John’s Comments (group member since Aug 23, 2012)

John’s comments from the Read a Classic Challenge group.

Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler, 1977, 224 pages.

I enjoyed this book as well. Unlike Wild Seed which spanned centuries, this book followed one particular woman and the patternists associated with her. It dealt with more uncomfortable issues, but in a more centralized way than the first book. There were some interesting ideas in this one, but I kind of preferred the grand scope of the Wild Seed.

This book was chronologically 2nd, but was written 3 years earlier. As a result I was really disappointed that "Emma" was more of a background character in this book, without any real development.

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Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler, 1980, 320 pages.

This was a fascinating grab bag of uncomfortable and strange ideas, from eugenics, power, body possession, multiple forms of slavery, racism, sexism, incest, etc... This story takes place over many centuries, so many of the characters are fleeting, and many of the situations are not for the squeamish, but for some reason that doesn't detract from the book. Although this was written later than some of the other books in the series, it is chronologically first. I am in the midst of the next book in the series now and still enjoying it.

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May

Here is Dave's List:

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! It's a little late, but here is your suggested reading for May, which is (for those playing along) Nonfiction/Biography Classics Month. You will see some Biography/Memoir at the end. If you see something good there, I say go for it!

Gale's Nonfiction Classics for Students was very helpful in pulling this list together.

Social Science
Marc Reisner – Cadillac Desert
John Kenneth Galbraith – The Affluent Society
James Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son
Betty Friedan – The Feminine Mystique
Abbie Hoffman – Steal This Book
Science/Nature/Math
Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Annie Dillard – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Rachel Carson – Silent Spring
James D. Watson – The Double Helix
Henry David Thoreau – Walden
D’Arcy Thompson – On Growth and Form
G. H. Hardy – A Mathematician’s Apology
Philosophy/Psychology
Walter Lippman – A Preface to Morals
Timothy Leary – Design for Dying
Sigmund Freud – Interpretation of Dreams
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance
John Rawls – A Theory of Justice

History
W. E. B. DuBois – The Souls of Black Folk
Arnold Toynbee – A Study of History
John F. Kennedy – Profiles in Courage
William Carlos Williams – In the American Grain
Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Rebecca West – Black Lamb & Grey Falcon

True Crime
Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – News of a Kidnapping
Norman Mailer – The Executioner’s Song
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward – All the President’s Men
Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry – Helter Skelter

Religion/Mythology
Elaine Pagels – The Gnostic Gospels
James Frazer – The Golden Bough
William James – Variety of Religious Experience
Joseph Campbell – The Hero With a Thousand Faces
C. S. Lewis – Mere Christianity
Bertrand Russell – Why I am Not a Christian & Other Essays

Language/Literature
E. M. Forster – Aspects of the Novel
Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own
Ralph Ellison – Shadow and Act
H. L. Mencken – The American Language
William Strunk & E. B. White – Elements of Style
T. S. Eliot – Selected Essays, 1917-1932

Art
E. H. Gombrich – Art and Illusion
Giorgio Vasari – The Lives of the Artists
John Berger – Ways of Seeing
Tom Wolfe – The Painted Word
Robert Hughes – The Shock of the New

Biography/Memoir
Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes
Richard Wright – Black Boy
William Styron – Darkness Visible
Anne Frank – Diary of a Young Girl
Robert Graves – Goodbye to All That
Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Eve Curie – Madame Curie
Isak Dinesen – Out of Africa
Helen Keller – The Story of My Life
William Butler Yeats – Autobiography
Malcolm X [Alex Haley] – Autobiography of Malcolm X
Richard Rodriguez – Hunger of Memory
Victor Klemperer – I Will Bear Witness
Gertrude Stein – Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Mark Twain – Autobiography
Samuel Pepys – Diary of Samuel Pepys
Lytton Strachey – Eminent Victorians
Mark Mathabane – Kaffir Boy
Elie Weisel – Night
Vladimir Nabokov – Speak, Memory
Marie Vassilitchikov - The Berlin Diaries (John recommends)

John, you should check out my post about Ebooks in our resources section. It has tons of free kindle book links. Beyond Amazon, Manybooks is a really easy to use site.

Rachel,

As someone with a master's and Ph.D. in Higher Education, I greatly appreciate the Human Development angle. I definitely think our viewpoints are always evolving. I can see that in my own views on race which evolved from my master's thesis on ally development to my dissertation on multicultural competence. You also made a very good point about the intersection of different identities and how this impacts on issues of oppression, which are often only viewed through one lens. Thanks for sharing your perspective and good luck with your studies.

Ros,

You bring up an interesting point in how issues of race are viewed differently throughout the world. It is important to question our own assumptions and studying in England and Scotland were among the first times that I was ever challenged to question my own views as an American. Such differences in perspective were raised recently by Samuel L. Jackson in relation "12 Years a Slave" and his perception of how differently that might have been viewed if proposed by an American, rather than a British director.

I don't know that I can adequately explain how volatile the use of the "N" word is in American culture or it's complicated history. The use of that word and its variations gets into a variety of intergroup (between group) and intragroup (within) group dynamics which are messy. It is a racial slur, which comes with a ton of historical/cultural baggage. I don't speak for everyone, but my perceptions are that the use of the word by someone who is not Black is completely unacceptable, and in many cases is akin to dropping a verbal "grenade" into the conversation. There are no, or arguably very few, instances where such use would be ok. In most instances it can be viewed as hate speech and can immediately make someone,who identifies as Black, feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or oppressed. At the same time there is debate over the use of that word among and between Black Americans. Within the African American/Black community some may argue that the term can be "taken back" or re appropriated (use in rap, etc...) while others, such a the NAACP have sought to "bury" the word due to its legacy of oppression.

Although I may be oversimplifying things, I think that there are several ways in which literature interacts with race both subtly and blatantly. Some works deal with issues of race, racism, oppression directly in the story line. There are some that mention it in passing. And lastly there are certain stories that knowingly or unknowingly (because of historical context, prejudice, obliviousness, etc...) demean or treat people in an inhuman or inferior way based on racial characteristics. While I believe that Bradbury was attempting to use the chapter in question to make some social commentary, the use of the "N" word and its loaded context, instantly raises some of the issues of that last category, whether it was his intention or not.

There are a great many viewpoints on this topic and I hope that the articles I am linking below might shed some further light on these topics.

To start with, here is an interesting article specifically about Bradbury and Race that mentions the chapter.

Black people on Mars and Ray Bradbury

Here are some articles about the use of the "N" word.

Straight talk about the N word

Who can use the N word? That is the wrong question.

Is it ever okay to use the N Word?

Wikipedia's entry on the "N" Word

I hope that these help to better understand the use of that word.

Here are a few thoughts I had in regards to the different versions of “The Martian Chronicles” and the discussion of race in classic science fiction.

There are very few early science fiction books that deal directly with race, so it is interesting that Bradbury included it. The language ("N" word) and perspective of a racist man in that chapter are shocking. I have issues with the use of that word. I think Bradbury meant it as a commentary on society, but it is still hard to read. It might have made more sense if it wasn't confined to one chapter. That may be why it was removed in the later post 1997 editions. However, I can’t completely write it off as an aspect of that time. Contextually, I can understand it, but if I did that with everything, I would be ignoring how society is partly defined through the culture and literature of the past. As someone who tries to be aware of race in my own life and who has often discussed it academically, I find myself struggling with such references. I am not a fan of censorship and value the original works of authors. Despite that, I struggle with how popular this book has been over time, especially since the revised version only arose in 1997. I know that such issues are not new to readers, as reading is a great way to better understand society and challenge our own notions. I would say that avid readers, book groups such as ours, or students who may read it in a classroom, can delve into the issues critically. However, I wouldn’t want anyone to read it uncritically or just accept it at face value.

The lack of race or the limited roles of multicultural characters in other works of the era are also telling. There isn’t much of a discussion of race is Asimov. I don’t have much positive to say about Philip K. Dick’s Black portrayal of black characters, or women for that matter. In “Alas, Babylon” the racism of the time is blended with the need to band together to survive. In “Earth Abides” the narrator considers staying with a black family because he looks on them as inferior and could be their “king”. Sadly these perspectives are present in many books considered “classic” literature (Robinson Crusoe, The White Company, etc…) or even children’s literature (Bedknobs & Broomsticks, etc…). One of the more interesting science fiction accounts of race that I have read was the “Lathe of Heaven” which dealt with the importance of race in one’s identity, and the complications of having tried to remove it from society. I have yet to read Octavia Butler, but I have several of her books on my “to read” wishlist.

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Here are my thoughts, having just finished it.

I am still trying to figure out what I think about this book. There were some very interesting moments, some eerie scenes, and some plot lines that went nowhere. Without giving too much away, there is definitely a concern about the vices of human society which was disturbing at times. This was especially true of the chapter from the perspective of a racist. Jury is still out on this one.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, 1950, 298 pages, ereader.

I will post my commentary for this one in the group reads section for April.

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Aprils Book Suggestions for Sci-Fi and Fantasy (per Dave). If you want some personal recommendations comment below with your interests and we can reply with specific suggestions.

April is the cruelest time...so many books and so little time. Your moderators are all professed (confessed?) fans of the SF/Fantasy genre, making a suggested reading list a veritable nightmare to compile without leaving something out. So your librarian is going to punt this month and direct you to some lists that (for the most part) cover the essentials.

For our more seasoned fans, check out the link I just posted below as well as a personal favorite site of mine
(https://www.worldswithoutend.com/list...).

For the heavyweight classics of the genres, dig in to one of these lists, courtesy of sffjazz.com (which amazingly has not been hacked by either objectivists or scientologists):
http://fantasy100.sffjazz.com/lists_b... -- Click the sidebar to see the most popular fantasy series list.
http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_b... -- Can’t get enough? Check out the sidebar for the next 100 as well as best genre films and other stuff.

Just in case you want to spice up your reading for our upcoming SF month:

http://io9.com/great-unsung-science-f...

Sorry I missed posting the March Suggestions for Women Authors.

Suggested Reading for March
Women’s History Month

Pre-1700
• Sappho
• St. Hildegard of Bingen
• St. Catherine of Siena
• Julian of Norwich
• Margery Kempe
• Juana Ines de la Cruz

18th Century
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Anna Laetitia Barbauld

19th Century
• Louisa May Alcott
• Kate Chopin
• Emily Dickinson
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Jane Austen
• Mary Shelley
• Anne Bronte
• Charlotte Bronte
• Emily Bronte
• George Eliot
• Elizabeth Gaskell

20th Century
• Edith Wharton
• Willa Cather
• Virginia Woolf
• Agatha Christie
• Doris Lessing
• Iris Murdoch
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Sylvia Plath
• Katherine Anne Porter
• S. E. Hinton
• Margaret Mitchell
• Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Harper Lee
• Pearl S. Buck
• Ayn Rand
• Carson McCullers
• Flannery O’Connor
• Toni Morrison
• Maya Angelou
• Octavia Butler
• Ursula K. Le Guin
• Anne Tyler
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Joan Didion
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Amy Tan
• Madeline L’Engle
• Sandra Cisneros
• Margaret Atwood

Various “Best Of” Lists around the Internet:
http://www.thebookescape.com/Feminist...
http://neurotaylor.com/2013/02/04/50-...
http://www.nypl.org/.../celebrating-w......
Contributions of women to pre-modern Asian literature included here:
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/....

I have been a little remiss at posting myself.

My daughter and I just finished the following two books. We have shared in the reading, which has been nice.

by Astrid Lindgren, 1945, 116 pages, paperback.

by Astrid Lindgren, 1946, 116 pages, paperback.

The following two books fall into that gray area of whether they are or are not classics. Both are highly regarded YA fantasy novels which have respectively won Newberry Honor and Newberry Medals.

by Robin McKinley, 1982, 256 pages, Ebook.

by Robin McKinley, 1984, 240 pages, Ebook.

I highly recommend these books for anyone looking for fantasy books with strong female characters. If you like these, you might also like the recent book: by Rae Carson

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Thank you to Powder River Rose for offering to lead a group book for April. The following is her introduction to the book.

The book we will read:

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Start Date: April 1st
End Date: May 10th

Inkmesh Ebook Finder

Also, I've found a little fun for everyone. This link is a review quiz provided by Sparknotes (permission given); there is no need to sign in/up, just take the quiz and if you would like, let us know your results.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/martian...

Get your books ready, the story of Mars is waiting to be heard.

Martha,

We debated on whether or not to offer a collection as a group reads book, but wanted to offer a slightly more accessible book as a companion to The Silmarillon. It definitely has a different feel, but thankfully the reactions have been positive. There is no rush to read it, so take your time.

Please give our best wishes to your husband for a good recovery.

Powder River Rose,

I hadn't realized that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a short story. I have some links under our resources discussion thread that discuss the whispersync for voice (buy the digital book, get the audible book cheaply) and getting audiobooks digitally from your library.


Libraries

Using your library card, you can access digital books and audiobooks. You can use the OVERDRIVE app (many phones/tablets), the e-pub versions (For Nook or Sony), or the Kindle versions. Note some have a waiting list, some have to be downloaded and loaded via USB.

These are for NY, but I am certain you can find some in your area.

Buffalo/Erie Library Books:
http://buffalo.lib.overdrive.com/F5F5...

New York, NY Library (Bigger selection for NY State residents): http://ebooks.nypl.org/AF11DA3A-D007-...

Just posted the monthly theme for February, Black Authors for Black History Month.

Check out the Recommendations that David put together here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I also saw this post about Science Fiction Authors on Black History Month and thought it was relevant to our theme this month. The audio isn't great, but having read quite a lot of classic science fiction, I find the points to be very valid with regard to both science fiction and many traditional classics that I have read.

http://video.openroadmedia.com/Rnr4/s...

or

Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvf4Fj...

February Suggested Reading – Black History Month

Fiction
Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart
Alice Walker – The Color Purple
Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
James Baldwin – Go Tell It On the Mountain
Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Richard Wright – Native Son
Toni Morrison – Beloved
Octavia Butler – Kindred

Non-Fiction
W.E.B. Du Bois -- Souls of Black Folk
Booker T. Washington – Up From Slavery
Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Richard Wright – Black Boy
Alex Haley – Roots
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (w/Alex Haley)
Why We Can’t Wait – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

Drama/Poetry
August Wilson – Fences
Lorraine Hansberry – A Raisin in the Sun
Langston Hughes – Collected Poems
James Weldon Johnson – The Book of American Negro Poetry
Claude McKay – Complete Poems
Sterling Brown – Collected Poems
Phyllis Wheatley – Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

Websites for more suggestions and reading ideas:
http://www.playbill.com/features/arti...
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmlit...
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmpeo...
http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/64/...
http://aalbc.com/books/thebesttitles.htm
http://aalbc.com/books/thebestauthors...

So, now that January has wound down, what are your thoughts about the Blue Fairy Book? Here are a few questions to consider.

-What did you think about a chance to engage in reading some fairy tales?
-What were your favorite stories?
-What were your favorite heros/heroines?
-What were your favorite villains?
-What do you think about the versions in the Blue Fairy book verses those portrayed in popular culture today?

I definitely agree that fairy tales are good character builders, and that the diverse ones were most interesting. I had a very nice illustrated fairy tale book as a kid, and thought it all the more interesting because of some of the darker stories, that seem to be missing from some of the more popular versions these days.

I love Librivox, but can definitely understand the challenges of the narrators. I download their books for my grandmother, who had trouble reading for a while after she had a stroke.

I read a lot on my commutes, but tend to prefer the text to speech options of my old Kindle Keyboard, and Kindle Fire. I occasionally get one of the Audible daily deals. I don't know if you use audible (There are apps for most smartphones or tablets. However, if you do, the Secret Life of Walter Mitty is currently free. Just don't subscribe to their monthly service.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Fre...

The differences between your books and the ones you log on Goodreads is the edition. When you look for a book only the default edition is listed. If that isn't the exact edition there may be differences in page numbers which will explain the variance in calculations. There is an all editions link that should allow you to select the specific edition you read (including Amazon Kindle editions).

Hello John,

We are open to new threads and an introduction thread is perfectly appropriate. I may adjust the title of this thread to suggest that. I am also from the Buffalo Area.

The main active threads are housed within the "2014 Challenge (Current)" discussion. There is one thread for logging books this year, one for us to post monthly themes, and two for each of the reading groups this month (note that we keep those active into the next month to give people time to read them).

When you log a book the group rules for logging a book should appear next to the text block. Basically it is Title, Author, Year of publication (original if possible), Number of pages. We are also asking for location (General state or country) in at least 1-2 posts just so that we can track the global reach of the group this year when we run the year end stats.

If you wanted to discuss the Blue fairy book you can select the blue fairy group thread where there are a few comments already.

To answer your other question. I also read the kindle version of the Blue fairy book. It appears on Amazon as about 713 pages. So if you are reading the free kindle book from amazon those page numbers are correct. Amazon took the "real" page numbers from a print version of the book. There are variations in page numbers based on font size, edition etc... in the paperback and ebook world. So if you downloaded the version from Manybooks.net for instance it says that the total pages are 363. But in reality both contain the same stories, so it is somewhat subjective.

Hope that helps.