05.2015 Curious Incident of Dog in the Nighttime

Introduction:

Another mystery! Hopefully not as dark and depressing as the last book. It's our shortest book yet!

Book Jacket:

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Book Details:

Length: 226 pages
Publisher: Vintage
Published: May 18, 2004
ISBN: 1400032717
ISBN13: 978-1400032716

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Dark Places

Book Club #3!

About the Book:

Summary: 

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

Setting:Kinnakee, Kansas 1985 to present-day

Characters:

• Lyle
• Libby Day
• Patty
• Ben
• Michelle
• Debbie
• Aunt Diane
• Runner
• Diondra
• Krissi Cates
• Trey

Questions:

1. How do you like the style of shifting narrators in Gillian Flynn's books?

2. Flynn is known for writing books with unsavory protagonists and twists. Did Libby, Patty, and Ben serving as narrators affect how much you liked the book?

3. Throughout the book, Libby is pulled back into reliving the evening when her whole family was killed. People with seemingly good intentions, e.g., people who wanted to help Libby or exonerate Ben, kind of force her back to the "dark place." How do you think this impacts her world view or growing up?

4. Did you have any conspiracy theories or ideas about who the killer(s) might be as you read the book?

5. Can a person's social role/how they are viewed by others/how many friends they associate be a good indicator of guilt? Should these factors be weighed heavily in an investigation. Describe how a community's assumptions and discrimination against a person/family can affect fairness in the legal system.

6. Do you think the mother's decision was justified or a good idea? What other options do you think she may have had? Why did she not chose those other options?

4. In the story, Lyle is a member of a Kill Club - a group of people that re-investigate murders. What is the most unique/interesting club or organization that you have been involved with?

Conversation Summary:

Calling through conference call seemed to be the easiest solution. Here was some discussion topics:

•  the author uses a similar narrative format of jumping between different points of view through the book, it gave the book a richer experience, readers get a better understanding of each character
• Ben was a favorite character, you can see why he had fan clubs
• the book was a bit difficult to get into the ending was not very satisfying, predictable for some but not so predictable for others
• presented issues with flaws with the legal system - using a minor's testimony, lack of substantial evidence, bias from the way the community viewed the Day family
• children being easily swayed by parents' expectations or what the children think they want to here (Libby, Krissi, etc.)
• Patty was a weak character, she had a lot of responsibilities, could she handle a farm and four children, unsure of herself and authority over Ben
• terrible choice of resolving her money problems, Patty's plans and motivations completely backfired - all the life insurance money went towards Ben's defense and the children did not have a better life
• whether Ben had a better life in jail
• changing theories of who the murderer was throughout the book
• money as a primary motivator throughout the book
• how the lack and abundance of money changed how people lived their lives (Ben working hard as a child vs. Libby not doing anything until she ran out of money vs. Les Miserables)
• whether the characters with money or no money lived meaningful existences
•  men vs. women in dealing with hardship, isolation, etc.
• 
  

References:

1.Trailer for Dark Places
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJJjy2cZeLk

04.2015 Dark Places

April Winner: Dark Places

 

 Introduction:

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

Book Details:

Length: 349 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
Published: May 4, 2010
ISBN: 0307341577

Get Book: 

Amazon
Overdrive
Used.addall

Discussion Question Inspiration:

Author's Website

Feel free to put your comments, discussion questions, and articles below.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Book Club #2!

About the Book:

Summary: 

Miriam is a woman born in Herat, Afghanistan, out of wedlock to Nana and a man named Jalil. She lives outcasted from her village. After her she leaves home in an attempt to get her father to allow her to move in with the rest of her family, her mother commits suicide. At 15 years old she is married off to an older man named Rasheed in Kabul with whom she is unable to have children and is treated poorly. Laila is a girl born in Kabul with a father that encourages her to go to school, learn, and aim high. Her life is drastically altered when the country's leadership changes, her childhood love Tariq leaves town, a stray bomb hits her home and kills her parents, she is taken in by Rasheed and marries him. Despite uncongenial beginnings, the two form a bond as women raising children in a household and country in which women are denied previous rights and war is a constant presence.

Setting:

Kabul, Afghanistan in 1964 to present-day

Characters:

• Miriam
• Laila
• Rasheed
• Tariq
• Nana
• Jalil
• Mullah Faizullah
• Laila's mom
• Laila's dad
• Tariq's parents
• Aziza
• Zalmai
• Abdul Sharif

Questions:

1. At several points in the story, Mariam and Laila pass themselves off as mother and daughter. What is the symbolic importance of this subterfuge? In what ways is Mariam’s and Laila’s relationship with each other informed by their relationships with their own mothers?

 

2. One of the Taliban judges at Mariam’s trial tells her, “God has made us different, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proven this.” What is the irony in this statement? How is irony employed throughout the novel? 

 

3. Throughout the book, young girls are being married off to cousins and much older people. What do you think are the implications of this and pros/cons compared to relationships in the Western world?

 

4. Laila's mother changes dramatically from a vibrant figure among the women of the community to a withdrawn, depressed individual. Miriam's mother Nana seems to always have suffered from depression. Mental illness does not seem to be addressed in that culture. Why do you think this is?

 

5. Relationships between parents and their children seem largely tragic in this novel. The theme of betrayal is central - Jalil abandoning Miriam, Fariba's treatment of her daughter vs. sons, Miriam not being able to conceive, etc. What do you think about how the adults affected their kids (or lack thereof, in Miriam's case) throughout the novel?

 

6. Mariam says she is ready to go because she has accomplished all she wanted in life - what did this mean or include?

 

7. Afghanistan has experienced many changes of leadership throughout the story - which characteristics of each reign do you think were positive and negative for the characters?

 

8. Tariq and Laila have a special lifelong friendship - have you ever had a similar childhood friendship?

 

9. Mullah Faizullah is Mariam's childhood mentor - what do you think made this relationship special? What qualities of a mentor is significant for children?

 

10. Jalil regrets not taking in Mariam to save face and uphold his reputation - have you ever done anything you regret for similar reasons? what do you wish you did instead?

Conversation Summary:

Despite problems with echoing, conversation mostly circled around treatment of women, culture differences, and child-adult relationships:

• appreciative to live in a society where women can do and be pretty much anything
• better understanding of middle eastern culture and origin of current status
• mentors are people that give you advice, teach you things, tend to be older, wiser and more experienced
• marrying young children off to a much older person is confusing, power difference, person should be wiser but if abusive or mistreats set a norm that the child will not easily break from, different father figure
• Miriam and Laila had weaker mother figures but strong male mentors that encouraged them
• unfair society rules for women
• happiness of women in families
• similarities and differences between characters and their mothers - strong, sacrificed, valued Aziza
• how Miriam's life would be different if she had children
• why Miriam refused to see people from Herat
• culture and religion
• emotional trauma of growing up and living in a changing, war-torn country
• rules of the country's leadership

References:

1. Women in Afghanistan have found a voice to demand change after the brutal lynching of a woman falsely accused of burning the Koran.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/03/26/afghan-women-find-a-voice-after-lynching?videoId=363634946&videoChannel=117760&channelName=World+News 

 

Bear Love Book?:

#3/3

03.2015 A Thousand Splendid Suns

March Winner: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Introduction:

That book by the writer of Kite Runner. Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul--they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

Book Details:

Length: 432 pagesPublisher: Riverhead Trade
Published: November 25, 2008
ISBN: 978-1594483851

Get Book: 

Amazon
Barnes & Nobles
Overdrive
Used.addall

Discussion Question Inspiration:

Author's Website

Feel free to put your comments, discussion questions, and articles below.

Fault in Our Stars Discussion

Hooray! We completed our first book club meeting! Thanks everyone!

About the Book:

Summary: 

Hazel Grace is a 16 year-old who has had terminal cancer since the age of 12. The cancer spread to her lungs and she is visibly sick due to the oxygen tank she must bring along everywhere she goes. She is an only child and worries her mother has no other purpose besides hovering over her and worrying about her. She meets a Augustus Waters, a boy with osteosarcoma, at a cancer support group. They bond over their appreciation and her obsession with a book called The Imperial Affliction by a man names Peter Van Houten that Hazel considers a best friend who knows her better than anyone because she is able to relate to the book's views on death and the life of a young sick girl named Anna. Her curiosity about the book's ending and characters bring her and Augustus on a journey to Amsterdam and back and are confronted with the realities of death and terminal illness.

Setting:

Indianapolis and Amsterdam, modern day

Characters:

• Hazel Grace
  
• Augustus Waters
• Patrick
• Isaac
• Peter van Houten
• Lidewij
• Hazel's mom and dad
• Augustus's mom and dad
• Other: Augustus's ex-girlfriend, Hazel's childhood friend

Questions:

1. The book is mostly focused on Hazel and Gus, and less so on the parents. But it's clear that they struggle with her condition and attitude towards it. How do you envision that the parent child relationship was before the cancer and how did it change because of it?

2. What are your thoughts on the author's writing style? Did it feel age-appropriate and realistic?

3. Hazel mentions that her favorite book, an Imperial Affliction, anticipated her feelings before she felt them. Kids are in a stage of life where they're trying to figure out how to feel about things. What should these role models be?

4. Hazel describes the support group of 12-18 year olds being competitive. During first contact, Hazel believes she won the staring contest. Recent science says your frontal lobe is still developing until the time you are 24. This area has been associated with impulse control among other things. How do you think the story may have differed if Hazel and Augustus met at a different age?

5. Augustus's home is full of Encouragements. Though Augustus mocks them were they helpful and who did they help? Do you have a particular encouragement that is meaningful to you?

6. Hazel's “greatest fear is that when I’m gone, you’re not going to have a life anymore.” What are the fears and hopes of the various book's characters?

7. If the book ended in the middle of a sentence, which sentence would it be and where?

8. Peter van Houten references Shakespeare when he writes "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves." What do you think this means and how is it related to the title of the book? What do you think the title of the book means?

9. Augustus Waters had an obsession with saving others, being a hero, and being remembered rather than fading into the oblivion. Was he successful in this pursuit? What do you want to be remembered for?

Conversation Summary:

Discussion jumped around, topics covered:

• have a chronically/terminally ill only child vs multiple children
• parenting an ill child
• differences between how others remember you and if it is accurate
• how illness affects you physically and your relationships
• what kind of cancer would you not want to have
• how you want to be remembered
• Peter van Houten is not a such a bad guy, he speaks bluntly, underwent unfortunate circumstances, and was heartbroken to see Hazel as the teenager Anna never got to be
• differences between the book and movie
• differences and similarities between John Green and Peter van Houten
• Esther, the girl who inspired the book, affect on John Green and the book
• current research on cancer - more random than genetic or environmental origins
• favorite characters - the mom
• fears of various characters
• lack of depth and information on characters other than Hazel and Augustus

References:

1. About Esther - the girl the book is dedicated to
2. Science article - cancer is really 2/3 random and only 1/3 affected by genetics/environmental factors. Its creating a lot of uproar in the medical community.

Bear Love Book?:

#3/3 bears love book

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