March Madness for Book Lovers & Marra Update

I've written about The Morning News Tournament of Books in the past.  It runs in March, concurrent with the NCAA Basketball Tournament, with a similar format of brackets, seeds, etc.  Sixteen or more books (it even has a "play-in" round) are narrowed from a Long List of the most important books released in the past year. Each head-to-head contest is officiated by a different judge selected from a pool that includes writers from various backgrounds (TV, movies, print), critics, book industry gurus and an occasional musician.  This year they've even added a Reader Judge, a psychiatrist from Mass General Hospital, through an on-line application process.

You can come into the store and fill out a bracket (well, pick the winner) for the 2016 Tournament and win a gift card for Wellesley Books. I love this Tournament because for a book to win, it has to survive multiple rounds and satisfy a variety of readers' tastes.  Previous winners have included books we've read or discussed at length in our meetings like A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Sisters Brothers, Cloud Atlas, and The Road to name a few.  The Tsar of Love and Techno is in this year's tournament and today survived its opening round match up against The Book of Aron. The commentary for today's match up features a direct comparison between Tsar and The Orphan Master's Son (also a ToB champion and the first book we read in our Book Group) which, for me, came quickly back to mind when I saw this heartbreaking video of a University of Virginia student detained after a recent sponsored trip to North Korea.

North Korea Sentences Otto Warmbier, U.S. Student, to 15 Years’ Labor

 

 

Whether or not you decide to follow along with the Tournament, I hope you are making good progress with The Tsar of Love and Techno.  Looking forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks.

Next BBGG selection - The Tsar of Love and Techno - Wed, April 6th, 7pm

I'm so excited about our next book selection - The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra - a set of interconnected stories spanning generations from the Russian Revolution to modern day Chechnya. The characters and plot lines weave together, reverberate, and intensify into a gut wrenching final few chapters.  It's been a long while since a book hit me like this one. 

Through discussions and recommendations at previous Book Group meetings, many of you may have read Marra's excellent first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, also set in Chechnya. For me, this was better and left me eager to re-read and discuss with others. Hence my "quick survey" email last week. Marra is a young writer of spectacular talent and at the top of his game in this fine collection.

Goon Squad - Wednesday Feb 24th 7pm

Looking forward to a good meeting next Wednesday night in the Used Book Cellar. As always, if you plan to attend can you please shoot me a note to let me know so that I can get the room appropriately configured and provisioned. Thank you.Also in anticipation of our discussion, I'm attaching a link to a fun article from a year or so ago in which Jennifer Egan and George Saunders discuss writing styles.

  The Future Issue

Choose Your Own Adventure: A Conversation With Jennifer Egan and George Saunders

By JENNIFER EGAN and GEORGE SAUNDERS

Two fiction writers known for their mind-bending imaginations discuss the business of envisioning the future.  

Read more........

I was touched by the overwhelming response to my "quick survey."  I heard from almost everyone and many of you took the opportunity to write thoughtful supportive messages about the quality of the group and conversation.  (A few of you also wrote about the quality of the whisky!)  I'll announce the next book shortly, but I'm happy to have an excuse to re-read it and excited about sharing and discussing it with our Group.

Lastly, those of you who were reading and discussing  author Yu Hua last summer may want to check out Mark Cecil's post To Live: Yu Hua's Brief Masterpiece on the Grub Street blog.  

Halftime Show

Not sure how much you all are looking forward to a Patriot-less Super Bowl weekend.  But given this blustery Friday morning it's shaping up to be a great time to catch up on some reading. I should remind everyone that we are about half way to our next BBGG meeting for A Visit from the Goon Squad on Wednesday, February 24th at 7pm. 

I'm off to a bit of a slow start myself, as I've been immersed in Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton, an 800+ page tome that came out in 2004 and yet was a surprising best seller for us over the holidays as a result of the smash Broadway musical. Whenever I slow down in my reading I flip on the soundtrack for a new wave of inspiration to attack the book. If you don't know the story, check out this great New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnik about the Hip-Hop Case for Progressive Heroism and this amazing production.

Also in the New Yorker this week, a new George Saunders short story: Mother's Day.   Enjoy your weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone soon.........

Motherless Brooklyn/Whiskey Tasting Recap

Thanks again everyone for your enthusiasm and cooperation during our special whiskey tasting and discussion of Motherless Brooklyn.  We had a large group and a compressed format, but I thought the evening flowed nicely.  Could've been the warm up, but I'm sure the general consensus on the strengths and shortcomings of the book made the conversation move quickly.  I continue to wonder if the more controversial book choices ultimately lead to more memorable discussions. Incidentally, I noticed director Ang Lee (Life of Pi, The Ice Storm) was a featured presenter at the Golden Globe awards.  Apparently he was there to help publicize his upcoming adaptation of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.  Maybe it's time for a revisit? Now that was a spirited night!

Dan Tarsy wanted me to remind you that the documentary about Tourette's syndrome is called Twitch and Shout.
 

"Time's a goon, right?"  asks Bosco, aging punk rocker in A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, our next BBGG selection set for Wednesday, February 24th at 7pm.
  
Aging, loss of innocence, and redemption are explored in a series of vignettes set around the music industry and connecting the characters and chapters in this book. Should feather in nicely with previous selections like The Flamethrowers and Tenth of December. 

Hope to see you all back soon!

Updated BBGG Syllabus

Here, in order, are the books we've read since 2014:

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Cooper's Creek by Alan Moorehead

The New Confessions by William Boyd

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

Headlong by Michael Frayn

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway

The Son by Phillipp Meyer

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre 

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

All That Is by James Salter 

Consider the Lobster  by David Foster Wallace

A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr

Lucky Jim  by Kingsley Amis

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

The Sisters Brothers  by Patrick DeWitt

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Don't be a Terminal Tugboater

Looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday night at store at 7pm.  Please arrive promptly, we have a big agenda.  For the first 30 minutes or so Nick O'Connell, founder of Cask Force, will be on hand to lead us through a tasting of some specially selected whiskeys.  Cask Force is your forward thinking whiskey and spirit negociant, sourcing barrels from all over the world and re-using them to create limited edition, unique products.

We also have a great book to discuss.  For a little homework to help with the discussion, Ralph Blair sends along this link to an article on Tourette's syndrome from the London Review of Books.

See you soon!  Bill