Creative Non-Fiction

This is a misunderstood and growing genre, so I thought I'd share this small piece which includes some explanation.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/waiting-for-reality-to-strike-20100716-10dvb.html

Waiting for reality to strike
JANE SULLIVAN
July 17, 2010 - 7:24AM

I've had an audience with a godfather. It took place in St Kilda, in a grand 19th-century salon crowded with devoted followers. He didn't quite make us an offer we couldn't refuse, but he told us what he did and what we should do, and we were full of respect, and we went away all fired up to do his bidding.

No, he wasn't Don Corleone or Tony Soprano. He was white-bearded, bespectacled and laid-back. He was Lee Gutkind, teacher, editor and prize-winning author of more than a dozen books, and he was having a chat with Peter Bishop, creative director of Varuna, The Writers' House, at Glenfern writers' studios last month.

Vanity Fair dubbed Gutkind "the Godfather of creative non-fiction" — a term so new in Australia that not many people recognise it, even when they are writing or publishing it. But in the US it's a big deal.

Creative non-fiction, Gutkind told us, is the fastest-growing genre in the American publishing and academic world. Since he began the first teaching program at the University of Pittsburgh 15 years ago, more than 70 master's degree courses have sprung up.

What do creative non-fiction writers do? Two things, Gutkind says: "We reflect on our own lives and try to record what happened to us that made us what we are today; and we have special personal experiences to make ourselves part of someone else's world for long periods of time, so we can understand these worlds and show them to other people through our eyes."

The first path leads to memoir. The second path leads to books such as Gutkind's Many Sleepless Nights, the inside story of organ-transplant patients; or on a more personal level, Truckin' with Sam, his story of trekking around America in a pick-up truck with his son.

How do you write such books? You don't swoop in and out like a journalist, hustling for the story. You hang out, don't ask questions, wait for something to happen and remember it until you have a chance to write it down. Then write it as if you were writing a novel. Make it dramatic and suspenseful, so your reader can't put it down. Then figure out what that experience means.

It strikes me that a good creative non-fiction writer is going to need tremendous patience. You can't make up scenes, as a novelist can: you have to wait for them. Gutkind had to wait four years to understand what was going on with his organ-transplant patients. And perhaps the hardest thing is to grasp the meaning of your experience. What Gutkind would really like to do is teach his students creative thinking.

Fortunately, he thinks Australia is a great country for creative non-fiction: "People are still sharing stories about their lives in a way that people in the US are no longer doing." Peter Bishop named several recent Australian books he thought were fine examples of the genre (including Exposure, by Joel Magarey; Bruce and Me, by Oren Siedler; Piano Lessons, by Anna Goldsworthy; The Weight of Silence, by Catherine Therese; and Knockabout Girl, by Pip Newling).

In Melbourne, we've been lucky to have some close encounters with US creative non-fiction gurus. Varuna also brought us Robin Hemley, director of the non-fiction writing program at the University of Iowa, who is now working with the writers' house and Griffith Review on an essay competition and masterclass. May these collaborations inspire even more great Australian non-fiction.

Austen marketed to vampire market

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw an advertisement for Pride and Prejudice in the Scholastic Bookclub brochure that the kids bring home from school. The new edition is being marketed to lovers of the Twilight series. It has a black cover, with a red and white rose, with the promo: 'Love isn't always at first sight', and the trivia alert: 'This is Stephanie Meyer's favourite book!'

Of all the teenage girls I know who've read Twilight (and yes, I read the first book) I've asked if they have read Bram Stoker's Dracula, and they all said no.

An approach worth trying, I suppose.

Advice about writing

Over the years I've read quite a few tips from writers. Advice like, avoid adverbs (it means you have chosen the wrong verb, says Stephen King), be careful using metaphor and similes, report dialogue with the word 'said', rather than anything more descriptive (eg, complained, whined, exclaimed, blurted). The Guardian has published quite a list of tips from writers of fiction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

Their advice seems to be in direct contrast to what children are taught at school. Be descriptive. Never use 'got' or 'said'. Use metaphor and simile. Use adverbs.

I must say I see the consequences of how writing is taught in school, mostly in children's books, and find it jarring, and frankly, try hard. Poor writing.

It seems that to write well as an adult we need to unlearn all we learnt at school, and say what we mean as simply and accurately as possible.

A favourite classics teacher I had a university said good writing requires brevity, a voice, and something else I can't remember.

What do you think are the rules for good writing? Should these rules be taught at school? Or do we need to know the terms, then learn to use them sparingly?

I'll have a think and reply to my own questions.

2010 Topic List

Month Topic and Question

Jan
Romantic Poetry
Are these poems about romantic love or the romance of ideas?

Feb
Ancient Roman Literature
Was the story more accessible than you expected? Did anything surprise you?

March

Fan Fiction (novels based on other novels)
Was the writer trying to copy the writing of the original, or do something else entirely?

April
Irish Plays
Did the dialect get in the way of the story? What did you learn about Ireland and the Irish?

May
Mothers Rights and Mothers in Fiction
How realistic is the portrayal of the mother in fiction? In the media?

June
J D Salinger
Does he deserve his cult status? Do you think his more recent works (unpublished) will continue in the 50s New York style?

July
Russian Classics
What makes them classics? Are their themes still relevant?

August
Revisiting books of your youth
Do they read the same? Has your impression of the books changed with time? What do you think now of your younger self?

Sept
creative non-fiction
How firmly is the writer in the story? Does this add or detract from the reading?

Oct
Short Story Collections
Are the stories long enough to be satisfying? Does the collection as a whole say something overall?

Nov
Magic Realism
Is the magic realistic?

Jan 2011
Rewriting Fairytales
Is this just having fun with fairytales or is something else going on?

Literary Terms

How many of these literary terms are you familiar with? Look up any you don't know.

allegory
alliteration
allusion
analogy
anti-climax
anti-hero
archetype
apology
argument
assonance
atmosphere
audience
ballad
black humour
Bloomsbury
Burlesque
Byronic
cadence
Canon
caricature
characterization
chorus
chronicle
classic
cliche
comedy
comedy of manners
conceit
conflict
convention
criticism
denouement
dialogue
drama
droll
elegy
eclogue
edition
epic
episode
epilogue
epistle
epithet
essay
exposition
fable
fantasy
fiction
figurative
flashback
foil
free verse
gallows humour
genre
gothic
humour
hyperbole
imagery
intertextuality
irony
journal
juxtaposition
lament
legend
lyric
magic realism
meaning
melodrama
memoir
metaphor
motif
mood
Modernism
monologue
mythology
narrative
narrator
novel
non-fiction
nemesis
ode
oxymoron
paradox
personification
plot
point of view
post - colonial
Postmodern
prologue
puns
purple prose
realism
rhyme
rhythm
satire
semiotics
setting
simile
slice of life
stream of consciousness
subplot
syntax
symbol
synesthesia - cross sensory metaphor
tableau
texture
theme
thesis
tone
tract
tragedy
trope
understatement
unity
utopia/dystopia
unreliable narrator
vehicle
verisimilitude
verse
vignette
Victorian
voice
wit

Considerations when reading a work of fiction

These questions can be asked of any novel you read.


1. The circumstance that sets the book in motion is called the inciting moment. What was the inciting moment of this book?     

2. Describe the character development. Who did you identify with? Did your opinions about any of the characters change over the course of the novel?     

3. How does the author use language and imagery to bring the characters to life? Did the book's characters or style in any way remind you of another book?     

4. What do you believe is the message the author is trying to convey to the reader? What did you learn from this book? Was it educational in any way?     

5. Why do you think the author chose the title? Is there a significant meaning behind it?     

6. Is there a part of the novel you didn't understand? Are you confused by a character's actions or the outcome of an event?     

7. Do you think the setting, both time and location, played a large role in this novel? Could it have happened anywhere, at anytime? If so, how would the novel have changed?     

8. In your opinion, is the book entertaining? Explain why or why not.     

9. What is your favourite passage?     

10. How did this book touch your life? Can you relate to it on any level?

11. How does the book leave you feeling?

12. How does the physicality of the book, ie, the size, weight, font, white space on the pages etc, impact on your reading?

13. What is the social and political context of the setting, and of the writer's time? How does this inform your reading?

14. How does the book compare to others by the same author or on the same themes or topic?

15. How was your reading informed by what you knew of the book beforehand?

July 2010 Russian Classics

July 2010 - Russian Classics

What makes them classics? Are their themes still relevant? Are there any characters, or situations, you can identify with?

Examples include:

Aleksander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin

Nikolay Gogol - The Government Inspector

Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time

Sergey Aksakov - A Family Chronicle

Aleksander Herzen - My Past and Thoughts From the Other Shore

Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov

Ivan Turgenev - A Month in the Country, etc

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace, Anna Karenina

Nikolay Leskov - Tales

Aleksandr Ostrovsky - The Storm

Nikolay Chernyshevsky - What is to be Done?

Anton Chekov - The Tales, The Major Plays

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago, (My Sister Life - poems)

June 2010 J D Salinger

June 2010 - Works of J D Salinger

Born Jerome David Salinger 1 Jan 1919, aged 91, raised in Manhattan. Last published in 1965. A famous recluse. Said to have been writing every day since and has works ready to be published upon his death. Died Jan 2010.

Catcher in the Rye (1951)

For Esme With Love and Squalor/Nine Stories (1953)

Franny and Zooey (1961)

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters/ Seymour: An Introduction (1963)


1941 - Slight Rebellion off Madison - short story re Holden Caulfield
1949 - film version of Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut released as My Foolish Heart - bastardisation of story - Salinger swear to never sell story to movies again.

• fought in WWII
• into Zen Budhism, then Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, then Kriya yoga, then Dianetics, Christian Science, homeopathy, acupuncture, macrobiotics, taking mega doses of Vitamin C, urine therapy, speaking in tongues etc
• insisted on no dust jacket illustrations
• other stories published (mostly in The New Yorker) but not anthologised
• married twice, had two children, and a year long relationship with a student, who wrote about their life together, as did his daughter
• famous legal battles
• Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide
• writing style - always about adolescents, good with dialogue, using phone calls, letters and interior monologue.

Does he deserve his cult status? If the works that are likely to be published on his death are in the same vein, do you think they will be relevant to modern society?

An article in The New Yorker upon his death. For me, this is the most insightful commentary on his work. I should say here that I've always been a big fan of the Glass family stories.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/02/08/100208ta_talk_gopnik

Here is a quote from the article that I agree with - just beautiful:

The message of his writing was always the same: that, amid the malice and falseness of social life, redemption rises from clear speech and childlike enchantment, from all the forms of unself-conscious innocence that still surround us (with the hovering unease that one might mistake emptiness for innocence, as Seymour seems to have done with his Muriel). It resides in the particular things that he delighted to record. In memory, his writing is a catalogue of those moments: Esmé’s letter and her broken watch; and the little girl with the dachshund that leaps up on Park Avenue, in “Zooey”; and the record of “Little Shirley Beans” that Holden buys for Phoebe (and then sees break on the pavement); and Phoebe’s coat spinning on the carrousel at twilight in the December light of Central Park; and the Easter chick left in the wastebasket at the end of “Just Before the War with the Eskimos”; and Buddy, at the magic twilight hour in New York, after learning from Seymour how to play Zen marbles (“Could you try not aiming so much?”), running to get Louis Sherry ice cream, only to be overtaken by his brother; and the small girl on the plane who turns her doll’s head around to look at Seymour. That these things were not in themselves quite enough to hold Seymour on this planet—or enough, it seems, at times, to hold his creator entirely here, either—does not diminish the beauty of their realization. In “Seymour: An Introduction,” Seymour, thinking of van Gogh, tells Buddy that the only question worth asking about a writer is “Were most of your stars out?” Writing, real writing, is done not from some seat of fussy moral judgment but with the eye and ear and heart; no American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart than his.


The Guardian also paid tribute.

I agree with a comment about Catcher in the Rye, that on rereading as a adult (as I have just done), the book is no longer about adolescent angst, but about not dealing with loss. Holden's younger brother has died. Holden didn't go to the funeral because he hurt himself in a rage. The boy at his school died. The other boys at fault were expelled, but not charged. America suffered great loss during the war. His older brother gives a clue to how the personal damage to soldiers who survived was irreparable. There seems to be no acknowledgement or attempt to heal - just a 'carry on' attitude - go to college, earn money and enjoy your opportunities. What was the fighting for?

And something to amuse:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bunch_of_phonies_mourn_j_d

May 2010 Mothers' Rights and Mothers in Fiction

May 2010 - Mothers in Fiction (and non-fiction re motherhood)

How realistic is the portrayal of the mother in fiction? In the media? Did you find anything here that you relate to?

Recommended Non-Fiction re Mother's Rights, including anthologies and 'Momoir':
(Australian titles marked with an *)

The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women - Susan Douglas J. and Meredith W. Michaels

The Mother of All Myths: How Society Moulds and Constrains Mothers - Aminatta Forna

The Mask of Motherhood: How Mothering Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't - Susan Maushart*

Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood - Moyra Davey (ed)

Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood - Naomi Wolf

The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change - Shari MacDonald Strong (ed)

The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued - Ann Crittenden

Maternal Theory: Essential Readings - Andrea O'Reilly (ed)

Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety - Judith Warner

Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do About It - Sue Palmer

Taking Parenting Public: The Case for a New Social Movement - Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Nancy Ranking, Cornel West (eds)

A Potent Spell - Janna Malamud Smith

The Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother - Shari L. Thurer

The Politics of Motherhood: Activist Voices from Left to Right - Alexis Jetter, Annelise Orleck, Diana Taylor (eds)

The Great Feminist Denial - Monica Dux, Zora Simic*

The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood - Rachel Power*

Motherhood: How Should We Care For Our Children? - Anne Manne*

Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It - Andrea J. Buchanan

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution - Adrienne Rich

A Better Woman - Susan Johnson*

Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs and Other Distant Memories: True Tales of Modern Motherhood - Brett Paesel

The Big Rumpus - Ayun Halliday

The Esential Hip Mama - Ariel Gore (ed)

Mother Journeys: Feminists Write About Mothering - Reddy, Roth & Sheldon (eds)

Naked Motherhood: Shattering Illusions and Sharing turths - Wendy LeBlanc*

See also MOTHERS Book Bag (online) for Recommendations



Mothers in Fiction:

Nursery Crimes: A Mommy Track Mystery - Ayelet Waldman

I Don't Know How She Does It - Alison Pearson

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Schriver

Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

The Hours - Michael Cunningham

Dying for Cake - Louise Limerick*

The Love Child - Fran Cusworth*

Safety - Tegan Bennet Daylight*

Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk

Little Children - Tom Perrotta

I own most of these books - OK, I have all of them. If you are local, feel free to ask to borrow from me.

April 2010 Irish Plays

April 2010 - Irish Plays

Did the dialect get in the way of the story? What did you learn about Ireland and the Irish? Could the play have been written by a playwright of any other nationality?

By Playwright:

Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days, Play, etc

Frank Carney


Oliver Goldsmith
The Vicar of Wakefield, She Stoops to Conquer

Frank McGuiness


Sean O'Casey
Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars, The End of the Beginning, Red Roses for Me, Cock-A -Doodle Dandy

Jimmy Murphy


Tom Murphy


George Bernard Shaw
Arms and the Man, Candida, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Androcles and the Lion, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, Saint Joan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Rivals, The School for Scandal

John Milington Synge
Riders to the Sea, Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows

Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Ernest

William Butler Yeats
Purgatory, The Resurrection

Include any others you can think of.

March 2010 Fan Fiction

March 2010 - Fan Fiction

Was the writer trying to copy the writing of the original, or do something else entirely? Is the novel a sequel, prequel, homage or re-writing? Does it cast the original in a new light?

Examples include:

Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde (The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels)

Nursery Crime Series by Jasper Fforde (The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear)

March - Geraldine Brooks

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Seth Grahame-Smith (mash-up)

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - Ben H Winters (mash-up)

The Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

Adele: Jane Eyre's Hidden Story - Emma Tennant

Thornfield Hall: Jane Eyre's Hidden Story - Emma Tennant

The French Dancer's Bastard: The Story of Adele from Jane Eyre - Emma Tennant

Emma in Love - Emma Tennant

Alice Fell - Emma Tennant

The Search for Treasure Island - Emma Tennant

Two Women of London: The Strange Case of Ms Jekyll and Mrs Hyde -- Emma Tennant

An Unequal Marriage: Or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later - Emma Tennant

Pemberley Revisited - Emma Tennant

Tess - Emma Tennant

Faustine - Emma Tennant

Tara - Emma Tennant

Heathcliffe's Tale - Emma Tennant

Darcy's Story - Janet Aylmer

Two Shall Become One (Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, book 1) - Sharon Lathan

Mr Darcy's Daughters (Darcys, book 1) - Elizabeth Aston

An Assembly Such as This (Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, book 4)- Pamela Aiden

Elinor and Marianne - Emma Tennant

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet - Colleen McCullogh

Colonel Brandon's Dairy - Amanda Grange

None But You (Frederick Wentworth, Captain, book 1 ) - Susan Kaye

Darcy and Elizabeth - Linda Berdoll

Emma and Knightly - Rachel Billington

The Third Sister - Julia Barrett

The Mistress of Pemberley - Isobel Scott Moffat

Mr Darcy Takes a Wife - Linda Berdoll

Pemberley Manor: Darcy and Elizabeth, for better or for worse - Kathryn Nelson

Paul of Dune - Brain Herbert

Chance Encounters - Linda Wells

Fate and Consequences; A Tale of Pride and Prejudice - Linda Wells

Affinity and Affection - Linda Wells

Scarlett - Alexandra Ripley

Rhett Butler's People - Donald McCaig

The Wind Done Gone - Alice Randall

Mrs de Winter - Susan Hill

The Other Rebecca - Maureen Freely

Rebecca's Tale - Sally Beauman

Cassandra - Christa Wolf

Medea - Christa Wolf

Song of Troy - Colleen McCullough

Cassandra - Kerry Greenwood

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Osysseus - Margaret Atwood

Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles - Jeanette Winterson

Cassandra:Princess of Troy - Hilary Bailey

Troy - Adele Geras

Ithaka - Adele Geras

Inside the Walls of Troy: A Novel of The Women Who Lived the Trojan War -Clarence McLaren

Here on Earth - Alice Hoffman

Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones


Online communities - Buffy, Star Trek, Harry Potter etc

Feb 2010 Ancient Roman Literature

Feb 2010 - Ancient Roman Literature

Plautus - adapted Greek comic plays, re complicated love affairs, more realistic and sophisticated, quote: 'fortune favours the bold'.

Terence - 'On The Nature of the Universe' poet , interpretation of Epicurian (pleasure) science - philosophy (accepts evidence of senses, dismisses metaphysical abstractions, find wonder and pleasure in perceptible world - explains atoms, not to fear death. Translation in prose.

Cicero - statesman, orator, wrote speeches, letters, essays

Horace - Odes and Epodes - greatest Roman poet, famous in own lifetime, likeable man

Persius - satirical

Catullus - poetry - series of poems addressed to married lover chronicling affair, versatile but famous for love poetry, leading figure of new poets of the day and good fun

Virgil - The Aeneid (also Eclogues and Georgics)
The destiny of Rome, beauty and fertility of Italy, its morality and religion. Studies since Roman times. The story of Aeneus, who escapes the fall of Troy, travels with Athena's guidance to found Rome.

Lucan - Civil War - epic poem on civil war between Caesar and Pompey

Ovid - Metamorphoses (also Amores, Cosmetics, Art of love, Cure for Love) - entertaining and fun epic poem of transformations.

Juvenal - Satires - scenes of Roman life, bitter humour, like Jonathon Swift

Martial - Epigrams - short poems of single ideas, some obscene, like graffiti, humorous

Seneca - plays, based on Greek tragedies, bloodthirsty and ruthlessness

Petronius - Satyricon - very modern, low life, amoral, gay baths, pretentious vulgarity of millionaire, anti-heroes, disreputable but likeable

Apuleius - The Golden Ass - man meets witches, turned into ass, falls in with robbers, adventures, story of Cupid and Psyches, performing as turned back into man by goddess - strange, beautiful and moral

Propertius - poet, famous for Cynthia poems, striking visual imagery and strong personal characteristics

Pliny the Younger - letters on a range of subjects, a wealthy Roman, includes an account of the destruction of Pompeii

Caesar - The Civil War - general , statesman, dictator, refers to himself in third person

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

Question: Was the story more accessible than you expected? Did anything surprise you?

I read these writers at University, and was particularly fond of Ovid and Catullus. The text known as the greatest is probably Virgil's Aenied. It was well studied when Latin was taught to all school students.

There are three things that stand out for me about Ancient Roman Literature.

Firstly, these texts would have been well known by all the dead white males who wrote the literary canon. Studying literature presumes a familiarity with the Judeo/Christian tradition (the bible) and classical (as in ancient classical) literature. Reading ancient Greek and Roman literature means you get the references in Shakespeare, and all the other big name writers.

The second striking thing for me is that reading these works puts the bible into a context. Ovid writes about the creation of the world. The Aeneid can be read as a Jesus story - the destiny of one man to found a new world and the distractions/hesitations on his journey to fulfil his destiny. The Golden Age of Ancient Greece was 5th Century BC. The Romans, of course, were around at the time of Christ. To know more about what was going on at the time that Jesus lived, and the literary context of the time that his life was documented, adds to a fuller picture of the bible.

The last thing that I find striking is how modern the stories are and how modern the storytelling is. Catullus' poems of his love affair could have been written yesterday. Ovid writes about love and cosmetics. Seneca's plays are brutal and gory. Petronius' antihero in The Satyricon is the bad boy we love as he drifts around the sordid nightlife. Apuleius' Golden Ass is like Francis the Talking Mule, with more adventures and more of a moral. And the story structure is circular (perhaps this is where Mary Shelly got the idea from?) Martial's poems are more like graffiti of insults that show that nothing much has changed in 2000 years. Really, there is nothing new under the sun!

Jan 2010 Romantic Poets

Romantic Poets

The Big Six authors are, in order of birth and with an example of their work:


William Blake - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

William Wordsworth - The Prelude

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Rime of the Ancient Mariner

George Gordon, lord Byron - Don Juan

Percy Bysshe Shelley - Prometheus Unbound

John Keats - Ode on a Grecian Urn

Neatly ties in with the release of the film, Bright Star, about Keats.

Are these poems about romantic love, or the romance of ideas? I've been reading Harold Bloom on these guys, and I'll post more soon.

Nov 2009 Crime

Again, this topic has its own category in the bookshop, so I won't list recommendations here. This isn't a genre I usually read. More later.

Oct 2009 Australian Novels

Australian Novels

Tirra Lirra by the River - Jessica Anderson
The Acolyte - Thea Astley
Girl with a Monkey - Thea Astley
Eucalyptus - Murray Bail
The Tyranny of Distance - Geoffery Blainey
Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood
Lucinda Brayford - Martin Boyd
The Resurrectionist - James Bradley
Turtle - Gary Bryson
Bliss - Peter Carey
Ilywhacker - Peter Carey
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
His Natural life - Marcus Clarke
Such is Life - Tom Collins
Wake in Fright- Kenneth Cook
Come in Spinner - Dymphna Cusak & Florence James
God of Speed - Luke Davies
Candy - Luke Davies
The Sunken Road - Garry Disher
Night Letters - Robert Dessaix
Our Sunshine - Robert Drewe
The Shark Net - Robert Drewe
A Fortunate Life - A B Facey
The Service of Clouds - Delia Falconer
Gould's Book of Fish - Richard Flanagan
My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Monkey Grip - Helen Garner
The Children's Bach - Helen Garner
Lillian's Story - Kate Grenville
Joan Makes History - Kate Grenville
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy
The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard
Capricornia - Xavier Herbert
A Child's True Book of Crime - Chloe Hooper
The Lucky Country - Donald Horne
The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
The Glass Canoe - David Ireland
A Woman of the Future - David Ireland
Moral Hazzard - Kate Jennings
Life in Seven Mistakes - Susan Johnson
My Brother Jack - George Johnston
Milk and Honey - Elizabeth Jolley
The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith - Thomas Keneally
The Year of Living Dangerously - CJ Koch
The Pea- Pickers - Eve Langley
Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay
The Magic Pudding - Norman Lindsay
Camille's Bread - Amanda Lohrey
Feather Man - Rhyll McMaster
Praise - Andrew McGahan
10 for 66 and all that - Arthur Mailey
An Imaginaery Life - David Malouf
Journey to the Stone Country - Alex Miller
The Orchard - Drusilla Modjeska
Stravinsky's Lunch - Drusilla Modjeska
Grand Days - Frank Moorhouse
My Place - Sally Morgan
The Plains - Gerald Murnane
The Harp in the South - Ruth Park
Coonardoo - Katharine Susannah Prichard
The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balconey - Hal Porter
The Getting of Wisdom - Henry Handel Richardson
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony - Henry Handel Richardson
The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea - Randolph Stow
Visitants - Randolph Stow
Tourmaline - Randolph Stow
The Arrival - Shaun Tan (graphic novel)
Storm Boy - Colin Thiele
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas
Loaded - Christos Tsiolkas
Seven Little Australian - Ethel Turner
The Children - Charlotte Wood
The Submerged Cathedral - Charlotte Wood
The Riders - Tim Winton
Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
Voss - Patrick White
The Twyborn Affair - Patrick White
I for Isobel - Amy Witting
Leaning Towards Infinity - Sue Woolfe
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

What makes a book Australian? The nationality of the writer, or the setting? The language?

Another list here, from Australian Book Review, which polled readers for their favourites.

http://www.australianbookreview.com.au/competitions/abr-fan-poll

The winner, again, was Tim Winton's Cloudstret.

http://www.australianbookreview.com.au/files/Features/February_2010/ABR_Feb10_Favourite_Australian_Novel_Poll.pdf

Sept 2009 Women's Rights

Women's Rights Literature

Mary Wollstoncraft - A Vindication on the Rights of Women (1791)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper (1891)
Sarah Grand - The Beth Book (1898)
Kate Chopin - The Awakening (1899)

Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own (1929)
Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1949)

Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook (1962)
Betty Friedan - The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Germaine Greer - The Female Eunich (1970)
Kate Millet - Sexual Politics (1970)
Shilamith Firestone - The Dialect of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970)
Morgan, Robin (ed) - Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement (1970)
Juliett Mitchell - Women's Estate (1971)
Sheila Rowbotham - Women's Consciousness, Man's World (1973)
Patricia Meyer Spacks - The Female Imagination (1975)
Susan Brownmiller - Against our Will (1975)
Anne Summers - Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonisation of Women in Australia (1975)
Adrienne Rich - Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976)
Elaine Showalter - A Literature of Their Own (1977)
Gilbert & Guber - The Madwoman in the Attic (1979)
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber (1979)


bell hooks - Ain't I a Woman? (1981)
Carole Gilligan - In a Different Voice (1982)
Dale Spender - Women of Ideas (And What Men Have Done To Them) (1982)
Gloria Steinem - Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
Dale Spender (ed) - Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Key Women Thinkers (1983)
Mary Daly - Pure Lust (1984)
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Andrea Dworkin - Intercourse (1987)
Judith Butler - Gender Trouble:Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Thinking Gender) (1989)

Nancy Friday - My Mother, My Self (1990)
Naomi Wolf - The Beauty Myth (1991)
Susan Faludi - Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991)
Gloria Steinem - Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992)
Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Women Archetyte (1992)
Paula Rothenberg - Race, Class and Gender in the US (1992)
Susan Bordo - Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (1993)
Naomi Wolf - Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How it will Change the 21st Century (1993)
Kate Bornstein - Gender Outlaw (1994)
Christina Hoff Summers - Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women (1995)
Barbara Findlen (ed) - Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation (1995)
Margartet Wertheim - Pythagorus' Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender Wars (1995)
Eva Cox - Leading Women: Tactics for making the Difference (1996)
Julie Mitchell and Ann Oakely (eds) - Who's Afraid of Feminism: Seeing Through the Backlash (1997)
Germaine Greer - The Whole Woman (1999)
Susan Faludi - Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (1999)

bell hooks - Feminism is for Everyone: Passionate Politics - (2000)
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards - MainfestA: Young Women, Feminism and the Future (2000)
Baxandall & Gordon (ed) - Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement (2000)
Anne Summers - The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women's Choices in 21st Australia (2003)
Astrid Henry - Not my Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third Wave Feminism (2004)
Baumgardner & Richards - Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (2005)
Ariel Levy - Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (2005)
Maureen Dowd - Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide (2005)
Ellen Bravo - Taking on the Big Boys or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business and the Nation (2007)
A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx - Elaine Showalter (2009)
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - Nicholas D Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn (2009)

August 2009 The Fifties

This is a big list - we decided to concentrate on 1957/1958. Pick a year.

1950

Barabbas - Par Lagerkvist
Helena - Evelyn Waugh
Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith
The Third Man - Graham Greene
A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie
The Great Escape - Paul Brickhill
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C S Lewis
The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing
The Rat Race - Jay Franklin
A Town Like Alice - Neville Shute
Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy


1951

Come in Spinner - Dymphna Cusack
The Cruel Sea - Nicholas Monsarrat
Five on a Hike Together - Enid Blyton
From Here to Eternity - James Jones
My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
The Grass Harp - Truman Capote
Prince Caspian - C. S. Lewis
Requiem for a Nun - William Faulkner
The Teahouse of the August Moon - Vern Sneider
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Siddartha - Hermann Hesse
The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk
Sparticus - Howard Fast


1952

Charlotte's Web - E. B. Brooks
Coins in the Fountain - John Hermes Secondari
The Borrowers - Mary Norton
To Catch a Thief - David Dodge
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison - Charles Shaw
The Natural - Bernard Malamud
The Bridge Over the River Kwai - Pierre Boulle
The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Men at Arms - Evelyn Waugh
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie
They Do it With Mirrors - Agatha Christie


1953

The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
After the Funeral - Agatha Christie
Battle Cry - Leon Uris
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
Farnenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
A Kiss Before Dying - Ira Levin
The Night of the Hunter - Davis Grubb
Ring for Jeeves - P.J. Wodehouse
Legion of the Damned - Sven Hassel
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids - Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
The Rebel - Albert Camus
The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
Zen in the Art of Archery - Eugene Herrigel
Nine Stories - J.D. Salinger
Junkie - William S Burroughs
The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley


1954

The Bad Seed - William March
The Forgotten Planet - Murray Leinster
I am Legend - Richard Matheson
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Live and Let Die - Ian Fleming
My Brother's Keeper - Marcia Davenport
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Amos Tutuola
Pictures from an Institution - Randall Jarrell
A Spy in the House of Love - Anais Nin
Story of O - Pauline Reage
The Man Who Planted Trees - Jean Giono
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein
Lord of the Flies - William Golding


1955

Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis
The Bodysnatchers - Jack Finney
The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit - Sloane Wilson
Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk
Moonraker - Ian Fleming
The Mouse that Roared - Leonard Wibberley
The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
The Return of the King - J.R.R.Tolkein
The Tree of Man - Patrick White
Waiting for the Mahatma - R.K. Narayon
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis
Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh
Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie


1956

Bang the Drum Slowly - Mark Harris
Beyond the Black Stump - Nevil Shute
Daimonds are Forever - Ian Fleming
The House of Sixty Fathers - Meindirt deJong
The Hundred and One Dalmations - Dodie Smith
The Naked Sun - Isaac Asimov
The Nun's Story - Kathryn Hulme
Old Yeller - Fred Gipson
Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
A Walk on the Wild Side - Nelson Agren
The Art of Loving - Enrich Fromm
Death in Cyprus - M. M. Kaye
That Uncertain Feeling - Kingsley Amis
Seize the Day - Saul Bellows


1957

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Bunny Lake is Missing - Merriam Modell (as Evelyn Piper)
A Death in the Family - James Agee
The Guns of Navarone - Alistair MacLean
Justine - Lawrence Durrell
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter - Isaac Asimov
Mandingo - Kyle Onstott
Odd Girl Out (lesbian pulp) - Ann Bannon (as Ann Weldy)
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Room at the Top - John Braine
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Voss - Patrick White
The World of Suzie Wong - Richard Mason
The Town - William Faulkner

1958

Around the World with Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis (pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner III)
Balthazar - Lawrence Durrell
The Big Country - Donald Hamilton
The Candle in the Wind - T.H. White
The Dhama Bums - Jack Kerouac
Exodus - Leon Uris
Hornblower in the West Indies - CS Forester
The League of Gentlemen - John Boland
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Alan Stillitoe
The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Mrs 'arris Goes to Paris - Paul Gallico
Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Stillitoe
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
The Young Lions - Irwin Shaw
A Summer Place - Sloan Wilson
The Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac
If This is Woman - Primo Levi
Dr Zhivago - Boris Peasternak
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
The Leopard - Guisepe Tomasi di Lampedusa
To the Islands - Randolph Stow


1959

Cat Amongst the Pigeons - Agatha Christie
The Cool World - Warren Miller
Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine (series) - Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams
The Devils Advocate - Morris West
Hawaii - James Michener
The Hustler - Walter Tevis
I am a Woman - Ann Bannon (lesbian pulp fiction)
Madeline and the Gypsies - Ludwig Bemelmans
The Manchurian Candidate - Richard Condon
Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
Psycho - Robert Bloch
Return to Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
To Sir, With Love - E.R. Braithwaite
The Unknown Shore - Patrick O'Brien
Walkabout - James Vance Marshall
Wolfbane - Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass

Through the 50s -

Enid Blyton's Famous Five, Noddy, Secret Seven
Agatha Christie
P.G Wodehouse
The rise of Science Fiction

Note how many were made into films and how many inspired songs!

Amazing to contemplate what people were thinking about after the war. A theme might be, what is it to be a man?

July 2009 Verse Novels

Verse Novels
Homer - The Iliad, The Odyssey
Virgil - The Aenied

The Monkey's Mask, El Dorado, Wild Surmise, What a Piece of Work - Dorothy Porter
Byrne - Anthony Burgess
The Sugar Mile - Glyn Maxwell
The Beauty of the Husband - Anne Carson
Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson
Shamrock Tea - Ciaran Carson
Freddy Neptune - Les Murray
History: The Home Movie - Craig Raine
Aurora Leigh - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
In Parenthesis - David Jones
Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
Out of the Dust - Karen Hesse
Muscle - Matthew Schreuder
Darlington's Fall - George Elliott Clarke
Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons - Marilyn Hacker
Witness - Karen Hesse
Glass - Ellen Hopkins
Identical - Ellen Hopkins
Impulse - Ellen Hopkins
Burned - Ellen Hopkins
Crank - Ellen Hopkins
What My Mother Doesn't Know - Sonya Jones


We were surprised to find these really easy to read. And that there is a market for young adult verse novels of tragic subject matter.

June 2009 Biography

So, many to choose from, I won't make suggestions.

Overall we found we enjoyed comic biographies, written by people who we already liked, eg, Steve Martin, Judith Lucy, Dawn French.

When we read about inspirational stories, do we feel that we are wasting our lives in comparison?

Some biographies are sycophantic, if written by a fan.

Some autobiographies or memoirs are people's way of selling themselves.

Altogether we found the books inspirational - the lessons we found are: take risks, you gain energy from pursuing your passion, and the individual can be powerful.

My pet hate appears in memoirs and autobiographies, that is, when people write about writing about themselves - in my view if you write about the writing of the book then you don't have enough content.

My personal conclusion was I should read biographies about people who are dead - that solves all my issues!

May 2009 Children's Classics

* A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 1905
* A Token for Children - James Janeway - 1675
* Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain - 1884
* Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain - 1876
* Aesop's Fables - William Caxton (Translation) - 1484
* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - 1865
* Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery - 1908
* Arabian Nights
* At the Back of the North Wind - George MacDonald - 1871
* Black Beauty - Anna Sewell - 1877
* Blue Fairy Book - Andrew Lang - 1889
* Call of the Wild - Jack London - 1903
* Coral Island - R. M. Ballantyne - 1857
* David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - 1850
* Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen - 1846 (English)
* Five Children and It - E. Nesbit - 1902
* Grimm's Fairy Tales - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - 1823 (English)
* Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift - 1726
* Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates - Mary Mapes Dodge - 1865
* Happy Prince and Other Tales - Oscar Wilde - 1888
* Heidi - Johanna Spyri - 1884 (English)
* Ivanhoe - Walter Scott - 1819
* Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne - 1864
* Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling - 1894
* Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling - 1902
* Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson - 1886
* King Arthur and His Knights - Howard Pyle
* King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard - 1885
* Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving - 1819
* Little Goody Two Shoes - Oliver Goldsmith - 1765
* Little Pretty Pocket-book - John Newbery - 1744
* Little Lord Fauntleroy - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 1886
* Little Women - Louisa May Alcott - 1868
* Lorna Doone - R. D. Blackmore - 1869
* The Lost World - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 1912
* The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle - 1883
* Moonfleet - J. Meade Falkner - 1898
* Nights with Uncle Remus - Joel Chandler Harris - 1883
* Peter Pan - J M Barrie - 1904
* Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan - 1678
* Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi - 1891 (English)
* Pollyanna - Eleanor H. Porter - 1913
* Princess and the Goblin - George MacDonald - 1871
* Railway Children - E. Nesbit - 1906
* Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggin - 1903
* Rip Van Winkle - Washington Irving - 1820
* Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe - 1719
* Slovenly Peter - Heinrich Hoffmann - 1848 (English)
* Swiss Family Robinson - Johann Rudolf Wyss - 1812-3
* Tales of Mother Goose - Charles Perrault - 1729 (English)
* The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 1909/1911
* Tales of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter - 1902
* Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, père - 1844
* Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll - 1871
* Tom Brown's Schooldays - Thomas Hughes - 1857
* Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson - 1883
* Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea - Jules Verne - 1870
* Water Babies - Charles Kingsley - 1863
* What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge - 1873
* White Fang - Jack London - 1906
* Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - 1908
* Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum - 1900


C.S. Lewis - Narnia Series (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe)
Enid Byton
Roald Dahl
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter

Children's adventures happen when parents are absent. And don't go into the woods alone...

April 2009 Classic Women pre 1939

Classic Women (pre 1939)

Sappho - verse
Emily Bronte -Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre, Vilette, Shirley
Anne Bronte - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice, Emma, etc
George Eliot - Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, Daniel Deronda
Mae West - The Constant Sinner, She Done Him Wrong
Dorothy Parker - verse and short stories
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - verse
Emily Dickinson - verse
Christina Rossetti - verse
Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse, Orlando, Mrs Dalloway, The Waves
Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm
Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence
Henry Handel Richardson - The Getting of Wisdom
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Charlotte Turner Smith
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
Gertrude Stein
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind
Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
Katherine Susannah Prichard - Coonaroo
Radclyffe Hall - The Well of Loneliness
Katherine Mansfield - short stories
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood
Colette - Cheri

see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Anthology_of_Literature_by_Women

We found a common theme for the older books - young women seeking direction from their religion.

March 2009 Jodi Picolt

Very successful, works at promoting her books (answers all emails herself), aged 42, has three kids, lives in USA.

Mixes hot topics - religion, family, social issues, the law, medical, criminal, ethical dilemmas.

She says she knows the ending before writing a single word. She has researchers working for her.

We found these books enjoyable, and easy to read, however, the formula becomes more obvious the more you read them.

We recommend taking a break between reads.

2009 Topic list

March - Anything by Jodi Picoult
April - Classic Women (pre 1939)
May - Children's Classics
June - Biography
July - Verse Novels
August - The 50s
Sept - Women's Rights
Oct - Australian novels
Nov - Crime
Jan 2010 - Romantic Poetry

Books about reading

Here are some books about reading that I can recommend.


How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide - John Sutherland
How to Read a Book (The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading) - Mortimer J Adler and Charles Van Doren
How Fiction Works - James Wood
How Novels Work - James Mullan
How to Read and Why - Harold Bloom

Sonnets, Bonnets and Bennets: A Literary Quiz Book - James Walton
Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Puzzles in 19th Century Fiction - John Sutherland
Can Jane Eyre be Happy? More Puzzles in Classic Fiction - John Sutherland
Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? Further Puzzles in Classic Fiction - John Sutherland

List of possible topics

Community Bookgroup - Suggested Topics for reading and discussion

Chick Lit
Lad Lit
Crime
War
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Share a poem
Read a play
Classic Women (pre 1938)
Modern Women
Mothers in fiction
Travel books
The English Canon - Dead White Males
Magic Realism
Heroes and Anti-heroes
Biography
Memoir and Autobiography
Women's Rights
Fantasy
Verse Novels
Graphic novels
Short stories
Modern poetry
Science Fiction
Gothic & Southern Gothic
Black American fiction
Children's Classics
Humorous Fiction
Challenging Reads
Horror
Cult Classics
Gay Fiction
Non-Fiction (Psychology, Environment, Politics, Society, Religion, Parenting etc)
By Author (Dickens, Woolf, Hardy, Greene, Twain, Picoult, Toni Morrison etc)
Freedom
Families
Revisit Books of Youth/School Texts
Filmed Novels
By Location (USA, Russia, Asia, Africa, UK, Sth America, Australia, India, Middle East, etc)
By time period, eg, 19th Century, 1930s, or a specific year
Lists (Oprah Bookclub, university book lists etc)
Award winners (Miles Franklin, Orange, Pulitzer, Nobel, Man Booker etc)

Questions about reading

Here are some general questions about how and why and where you read. These are good conversation starters if you are in a real life bookgroup.

What do you read?
How do you choose what you read?
What do you want to get out of a bookgroup?
Where do you read?
How actively do you read? Do you skip? Reread? Underline? Make notes? Read the footnotes?
Is there a character you particularly love? Or particularly identify with?
Is there a writer you love?
Are there scenes or lines from book that stay with you and regularly come to mind?
Do you quote from books?
Is there any character from fiction you particularly fancy?
Has any writer's life captured your imagination?
What are you favourite books?
What books have you hated?
What books do you think you should have read but haven't. Why?
Why do we put pressure on ourselves to have read certain books?
What does reading books give you?
How many books do you read a year?

Welcome

Hello

This is my syntopical bookgroup.

I started a syntopical bookgroup for my local library when we started a Parent's Bookgroup. We meet each month at the local library, and the Children's Librarian is with the small children while I'm at the table with the parents, talking about books. We also have a simultaneous bookgroup that meets in the evening and is supported by the local community centre.

I have been a member of the local library's one book at a time bookgroup for the past eight or so years. I have a BA in literature and an M.Lit. And I am a stay at home mum.

I went for a syntopical bookgroup, rather than discussing one book at a time, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it takes the pressure off. You don't need to find and buy or borrow a particular book. Also, it means that you can bring your lifetime of reading to the discussion. Reading syntopically also means that we can form a thesis at the end of the discussion - looking at the common themes or findings by discussing literature by genre or period or country etc. It is a deeper, broader, more contexualised, way to read for a bookgroup.

However, we do find that it means our 'to read' list is growing very quickly.

I've done a lot of research for these bookgroups, which I'm enjoying (that's the kind of dag I am!), and wanted to share it more broadly.

You can read by month with us, or just jump in anywhere. I'll be back regularly to keep the conversations going.

Enjoy!