It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

[The original It's Monday! What Are You Reading? hosted by Sheila over at Book Journey]

Initially, I had no intention of reading Go Set a Watchman, mostly because I wasn't sure this was a book that Harper Lee wanted published. The circumstances surrounding the "discovery" of the manuscript was/is really questionable, and it's hard to imagine that Lee would want this released unedited. But I bought it for my son who has read To Kill a Mockingbird at least a couple of times; I thought it would be educational and insightful for him to do a compare-and-contrast reading. And, if it would be good for him, it's probably good for me to do the same. As if on cue, my book club chose to read it for our September meeting. 

I didn't get a chance to re-read To Kill a Mockingbird, but those who did said it was clearly the better book and agreed with reports in the media that Go Set a Watchman was a first draft that was reworked by Lee and her editor. 

There was a lot online about how upset die-hard Atticus fans were with the older Atticus character in Go Set a Watchman. I was always a Scout fan, so I was much more upset with the older Scout character. Not that I had a clear vision of what I imagined Scout to be like in her 20s, but I was disappointed in how she was portrayed as an adult much more than I was disappointed in Atticus's portrayal as an aging racist and states rights supporter. 

I feel like it requires a bit of brain power to remind myself that although chronologically, Go Set a Watchman takes place after To Kill a Mockingbird, it was written first. So the character development and progression we imagine there to be as Scout and Atticus age is, in fact, not correct. Does that make sense? It's wrong to consider this book as a sequel and I almost look at it as if Scout and Atticus are in a parallel universe. Not all of the details match up, and while it's believable that these are the same people across time, there are clearly those who don't believe that the Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird would have aged into the Atticus of Go Set a Watchman.

Anyway, it's a quick read so it's worth reading if you're a To Kill a Mockingbird fan and want to see how a manuscript can change over time with editing. It seems to me that if Harper Lee says she  never comments about To Kill a Mockingbird because she said everything she needed to say in the book, then it was probably without her full approval that Go Set a Watchman was published. There's too much here that needs to be clarified and reworked. This is not a fully-hashed out story and would never have been an American classic if it was published as-is in the 1950s. 

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

WHAT I PLAN TO READ THIS WEEK:

The Little Free Library Book: Take a Book Return a Book by Margret Aldrich

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA

[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

The Detective's Assistant by Kate Hannigan

Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:



WHAT I PLAN TO READ THIS WEEK:

The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

[The original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?hosted by Sheila over at Book Journey]

People! I'm branching out with my reading! Can you believe it? Joining a "grown-up" book club and participating in a reading challenge has slowly but surely expanded my choices in reading material. At first it was a bit uncomfortable, but everything I've read so far has been wonderful. 

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, With Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall

The Slanted Door: Modern Vietnamese Food by Charles Phan

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This rarely happens, but this past week was all about the "grown up" books! I did not read a single children's book. Weird. So I've reverted to the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?hosted by Sheila over at Book Journey.

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

American Ghost: The True Story of a Family's Haunted Past by Hannah Nordhaus

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Book Club :: Lost in the City

I was recently asked by the wife of my husband's former co-worker to join a Book Club. Oddly enough, for someone who reads as much as I do, this is the first time I've been asked to be in a Book Club. (Does that say something about me?)

Currently, there are only three of us in the Book Club, all fairly recent transplants to the D.C. area and all having lived in California. I'm looking forward to getting to know the other two members, and I'm really optimistic that we're going to get along. 

This month's selection was Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, a collection of short stories about African American life in Washington, D.C. It is a really fantastic book, albeit sobering at times, and it's a quick read. My favorite story was "The Store," perhaps because there was a relatively happy ending compared to the other stories. 

I had actually read the companion book, All Aunt Hagar's Children, when it was first published in 2006 (14 years after the publication of Lost in the City). I remember liking that book as well, and it turns out that each of the 14 stories in Lost in the City has a correlated story in All Aunt Hagar's Children. (But each story and book stands on its own.) That makes me want to re-read both books!

3rd Grade Book Club :: The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook

My daughter recently joined a book club with some classmates (all girls), which I was quite excited about because she's not always the most enthusiastic reader. I'm afraid that reading is becoming a chore for her and I was hoping that a book club would motivate her to read regularly and to read books she might not normally choose. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone exactly as I hoped and, in fact, in some respects it's become a bigger chore because I keep bothering her about trying to finish the books.

Anyway, we hosted the group this month and I wanted to share what we did for the book Maya chose, The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin:

• discussion questions (from the author's website and from the publisher's website)
• solving rebuses (ice cream flavors and countries)
• snacks, including fried zucchini
• folding origami cats

All in all, I think it went quite well for my first Book Club. The discussion didn't last terribly long, but it got heated at times because it always does when you have Dog People vs. Cat People!