As yet unpublished

The Time Traveler's Wife

We just finished discussing The Time Traveler's Wife. I usually come to a bookclub armed with questions and sometimes send them out in advance to help people with the direction we will take.

This book was one that I did not expect to like. I'm not a big fan of "science fiction" and I definitely put time traveling in the sci-fi bucket. I'm not a huge fan of love stories and this is a love story. Most of our customers just loved reading this book but a favorite staff member of ours really was having a hard time with it.

So, it was with some trepidation that I picked it up on Sunday, knowing that I would have to moderate a bookclub on the book on Thursday. I decided to give myself a few days since it was a long book. So, I started the book at 3pm and I turned the last page at 2am. I took a few hours off for dinner and putting kids in bed and things like that ... but for the most part, I just read it straight through.

Audrey Niffenegger is a gifted writer. I was so totally pulled into the time travel and could even identify how at times my life has felt like we had a time traveler (me) in it. She is so visual and so vivid in her description of the relationship that develops over time ...

1 - Why do you think time travel was used? What was the purpose of using time travel?
2 - What are the core themes in The Time Traveler's Wife?
3 - Why is Henry always naked when he travels? What is the significance of his being naked?
4 - What is the "formula" for Henry being able to recall events that he encounters in his life?
5 - Is Henry a good person? He appears to have a second persona that is devoid of morals when he travels.
6 - Do you think that this could be a different view on living with a person with a split personality?
7 - What sources do you think influenced Niffeneger in the writing of this novel?

We all agreed that we hope that Audrey brings us some answers and insight (beyond that we are all overanalyzing her novel ...) on September 21 when she visits.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage; $12)

1 -- What about the parents in THE CURIOUS INCIDENT ... How did you feel about the way that they handled their issues? Their parenting?

2 -- What makes this book so unique? What can you compare this too? Would the story be compelling with a different voice ... Or what would the story be say through the mother's voice? Father's voice? Neighbor's or teachers?

3 -- You could read THE CURIOUS INCIDENT as an interesting story told through a unique voice and a peak into the mind of an autistic person ... Or, you could read this book on a higher/universal theme level. What would you say these universal themes are?

There's more ... I'd like to have a really interactive discussion about the issues of parenting ... And some of the resultant universal themes.

Slave

Slave by Mende Nazer (PublicAffairs; $25)

1 -- Were you surprised to find that slavery is still alive and well?
2 -- What was your reaction to Mende's denial of asylum?
3 -- What do you think should happen to the people who enslaved Mende? 4 -- What do you think can be done to bring more attention to this issue?
5 -- Did you find that you were "seeing" more about issues in the Sudan or Rwanda as a result of this book?

The Amateur Marriage

am a teur ( m -tûr , -t r, -ch r , -ch r, -ty r )
n.

1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2. Sports. An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.
3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.

adj.

1. Of or performed by an amateur.
2. Made up of amateurs: an amateur cast.
3. Not professional; unskillful.

pro fes sion al (pr -f sh -n l)
adj.

1.
   a. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
   b. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

n.

1. A person following a profession, especially a learned profession.
2. One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation: hired a professional to decorate the house.
3. A skilled practitioner; an expert.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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1. I consider The Amateur Marriage a provocative book. Starting with the title of the book - why do you think Anne Tyler chose this title? When do you think a marriage would be deemed "professional" (using professional as the opposite of amateur)? Do you think that others would consider the Anton marriage amateur? How do reality and illusion play into the title?

2. Reflecting on his marriage, Michael imagines that "all those young marrieds of the war years" have grown "wise and seasoned and comfortable in their roles, until only he and Pauline remained, as inexperienced as ever-the last couple left in the amateurs' parade" (p. 168). He felt they were "more like brother and sister than husband and wife. This constant elbowing and competing, jockeying for position, glorying in I-told-you-so" (p. 168). How common are the problems that Michael and Pauline experience in their relationship? Is Michael correct in thinking that he and Pauline are unusual in their long-standing "amateur marriage"?

3. In its early chapters, The Amateur Marriage gives readers a view of life in an ethnic working-class neighborhood in Baltimore. Later, the setting shifts to a newly built suburb, where the family gradually moves into the middle class. What are the effects of this shift on the family? How does Anton's experience reflect a change in American family life in the postwar decades?

4. Michael thinks of Pauline as "a frantic, impossible woman, so unstable, even in good moods, with her exultant voice and glittery eyes, her dangerous excitement" (p. 167). Meanwhile Pauline "chafed daily at . . . his rigidity, his caution, his literal-mindedness . . . his reluctance to spend money, his suspicion of anything unfamiliar, his tendency to pass judgment . . . [and] his magical ability to make her seem hysterical" (p. 75). Does this seem unrealistic? Can you identify with this feeling - and does it cause empathy toward either character? What does folklore say of a marriage between two people who are the same? Different?

5. As he posed in the photography studio for a fifteenth-anniversary portrait with Pauline, Michael remembers thinking, "Who was this woman? What did she have to do with him? How could they be expected to share a house, rear children together, combine their separate lives for all time? The knob of her shoulder pressing into his armpit had felt like an inanimate object" (p. 137). The photograph shows "Mr. and Mrs. Perfectly Fine. . . . An advertisement for marriage" (p. 137). Do feelings like this necessarily portend the end of a marriage? What could other outcomes have been? Do you think that path that Michael chose was correct and in character?

6. How are George and Karen affected in their development by the disappearance of Lindy and by their parents' troubled marriage? Does Tyler suggest that children become themselves in spite of, or in reaction to, family stresses?

7. Anne Tyler has said, "My fondest hope for any of my novels is that readers will feel, after finishing it, that for a while they have actually stepped inside another person's life and come to feel related to that person."* Does The Amateur Marriage achieve this goal?