous Huxley, and We , are some other Dystopian fiction my Facebook friends have recommended that I put on my Must Read list.

Zero Footprints: The Passage

Project Noah is experimenting on people with zero footprints, people who nobody would miss, people who have been abandoned by friends and family such as the sexual predators, homeless men on death-row.  Project Noah specifically has an interest in the abandoned 6 year old Amy.  Amy is mysterious.  She seems to speak the language of bears; she has communication powers with animals.  Her visit to the zoo with Sister Lacey turned chaotic.   In the midst of the chaos Amy is taken by Special Agent Brad Wolgast and his side-kick Doyle.  However unknown to Wolgast and Doyle, Amy is suddenly no longer a zero footprint.   The police have an interest in Amy.  The police tracked a murder weapon to Amy's mother hence the interest in Amy herself.  Fortunately, Wolgast is interested in protecting Amy.  Sister Lacey senses it just by looking at him.  Doyle senses it.   Amy knows it. It appears that the trio: Wolgast, Doyle and Amy are on the run.

I am on page 155 and something ominous is about to happen.  Sister Lacey is missing. Sister Arnette senses that something terrible and dangerous is about to happen.  She says some dark force is loose in the world. 

Book Club Selection: The Passage

I am entertaining a house guest and am trying to focus on The Passage, a dystopian fiction by Justin Cronin.  Very mysterious so far.  I just found out this is the first of a trilogy. Several characters, many settings. I am at page 68 and about to see how all these characters are connected.

The first characters I met were Amy and her mother Jeanette.  Amy's Dad was Jeanette's abusive boyfriend.  She and her daughter Amy met on hard times to the point that Jeanette found it necessary to turn to prostitution. Then the story took me to emails from Dr. Jonas Lear to a Paul Kiernan in Cambridge.  Dr. Jonas was writing from the jungles of Bolivia.  There were no emails from Paul for us readers to read but it was clear that there was communication from him to Dr. Jonas.

By page 23, Dr Jonas emailed that his team was attacked by bats and some had died.  By page 26, I was meeting Anthony Lloyd Carter death-row inmate number 999642. He did not seem to have a vivid memory of the murder he committed.  By page 29, I was meeting Special Agent Brad Wolgast who was in Texas to meet with Carter and get him to agree to sign his life over to "Project Noah".  He was to get the agreement without actually telling Carter that Project Noah was a scientific experiment.  Wolgast's side-kick is Phil Doyle.
 
The story goes back to Amy who was abandoned by her mother, Jeanette, at a nunnery.  Sister Lacey took Amy under her wings. On page 68, Wolgast and Doyle were on their way to pick up Amy for Project Noah. 

I look forward to reading more of the story.

Think for Yourself

Check out this blog's contribution to Banned Books Week, September 25 - October 2. "Think for Yourself and Let Others Do the Same" was the American Library Association's slogan this year.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding on the list of "Frequently Challenged" books was one of my favorite books in literature class way back when.

I remember watching the movie version of Clockwork Orange, also on the "Frequently Challenged" list of books, at Carib theatre in Jamaica in 1976 or 77. I remember it being very bizarre and very interesting. This book written in the 1960s and set in Britain, falls in the category of Dystopic fiction.

Go read and think for yourself and let others do the same.

Book Club Selection

We met today to discuss our book, Sarah's Key, set in 1942 and 2002. Everyone loved it; not everyone had enjoyed our last book, the dystopic fiction, The Year of the Flood. I personally would have rated both books 41/2 stars. I loved them both.

Our book next month will be a light read, Thin Woman , a humorous mystery by Dorothy Cannell. I hope everyone enjoys the light mystery because I will be proposing The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo for August which is so not light.

The Year of the Flood

Plague? Blue people? This article certainly reminded me of our book club selection in May, The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

I first read about Craig Venter, maverick geneticist, in The Week magazine dated June 4, 2010 in an article titled, " 'Synthia': And then there was life."

Book Buzz: Book club Selection

I am reading yet another apocalyptic novel and this one is a bestseller titled One Second After by William Forstchen . I am only on page 45 and I am finding the grammatical errors irritating. No one proofread this book. The word "of" is repeatedly used in place of "have" as in "could of sold." "There is" was used in sentences where clearly the plural "are" was needed.

The bookclub members agreed to discuss another World War 11 fiction in June. This one is titled Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Here is a reading guide that we can use and this seems to be an interesting interview with the writer. Look at the list of Tatiana's favorite writers.

Q: Speaking of your writing career, who are some of your favorite authors?

A: I admire Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Irène Nemirovsky, Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allen Poe. And Paul Auster, Joanna Trollope, Anita Shreeve, Penelope Lively, A.S Byatt, JM Coetzee, Maggie O’Farrell, Tracy Chevalier, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sarah Waters.

Year of the Flood

"Do we deserve this Love by which God maintains our Cosmos? Do we deserve it as a species? We have taken the World given to us and carelessly destroyed its fabric and its Creatures....... Why would God give us another Earth when we have mistreated this one so badly?" page 424. That is the essence of The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. It is an environmental message.

I went into a dystopic world of animals like rakunks (rat combined with skunks), lions combined with lambs, smart sheep and pigs; a world of insects like bees and maggots for healing therapy; and a world of perfect man-made naked blue people with high sex drives. I enjoyed the journey to this weird world. I liked that I got three perspectives of the Dytopic world from Adam 1, Eve 6 also known as Toby and from Ren.

Are you reading Dystopian Fiction?

I am reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I could not get into Oryx and Crake by the same writer so I am returning it to the library. Year of the Flood is described as a dystopic masterpiece on amazon.

Yes, I had to look up the meaning of dystopic. It means anti- utopia, a negative vision of future society. So, while utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, dystopian fiction is the creation of a nightmare world. This comes under the genre of science fiction and speculative fiction.

I am enjoying Atwood's nightmarish world. Toby starts off as the narrator. She seems to be alone in the world because of a "Waterless Flood". I don't know what that means yet. She is telling the story of her life before the flood; how she had to go undercover in a world where the CorpSeCorps rules, how she ended up working at a place that sells burgers made of questionable meat judging from the cat fur, how she became a sex slave to her boss at Secretburgers, how she was rescued by a vegetarian religious cult called God's Gardeners. I am on page 59. There are two other narrators. Adam one who leads the Gardeners and Ren who seems to be a teenaged girl in the cult.

Wikipedia, of course, has a list of dystopian literature, if you care to know more.