Reader’s Den

Hello readers. This month the Reader's Den is reading A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

Titles and cover images often give readers a clue as to what lies within a book but I admit I was baffled about this one. 

A guitar and a goon squad? It didn't make sense. On the other hand, A Visit from the Good Squad was awarded a Pulitzer Prize (2011) and a National Book Critics Circle Award (2010). Plus, it was always checked out. I thought maybe I should give it a chance.

I hope you have enjoyed reading Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. Listed below are suggestions of novels, poetry and non-fiction that might also be of interest to you.

Welcome to the third week of reading Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. As you are nearing the end of the novel and as we just passed the anniversary of the terrorist attack on Atocha Station (March 11, 2004), there are a few themes to ask questions about or consider further.

The author of Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner, is originally from Kansas and has a BA in political science and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. He was a 2003-2004 Fulbright Scholar in Spain and he currently teaches in the English Department at Brooklyn College. Leaving the Atocha Station is Lerner's first novel, but he has several published books of poetry and critical works.

Welcome to the Reader's Den for March. This month we will be discussing Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. It is a novel set in Spain, written by a New York author. The novel follows Adam Gordon to Madrid in 2004 on a fellowship to write poetry influenced by the Spanish Civil War. We learn about Adam's relationships as a poet-tourist-student and his process of writing and self-discovery through experiences outside of his control.

This is a view of Broadway, in Oakland, California from NYPL's Digital Gallery. Although it's not Telegraph Avenue where Oakland and Berkeley intersect, I think it still contributes to envisioning the setting of the novel. How do you envision the area where Telegraph Avenue takes place? Do you think that this picture fits with that idea? That time frame?

If you're enjoying Telegraph Avenue, here are some suggestions on what to check out next:

If you'd like to know all about Michael Chabon's prolific publishing history, Contemporary Authors Online has an exhaustive biography of him in our online databases. As I already noted, comics have been a big influence on his work and I surprized to learn that he worked on the screenplay of Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars (novelized by Stuart Moore as John Carter: The Movie Novelization).

Welcome back to the Reader's Den! Today we take a slight detour from our focus on New York City to the sunny climes of Northern California. Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue is a fictional place that the NYT book review calls, "a homage to an actual place: the boulevard in Northern California where Oakland — historically an African-American city — aligns with Berkeley, whose bourgeois white inhabitants are, as one character puts it, 'liable to invest all their hope of heaven in the taste of an egg laid in the backyard by a heritage-breed chicken.' (page 287)" Unlike The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which takes place in a New York that 

Thank you for joining us for our final week of Edith Wharton short stories in The Reader's Den!

Like "The Other Two" and "Autres Temps," Wharton's 1934 story, "Roman Fever" deals with its characters' perceptions of themselves and others, and their attitudes towards the past.

At the start of Autres Temps, Mrs. Lidcote is arriving in New York on a steamer ship from Italy, after a long, self-imposed exile. Having fled New York's society years ago, when she became an outcast following her divorce, she is returning only after receiving news of her daughter's divorce and remarriage.

As Edith Wharton's 1904 story, The Other Two, opens, Waythorn has just returned from his honeymoon with his new wife, Alice. This is his first marriage, but her third. Although it seems a bit scandalous, he has gone in to the marriage fully aware of, and fairly unconcerned with, how Alice is viewed in society: she is well liked, but with reservation.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013 in The Reader's Den!

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born in Greenwich Village into the wealthy New York Society that she would be famous for depicting in The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Although she spent much of her life living in Newport, RI, Lenox, MA, and Europe, especially France, where she spent years in her later life, she is best known for her treatment of the stiff, conformist, aristocratic world of New York that she knew so well.

This is the last week of our book discussion of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. In my first post, I mentioned that it is a post-9/11 novel, published in 2005, but during the past month of discussion, I haven't focused on that aspect of the work. The book talks about Oskar's reaction to the 9/11 tragedy and his father's death at the World Trade Center as well as the reactions of his mother, the people Oskar interviews while trying to find the lock for his key, and various other characters. Foer's intent is to describe the aftermath of 9/11, rather than the event itself, although he uses some details of the event in his story.

It’s hard to believe that 2012 is almost over. As we look forward to the new year, I am proud to present our upcoming Reader’s Den online book discussion titles for 2013. With an eclectic mix of book discussion leaders hailing from Jefferson Market, Columbus, Mulberry Street, Spuyten Duyvil, and the Mid-Manhattan Library, this is sure to be our best year yet!

Now that you have read more of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (if not all of it), you may have noticed some of its quirky phrases (such as “heavy boots” and “feeling like a hundred dollars”). Part of my interest in reading new (for me) authors is noticing how they use language: what kind of sentence structure — long or short, simple or complex; what kind of words — familiar or out of the ordinary or a combination; lots of descriptive language or spare simplicity; how the individual characters express themselves and what that reveals about them; lots of dialogue between characters or lots of interior monologues.

Now that you have had a chance to meet Oskar, what do you think of him? Many readers have compared him to Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Others think he’s far too precocious for a nine-year-old and have suggested the author used his own inner child as the narrator.

Oskar Schell, a precocious nine-year-old who lives in New York City, is the protagonist In Jonathan Safran Foer’s popular post-9/11 novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Oskar's active mind keeps endlessly creating new inventions, most of them somehow related to saving lives and making connections with other people. In other words, he's trying to find a way to prevent “the worst day” from ever happening and thus regain the human connection he lost when his father was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. As Oskar says, he is "wearing heavy boots." 

The Night Circus, as we've discussed, has a nearly obsessive focus on time; its passing, linearity and infinite nature. This is exemplified in the workings of its magnificent clock and its mechanical operation.

However, within the clockworks resides a nearly infinite number of possibilities to enthrall attendees. For example splashes of color are found throughout the strict black-and-white scheme. The twins' red scarves and the fires lit on the circus's opening night come to mind.