Cait’s Comments (group member since Jan 31, 2017)

Cait’s comments from the Around the World in 80 Books group.

Becki wrote: "Also Cait, I couldn't find an option for "Feature on the group home page" - it simply didn't exist! Maybe you have admin rights as the group creator??"

Learning curve for me, I guess! I can go in and do it... I just didn't want to be a creepy moderator adjusting your polls :)

Becki wrote: "I vote for Palestine for TBD, I'm very intrigued there. Mexico would be a great #2 though. I can help with TBD, just let me know which country we want to go for!"

Palestine works for me, go ahead and take that poll!

*Polls for 2018 are closed!*

Links to book polls for 2018 below (this post will be updated as polls are added or closed). Voting for this batch ends June 5!

Choose book #12 for the People's Republic of China here.

Choose book #13 for Cuba here.

Choose book #14 for Vietnam here.

Choose book #15 for Russia here.

Claire wrote: "Alright, Venezuela is up! Let me know if I should change anything about the poll."

It looks good! There are just a couple of things I usually do as well - check both the box for 'Allow write-in answers', which is the second option below your book options, and check the option for 'Feature this poll on the group homepage', which is just below the poll dates. To edit, you have to click on 'Comments & Details' at the bottom of the poll, then there is a 'edit the poll' option in the upper right.

From the app:

1) From the group home page, scroll down to 'Group Notification Settings' just below the bottom of the page.
2) Switch the toggle for notifications on/off.

The polls should all be posted simultaneously by Jan 10. Editing now to clarify!

To follow specific conversations in our group:
1) From group home page, click ‘Edit Membership’ located just below the group's title/description.
2) Scroll all the way to the bottom and click ‘Edit Group Discussion Updates’
3) Select how you want to follow each discussion, and how you want to follow the ‘all topics within in group’ option.

I'm totally willing to take on any of these polls, but I'll wait to see if any are left after the rest of you have chosen!

Post here if you want to set up a poll for books for one of the first 4 countries!

Countries in first group - The three countries added to #45's ban -
Chad, North Korea, Venezuela, and one more country - I'm thinking either Palestine or Mexico, in keeping with the unfair-policies theme, but you can also choose a different country that you think fits with the ban theme.

Please check the thread Reading Around the World: 2018 for how to choose countries and books!

Relevant dates are:

January 10: Polls for all 4 books posted.
January 15: Polling ends (at midnight), books are chosen.

January 15: Begin book 1 (North Korea) -- Sylvia
February 15 - 20: Discuss Book 1

February 21: Begin book 2 (Chad) -- Cait, Sylvia, Becki, Claire
March 22 - 27: Discuss book 2

March 28: Begin book 3 (Venezuela) -- Claire
April 26 - May 1: Discuss book 3

May 2: Begin book 4 (TBD Palestine) -- Becki
May 31 - June 5: Discuss book 4

(Voting for books 5 - 8 will run May 31 - June 5 as well.)

Welcome to 2018! We’ll continue reading books based on a theme – first with countries that#45 added to the third iteration of his immigration ban, and then (tentatively) we’ll move on to communist countries that are considered enemies of the United States.

The finish dates / discussion dates / books will be set four books at a time, so that people can plan their reading ahead of time.

At the beginning of the our first group of books, four members who are interested will pick a country, and they’ll each select around four books for that country that fit our criteria, and everyone else votes.

**Choosing countries**
When you choose a country, remember:
- Don’t repeat countries. (See link to country list in this conversation thread.)
- Country should match whatever theme is currently chosen.
- Post a poll to Goodreads with your book choices, clearly labeled with the country’s name, by the date indicated in the schedule. (FYI I may edit the poll, but only for formatting issues, not for book choices.)
- Let other people take a turn if they haven’t had a chance to post a poll yet.

**Choosing books**
When you choose the books to vote on for a country, remember:
- Books *must* be by a person from that country or a first generation immigrant.
- Please choose at least as many female / transgender / gender non-conforming authors as male authors whenever possible (and it usually is).
- Please try to choose diverse authors in other areas – for example, LGBTQ authors, indigenous authors, authors of different ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc.
- Please try to keep price ranges in mind - books that are in paperback may be preferable to new releases, books available in major libraries are a plus.
- We all know that it can be difficult to find books that meet all these criteria, so the only one that’s mandatory is #1, but the more diversely we read, the better! Reach out for help if you get stuck choosing books, and let others know if you find great resources.

**Schedule**
Obviously can be adjusted if necessary, but here is our proposed schedule:



You can find the schedule on google docs here.

I have some potential schedules for book dates - one where we would cover 11 books, with a strict 4 week per book, one that's a little more relaxed, with 8 books and a longer schedule.

I have the options in google drive here - what do you all think? Obviously we can also pick a third option if you prefer. Also let me know if I missed any major holidays, I tried to make sure our discussions don't fall on those dates.

Book Riot just released a list of books by Iraqi authors that will be coming out in 2018. I know I'm definitely going to be checking some of these out! You can find the list here.

Regarding what you said about her being just "a person rather than some overpoliticized member of a stereotyped society who has no value unless she's inherently political" - one, I really like that! Two, it made me think about her choice to dance - even though, by her own account, that's an impractical choice at any time and especially at that time. That was probably the part I liked best about the narrator - her seemingly arbitrary decision to pursue dance. It also makes me think of her lover the sculptor, who is forced become politicized and use his artistic skills in the army - he treads the opposite path, losing his agency and independence.

About what you said about her life in England being 'malignant' - that's really interesting. Especially since, on the surface at least, her mother's initial mastectomy took care of things (whether that was true below the surface, doubtful), but the modern medicine made her sick immediately and until the end of her life. I was wondering as I read the account of her mother's illness if those were real experimental drugs that were referenced (medical librarian), which is a whole different rabbit hole to run down. I mostly read her life in England as a 'life sucks everywhere' thing (that probably says more about my mood as I was reading than anything else) - but I appreciated throughout the book, and in particular in the last section, how ordinary (crappy and otherwise) events marched alongside international news events. I think that writers often write stories (and readers expect stories) that act as though a big event grinds everything to a halt. But stories like this (and others we've read), where things continue painfully on, and you have to deal with passive aggressive notes from your neighbors and unplanned pregnancies and shopping and stuffy hospitals all while the world is burning and your mother is dying, can be even more powerful (and accessible, like you said.)

Good point, that seems much more doable.

I haven't forgotten this, and I agree that it would be great! However, kiiind of falling behind on things this time. What if we added an action requirement to part of the planning process for next year, i.e. you choose a country and have to come up with ~4 books for the poll and also an action?

It might be difficult to find action items related to each country though. In that case I guess we could commit to a letter writing campaign each time as we discussed?

I set up a poll for this here.

My favorite book from our choices was definitely the Return, with Persepolis coming in second place. The Return was just magnificently written, and I need to read his other novel.

However, I really couldn't be happier with the books we read over all! I think we got some pretty different stories and authors, and I learned *a lot*. Persepolis inspired me to read a couple other books by Iranian authors, and delving a little deeper there was also great. What about you guys?

I finally finished! (too bad I'm just barely under the wire). I found it *really* hard to get into this book, but once she'd moved past the child voice I found it easier to continue on. I always admire authors who have a genuine childlike narration, but I really struggled with this one.

Re: What you said about the mother - I also started out disliking her, definitely, and grew to like her more as the story continued. The process started early on when I started thinking about why the whole book is narrated *to* the father, and the narrator has an unquestioning love of him versus her mother, when I thought he was at least as problematic as she was - although the disdain of culture (and therefore her daughter and husband) is some reeeeaaaal bad parenting, her dad was simply never there, and when he was (with the exception of the Friday training when she got older), all he did was show disdain for the mother and her culture, and in a lot of ways women in general. Honestly this book made me think a lot about being torn between two cultures, but also the interaction between white supremacy (mom) and patriarchy (dad) and how layered those issues are, and how intertwined those issues are with families - all families, although it's probably not as hyper-visible in most families as it is in this one.

Re: No mention of Saddam - I kept this in mind as I was reading, and it is interesting. I suspect your point about it simply not being safe to do so is spot on - I think publishing this book in general is super brave and risky, without even naming names. I think that the no naming of names also adds to the isolation you mention elsewhere. Reading Persepolis or Reading Lolita in Tehran, you constantly have the Imam set up as the cause of the problems, and in Reading Lolita in Tehran she references that although the Imam and the Regime is certainly responsible for many, many travesties, blaming the Regime for everything also takes away some of their freedom and self-determination, in the same way the Regime takes away their freedom and self-determination. I found myself thinking about while I read this book, because without a cause - a regime, an instigator for the war, or anything like that - it seems as though the characters in the book are even more isolated. There's a subtext that they know the military communiques aren't accurate, but there's never any proof, there's never an enemy (even Iran isn't cast as an enemy), there's just terrible things that seem to happen for arbitrary reasons - and because of that arbitrariness there's no thread of resistance the way there was in the other books. Anyway, that was a long meander, but it was something I thought about.

Things that stood out to me:

The talk about the ban on contraception and the discounted marriages was interesting to me, particularly because I wandered down a wikipedia rabbit hole a few months ago about the history of condoms and learned that this is super typical of countries at war, especially authoritarian regimes. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany both also banned contraception to try to force increased birth rates.

In particular a line toward the end struck me - when she was talking about the environmental crisis and the international dismay about the plight of the birds. Please don't get me wrong, I hate oil spills and love birds and think we should save them, but I hate when we (mostly meaning Westerners) can only have sympathy and emotions for animals while so many humans are being murdered - I saw a similar reaction early this year floating around Facebook where a bunch of Americans were outraged at animals being abandoned in a Syrian zoo. Commenters basically said they felt more pity for animals than Syrian people, because the 'animals didn't choose this'. That whole subtext was lurking, especially when she says "In the end, the experts agree, they can only clean up the area with a military operation. They have to use explosives to blow up the pumping stations that connect the oil wells to the coast." (p 207) Just like the only solution to an invasion of Kuwait (and the destruction and loss of life for ordinary people that followed) was an invasion of Iraq (and the destruction and loss of life for ordinary people that followed).

If you want to continue discussing I would love to hit your other points, I'm so disappointed in myself I finished this one so late!

We’re done for the year! We’re going to change things around a bit next year, and any comments or ideas are appreciated!

The plan:

We’ll continue reading books based on a theme - probably we’ll start with countries that #45 added to his ban in the third iteration, and then move on to communist countries that are considered enemies of the United States.

The finish dates / discussion dates / books will be set four books at a time, so that people can plan their reading ahead of time.

At the beginning of the our first group of books, four members who are interested will pick a country, and they’ll each select around four books for that country that fit our criteria (those will be outlined in more detail later, but basically it has to be by a person from that country / first generation immigrant), and everyone else votes.

Then we read!

What’s your favorite book out of the ones we’ve read so far? (Sweet and Sour Milk, A Woman in the Crossfire, Persepolis, The Return, A Land Without Jasmine, The Translator, A Sky So Close). Have you been inspired to read any other books from the countries on # 45’s first Muslim Ban?

I’m really glad to hear that you liked it so much, because I’m having a real struggle getting into this one and that will help. I think I’m about 30% in so far, but with everything else going on plus the way this book is narrated, I’m definitely not hooked yet!

Obviously I’m not finished yet, but I also found it interesting the way she’s addressing her father as “you” - I think it adds a little bit of drama/dread to an otherwise childlike story (although full disclosure I just finished reading The Price of Salt, which had a very suspenseful tone, so that might be influencing it).

I was also thinking that this book is going to be pretty stellar about explaining some everyday life things - I don’t know if that was her writing or the translator’s additions, but they spend a lot of time explaining words, habits, and customs - good choice for our book club!

I’m going to head off for more reading now that you’ve inspired me!