Tenth of December - Station Eleven

Over the weekend, Wellesley Books was a supporting sponsor of the Boston Book Festival, which included supporting the events and book signings at the Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street.  One of the major events at our location was titled The End is Near, hosted by Christopher Lydon and featuring Emily St. John Mandel of Station Eleven as one of the panelists.  She was lovely, well spoken, interested to hear about our book group and eager to attend someday to set the record straight!  However, she thinks this may be her only foray into the dystopian genre.

Additionally, there's a great companion piece for Tenth of December in The New Yorker this week.  You can find the link below.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/my-writing-education-a-timeline

My Writing Education: A Time Line - The New Yorker We'll send you a reminder of where you left off. Tobias Wolff calls my parents’ house in Amarillo, Texas, leaves a message: I’ve been admitted to the Syracuse ... Read more...

Don't Miss This!

Definitely check out  Mary Karr: By the Book in the NY Times this weekend.  She's smart, pithy, and her reading syllabus fits nicely with many of our group discussions.  It could also make great source material for future selections!  For many of you, her take down of John Ashbery of "Leaving the Atocha Station" fame will be the highlight.  She also had a significant intellectual and romantic relationship with David Foster Wallace.  For those of you who've read Infinite Jest, she is the rumored inspiration for the PGOAT character.  Just seeing this makes me want to go out and tackle great literature!

Tenth of December - George Saunders

Thanks again to all who attended the meeting for The Sisters Brothers last Wednesday for what may have been our most universally appreciated book yet.  I can only think of three possible explanations:

1. I'm slowly bending you all to my will.
2. I stacked the debate with friends and family.
3. The whisky selection was so successful that no one felt like arguing.

In any event, I think we can all agree the conversation is more stimulating and fun when the opinions are more varied.  With that in mind, our next book is Tenth of December, a collection of short stories by George Saunders. The stories are accessible, slightly absurd, and the current darlings of The New Yorker, the NY Times, and writers like Mary Karr who declares Saunders "The best short-story writer in English - not 'one of,' not 'arguably,' but the Best."  I know just reading that will set many of you on edge, so you'll find plenty to love (or hate) in this collection.  Either way, it should make for a great discussion on Wednesday, December 2nd, at 7pm.  That's the Wednesday after Thanksgiving (please don't confuse the date with the book title!)

By the way, when you're in the store picking up the book, you might want to run downstairs and take a look at the remainders section.  Our book buyer, Lorna, found some come copies of James Salter's memoir/recollection Burning the Days available for a very attractive price.  It's a great non-fiction companion read for those of you who loved All That Is.

The Sisters Brothers

Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic reception at our return from the Summer recess last night.  I thoroughly enjoyed the vigorous Station Eleven discussion which moved briskly despite the size of the group.  As I mentioned at the end of the evening, our next meeting is scheduled for October 7th, a slightly quicker than usual turn around as I'm trying to fit it in between a few other commitments.

We are reading The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, a darkly comic and outrageously inventive work that offers  a decidedly off-center view of the traditional western novel.  I laughed out loud at the terse philosophical musings and staccato banter between two brothers, hired guns, on a manhunt across the California Gold Country.

I hope to see everyone on the 7th at 7pm.

End of Summer - Station Eleven

Tomorrow night at 7pm - Red Sparrow author Jason Matthews will be discussing his new book Palace of Treason.  I'll be hosting the event.  If you are available, please come and help support the store.

Next Wednesday, September 9th, Bill's Book Group for Guys will be discussing Station Eleven in our basement beginning at 7pm.  To whet your appetite, I came across this bit of dialogue recently while watching Gosford Park, the Julian Fellowes' film set during a shooting weekend at an English country house that was a precursor to his development of Downton Abbey:

   -  "Jennings, old boy, I'll have a bourbon."
   -  "William, we have ordinary scotch or single malt."
   -  "Ordinary for me, I'm just an American."

We'll only serve the good stuff next week, even if we're all Americans. Hope you can make it.

DFW - Follow up

For all you DFW lovers (and haters) here is an interesting new piece.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/rewriting-of-david-foster-wallace.html

Vindication

GENIUS.

Leaving the Atocha Station author Ben Lerner - 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award recipient

https://www.macfound.org/fellows/938/

Atocha Station - Novel or memoir?

Writing a novel or memoir?

 I really enjoyed the discussion last night and was pleased with the generally favorable Lucky Jim.  For those of you who were interested in some additional contextual reading, here is the link to the WSJ Book Club featuring Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.  We also talked about The Patrick Melrose Novels.

The next Book Group meeting (and last before the Summer) is set for Wednesday, June 10th at 7pm.  We will be reading Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner.  The protagonist, a brilliant if unreliable American Poet visiting Madrid on a prestigious fellowship, has a background that strongly resembles that of the author.  Is this a memoir or a novel?  "Fresh, unpredictable, intellectually stimulating, and often quite funny," the book is one of several recent releases that challenge the structure of traditional narrative fiction.

 I promised to attach a link to the James Woods review of Leaving the Atocha Station.  Try to stay open minded!