Reading the Western Landscape - Previous Book Selections

September 15, 2010

News from the Library

Interested in checking out books previously read by the Reading the Western Landscape Book Group (current and future books are here)? Browse the list below and consider the questions developed for each book.

For each book here are some questions to ponder:

What are some parts of this book that resonated for you in terms of landscape?
Was there any part of the book that didn't seem authentic to you?
Did any of the adventures seem to feel especially western or not western?

What is your favorite line, passage or image from the story?

What are some of things you consider ambiguities in the book? How did you resolve these ambiguities?

Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Conifer Country

Conifer Country: A Natural History and Hiking guide to 35 Conifers of the Klamath Mountain Region by Michael Edward Kauffmann. Kneeland, California : Backcountry Press, 2012.

"[…]no ordinary book about conifers. Rather, it is a the tale of a voyager whose personal journey took him into the far reaches of the Klamath Mountain range of northwest California and southwest Oregon to present the conifers of the region for admiration, study and conservation. […]The reader joins […]in search of breathtaking vistas described by some of the most beautiful, image-laden language this review has ever read. — from Ronald J. Elardo, Conifer Quarterly, Summer 2012.

What was your favorite conifer? Why?
What was your favorite hike? Why?
Tell me about the author. What did you learn about him?
If there was one thing you would change about the book what would it be?
What part of the book would you be sure not to change?
Tell me what you might do differently around conifers now.
Do you have any stories in this landscape or with these plants?
Can you relate where you are living now to any part of this landscape? Which part?

Saturday, April 13, 2013, 2:00 p.m.

Cover of Battleborn

Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins; New York : Riverhead Books, 2012.

[…]”A variety of strange, exotic things call the Nevada desert home. […]This rich, diverse environment forms the backdrop of [...] an exceptional debut short fiction collection […]. A writer of great precision and greater restraint, Watkins is a natural storyteller whose material enriches that gift rather than engulfing it. […]Proud and ever-enduring, Nevada now has a book to match its spirit. And one doesn’t have to be from the Battleborn state to recognize and appreciate literature that resonates like this. from Matt Gallagher, TheRumpus.net.

Since this book was selected for the Book Club it has:

been nominated for the 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

been named an American Library Association 2013 Notable Book

is a Story Prize finalist

and is one of NPR’s Best Books of 2012

Here are the questions I composed, one for each story:

“Cowboys, Ghosts”

• Why did she say no to the producer? How do you see the character Razor Blade Baby?

“The Last Thing We Need?”

• Why did he keep writing? What's going on in the last few lines of this story? How do the letters change the story out of a “traditional

“Rondine al Nido”

• Can you tell a little about your small town story or tell about when you wanted to get away from home the most? Why did "our girl" do what she did? What did the end mean about " A person can change in an instant"?

“The Past Perfect, The Past Continuous, The Simple Past”

• What new tale does this whorehouse story tell? How does it bear witness to this Nevada only business?

“Wish You Were Here”

• Whose life has changed the most and how? Why does he ask “Where are you?”

“Man-o-War”

• Why was the dog barking at the end?

“The Archivist”

• Did the Miracle bring solace at the end?

“The Diggings”

• This is the longest story in the book. How does it fit in with the others?

“Virginia City”

• Have you ever watched a friendship dissolve? Do this remind you any of your early adulthood?

”Graceland”

• What is your favorite line in this story? Is she going to come out of her grief? Is the sister? This was a very powerful story for me? Were there passages that were powerful for you? Explain.

How do all the stories relate to each other? What is your favorite image or passage in all these stories?

Wednesday, March 6, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Lulu in Hollywood

Lulu In Hollywood: Expanded Edition by Louise Brooks; Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

These eight essays are selective, nostalgic, poison-tipped and fearlessly smart. They’re sharp about Hollywood’s definitions of success and failure, about how actors are manipulated by their employers and pigeonholed by the press. Brooks saw stardom as a “pestiferous disease.” Late in her life she could cherish her solitude.[…] Brooks still shimmers as a rare loner who traveled down that road, her life in ruins — and then came back. from Janet Maslin, NYTimes.com.

What does Lulu’s Hollywood look like?
Which essay resonated for you the most? Why?
Why did she walk away?
How did she make her way in the world? Can you give an example of how these struggles continue?
What was the most astonishing thing you learned about Hollywood?
Tell me about what you think the strengths of the essays were?
What is your Hollywood story?
How did you interpret who she chose to write about? Explain.
How does she portray the relationship of New York to Hollywood?
What did the George Eastman House do for her?

Saturday, February 2, 2013, 2:00 p.m.

Cover of Infinite City

Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas by Rebecca Solnit; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

“[…]examines that San Francisco, a physically compact place that contains multitudes, through a series of elegantly rendered maps and cleverly researched and well-wrought essays conceived by more than a dozen writers, cartographers and artists. Passing through these newly mapped territories, we begin to see that "place," as Solnit emphasizes, is an imprecise word, and even the idea of an atlas is beyond subjective[…]from Lynell George, LATimes.com.

How did the maps affect your reading of this book? How did it change your usual reading style?

Which essay resonated for you the most? Why?

How was ambiguity handled? Give an example?

Did you have some different interpretations of any of the subjects covered in the essays? What is your interpretation?

What was the most astonishing thing you learned about San Francisco?

Tell me about what you think the strengths in the essays were?

What is your San Francisco story?

How did you interpret the juxtapositions of subjects, sleight of hand or depth? Explain.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Los Angeles Stories

Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder; San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2011.

"Each of Cooder’s eight stories contains at least one murder, usually more. They center on ordinary people—[…]—whose lives are warped, derailed, or ended by the schemes of gangsters, grifters, extortionists, murderers, policemen and fanatics. […] Los Angeles Stories focuses on the negative space around the pivotal changes occurring in Los Angeles at mid-century, evoking the texture of an era that spawned ‘La La Land.’ from Cristóbal McKinney, Zyzzyva.com.

How did the fact that some of the stories didn’t seem “finished” effect your interpretation of what was happening?

Could you envision the landscape? What stayed in your mind?

How did you handle all the ambiguities? Give an example?

Are there plot points you don’t understand? What are some different interpretations?

How did his work as a musician affect his work as a writer?

Tell me about what you think the strength in the stories was?

What was your favorite part that was related to music?

Saturday, December 8, 2012, 2:00 p.m

Cover of Klee Wyck

Klee Wyck by Emily Carr; Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2004. (Originally published 1941.)

The legendary Emily Carr was primarily a painter, but she first gained recognition as a writer. Her first book, […], was titled Klee Wyck ("Laughing One"), in honor of the name that the Native people of the west coast gave her as an intrepid young woman. The book […] won the prestigious Governor General's Award […]. [She] wrote these twenty-one word sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations. — Goodreads.com

How did her writing style shape what she was saying?

Why were all the places abandoned?

Could you envision the landscape? What stayed in your mind?

How old to you think she was throughout the memoir?

How did her work as an artist affect her work as a writer?

How did the length of the stories shape what you read?

Were the stories “haunting?”

Saturday, November 10, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Cover of An American Provence

An American Provence by Thomas P. Huber ; Boulder : University Press of Colorado, 2011.

"I have talked about luscious wines and succulent fruit and exquisite dinners. But there may be no more evocative experience of the two valleys than the smell of new-mown hay in the fields at dusk. If a person were to close their eyes, they could not tell if they were in Provence or the North Fork Valley. That sweet, earthy odor is part of the beauty of these places."— [Excerpt] In this poetic personal narrative, Thomas P. Huber reflects on two seemingly unrelated places-the North Fork Valley in western Colorado and the Coulon River Valley in Provence, France-and finds a shared landscape and sense of place. — Goodreads.com

Were you able to suspend your disbelief? How? Do you need to?
Did you concur with his analysis of the similarities? How or How not?
What thought-provoking insights did our author have about the landscape? About people?
Do you have any thoughts about how the author could have changed anything for more depth in his analysis? Or what are the best parts of this book?
A recent study about reading Jane Austen done by Natalie Phillips of Michigan State University found that certain kinds of reading, as stated in Shankar Vedantam’s NPR article on the study “activated unexpected areas: parts of the brain that are involved in movement and touch. It was as though readers were physically placing themselves within the story as they analyzed it.” What parts of this book did that for you?

Wednesday, October 10, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Come In and Cover Me

Come in and Cover Me by Gin Phillips; New York: Riverhead Books, 2012.

"Ren has devoted her career to discovering the history of the Mimbres culture, which flourished about 1,000 years ago in the American Southwest. […] Phillips’s writing [is] brimming with imagery. [...] her greatest talent is her ability to create the world of the story. [The book] moves us into the earth. The dusty landscape serves as both setting and metaphor, a beautiful but dangerous place where a sudden loss of footing can prove fatal. [...] Still, this is ultimately a novel about recovery. In that way, the fragmentation of image and memory seems realistic. For most of us, like Ren, healing from tragedy arrives in little pieces and over time". — Brunonia Barry, Washington Post.

Why ghosts? Were you able to suspend your disbelief? How? Do you need to?
Did you believe the archaeology?
What insights did the characters have about the landscape? About people?
Is there anything you would change about the book?
Or what are the best parts of this book?
A recent study about reading Jane Austen done by Natalie Phillips of Michigan State University found that certain kinds of reading, as stated in Shankar Vedantam’s NPR article on the study “activated unexpected areas: parts of the brain that are involved in movement and touch. It was as though readers were physically placing themselves within the story as they analyzed it.” What parts of this book did that for you?

Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Train Dreams

Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson; New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2011.

“I first read [the book] in a bright orange 2002 issue of The Paris Review and felt that old thrill of discovery . . . Every once in a while, over the ensuing nine years, I’d page through that Paris Review and try to understand how Johnson had made such a quietly compelling thing. Part of it, of course, is atmosphere. Johnson’s evocation of Prohibition Idaho is totally persuasive . . . The novella also accumulates power because Johnson is as skilled as ever at balancing menace against ecstasy, civilization against wilderness. His prose tiptoes a tightrope between peace and calamity, and beneath all of the novella’s best moments, Johnson runs twin strains of tenderness and the threat of violence . . . it might be the most powerful thing Johnson has ever written.” —Anthony Doerr, New York Times Book Review

What story/stories is/are he trying to tell?
Book reviews talk about how this book is “perfectly” written as if it were a poem. Can you give any examples of that? Do you agree?
What do you make of his visions and how they changed over time? The wolf-child?
What do you make of the dog?
How does the beginning relate to the rest of the story?
How did the story change for you when you knew he was going to live into old age?
How did the pacing of the story influence it?

Wednesday, August 1, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Where I Was From

Where I was From by Joan Didion; New York: Knopf, 2003.

“[…] is a kind of bookend to her earlier musings on California, a reassessment and reappraisal of her thinking about her home state. It is a love song to the place where her family has lived for generations, but a love song full of questions and doubts. ''This book represents an exploration into my own confusions about the place and the way in which I grew up, confusions as much about America as about California,'' she writes, ''misapprehensions and misunderstandings so much a part of who I became that I can still to this day confront them only obliquely.'' — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Book Review

How did the stories she chose to tell tie in with each other? Or not? Examples?
Give examples of the ties or lack of flow from one story to another?
How does the Lakewood story relate to the Sacramento Delta story?
Do the individuals she tells about have characteristics in common?
Do the California gyrations she describes differ from the rest of the nation?
How does her mother’s death fit with the stories she tells?
Which story resonated for you the most or made you the most mad or upset you the most? Why?
Do you have a relationship to any of the stories?

Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of You Play the Black and the Red Comes U

You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up by Richard Hallas (pseudonym for Eric Knight). New York: R.M. McBride, 1938.

"[…]for many noir aficionados, [this book] remains one of the most evocative and subversive novels of its time. […]The book does read like James Cain filtered through Thomas Pynchon. Although Knight's first person narrative begins in typical tough-guy fashion, with Dick Dempsey, an Oklahoma-born AWOL Marine hopping a freight in Texas for Southern California in pursuit of his wife and son, it soon moves off in another, wilder direction — more like a noir Alice in Lotus Land than a cool and conventional hardboiled novel.” — Woody Haut , Los Angeles Review of Books

Is the narrator reliable? What is the evidence for why or why not?
Do all the pieces fit together in the descriptions?
Why does the narrator worrying over the minutiae of what Mamie knew or didn’t know?
What do you make of his lack of engagement with the people surrounding him?
Why did he love Sheila? And not the other women?
Are his relationships with people indicative of the time period? Why is he so aloof with everyone but Sheila?
Is the story straightforward? Give some examples for your answer.
Where is the place of the golden mountain that his father had the tire flat on?
What makes the novel seem so “surreal?”

Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Wisdom Sits in Places

Wisdom sits in Places by Keith H. Basso; Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

For more than thirty years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names -- where they come from and what they mean to Apaches. "This is indeed a brilliant exposition of landscape and language in the world of the Western Apache. But it is more than that. Keith Basso gives us to understand something about the sacred and indivisible nature of words and place. And this is a universal equation, a balance in the universe. Place may be the first of all concepts; it may be the oldest of all words."-N. Scott Momaday, Publisher’s website.

Basso is very explicit about how to interpret the Apache conversations. Was his explicitness illuminating the simple? What simple?
Do some of the Western Apache proscriptions relate to those of a western European heritage? Is there a connection between this sort of wisdom and the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, etc. or the oral myths that help create society?
What did you think about the speech on 126-127?
Does the big cottonwood resemble a woman? p. 142-143.
It was interesting that most of the place name described geologic rather than what was on top of the geology? What do you make of that?
Can you give an example of “Wisdom sitting in a place in your life?”
Do you have a story you can tell about a place name in your life?
Can we apply some of the “wisdom” to a contemporary lifestyle?

Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of The Book of Dead Birds

The Book of Dead Birds by Gayle Brandeis ; New York : Harper Collins, 2003.

We were privileged to have the author, Gayle Brandeis, coming to join us with our discussion of the book. She joined us to discuss the process of writing the novel and answer any questions about the book and also discussed the recent release of The Book of Live Wires, the sequel to The Book of Dead Birds.

I also adapted some interview questions posed by the LA Review of Books (lareviewofbooks.org) to elicit conversation with Gayle.

Do you write long and cut, or short and backfill?

Disciplined or hot dog?

Who is your imagined audience? Does it at all coincide with the real one?

Who reads you first?

What character or story haunts you?

She also told some stories about the making of the book and other members had lots of questions.

"Winner of Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize, an award in support of a literature of social responsibility, The Book of Dead Birds is an intimate portrait of a young woman at a defining moment in her life, who stands at the intersection of two cultures and races. […]having just finished her graduate work, Ava leaves her native San Diego for the Salton Sea, where she volunteers to help environmental activists save thousands of birds poisoned by agricultural run-off.” — GayleBrandeis.com

We had a magical time wandering through the Arboretum and the mist. It was an extraordinary experience for all of us.

Saturday, April 14, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Cover of The Log From the Sea of Cortez

The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck; New York : Viking Press. 1951.

[…]”But Steinbeck took the world on its own terms then, as he would do if he were alive and writing today. […]And it is this clear-eyed view of the world in both its fecundity and its ongoing destruction that makes Steinbeck’s work such an absorbing account of a time long past. In an age when ocean-dwelling, and for that matter, land-dwelling, creatures are being depleted at an ever-increasing rate, Log […] remains an enriching and indelible document.” from Michael Antman, Bookslut.com.

What did you think when you learned that his wife accompanied them on the trip?
How did his alternating between philosophical musings and descriptions of the littoral fauna influence the narrative?
What did you learn about the Sea of Cortez during their trip that you found the most interesting, revolting, whatever, etc.?
Steinbeck’s language is often “tongue in cheek,” such as the joke about the “crabs” collected on shore. How does this influence your reading of the book?
What did you make of the chapter that took place on Easter?
What did you make of his trying to put human behavior into the swirl of animal behavior?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Refuge

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams; New York : Pantheon Books. 1991.

“As Utah-born naturalist Terry Tempest Williams records the simultaneous tragedies of her mother's death of cancer & the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Sanctuary, she creates a document of renewal and spiritual grace destined to become a classic in the literature of nature, women, & grieving.” from Goodreads.com .

• Does the last chapter change the tenor of the book?

• What do the birds tell us?

• How does her religion fit in? Does her grandmother’s religion differ from her mother’s?

• Is her father his mother’s son? What can you tell about their relationship from the book?

• How does the juxtaposition of the nature story and the medical story interrelate?

• Were there things she couldn’t tell about the survivors? Was there a reason she concentrated on her story, her mother’s story and her grandmother’s story?

• There were some odd edges, such as her move to the foothills or her archeological expedition. How did these odd edges relate to the tight juxtaposition of the birds and water levels and the illnesses?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Cover of Among Friends

Among Friends by M. F. K. Fisher, New York: Knopf, 1971. (image from San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983)

“Among Friends is M. F. K. Fisher's fascinating memoir of her childhood in Whittier, California. In sharing these memorable and moving portraits of her family and of the town, we are given an enchanting glimpse into the early life of one of our most delightful and best-loved writers.” from Goodreads.com.

What do you think Fisher’s reasoning was for reiterating several times about how Anne didn’t really like MFK as an adult?

Besides a childhood memoir, what other stories is she trying to tell.

How does her breezy, conversational writing style affect the story?

How does this language also affect her statements about death and disease?

Is it possible to give examples where this style, might help you see it from a child’s viewpoint?

What are some of the truths that she tells us?

What was the effect of MFK Fisher not stretching to tell the story beyond what “she” saw, such as never clearly describing all her parents absences to LA, etc.

Tell about an incident from your childhood that resonates from something MFK sparked by her writing.

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 2:00 p.m.

Cover of When the Killing's Done

When the Killing's Done by T. Coraghessan Boyle, New York: Viking, 2011

"Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world." from Goodreads.com

How does Alma’s pregnancy effect the story?

Where do the characters’ backstories lead us?

What does the raccoon and the rattlesnake do for the reader?

What happens to Anise’s mother?

Could the protagonists have done anything differently to resolve with a more positive interaction?

Why was LaJoy so angry?

Wednesday, December 7, 2011, 7:00 p.m

Cover of East of the Mountains by David Guterson

East of the Mountains by David Guterson; New York: Viking ©1985.

"From the award-winning author of Snow Falling on Cedars comes the bold and beautiful story of a retired heart surgeon with cancer who heads toward the wooded territory of eastern Washington intending to commit suicide. Along the way, he is sidetracked by a succession of fortuitous events that draws him into an altogether unanticipated journey — and rekindles his appetite for life." -- Goodreads.com

How does the landscape augment his journey?

What is transformative?

The author’s language is not very embellished (or is it?). How does this shape the story? Examples?

How does the interlude about the war change/embellish the story?

What did you learn about his personal relationships?

Was the resolution easy?

What is the benefit of the ending as it stands?

What is the difference between his view of life and the woman’s at the end?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Cover of Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce by James M Cain, New York : Knopf, 1941.

"Then Michael Tolkin, making a guest appearance in the class I teach, looked at me like I was crazy when I said I hadn't read Cain. " 'Mildred Pierce,'" he said, "is one of the best American novels. Period." All I thought of was Hollywood diners, Pasadena swells, decaying mansions, a brutal winter storm exactly like the ones we had this year, and Mildred's insecurities. She gets picked up at her waitress job by a rich guy who drives her to Lake Arrowhead, and all she can think of is that her hair smells like bacon grease. She hides soap, dives casually into the lake and scrubs her hair while holding her breath." -- Susan Straight, Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2011.

What do you make of this passage at the end of Chapter 8, “There came torrential, shaking sobs, as a t last she gave way to this thing she had been fighting off: a guilty, leaping joy that it had been the other child who was taken from her, and not Veda.”

Can you give example of passages that created authenticity for you?

Examples of ones that may not have seemed as authentic?

What were you thinking during his description of the rain storm?

We there any gender issues for you in this book? A man writing from the point of view of a woman?

Are there any examples of how Southern California affected the book in ways that other places wouldn’t? Can you fathom why he called them “Orange Grove Ave. and Huntington Ave.” rather than boulevard?

Is the ambiguity something that resonates in our times?

What is the significance of cars in the story? Money?

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Secret knowledge of water : discovering the essence of the American desert by Craig Childs. Boston, Mass. : Back Bay ; London : Little, Brown, 2000.

Deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to seasoned explorers. Craig Childs has spent years in the deserts of the American West, and his treks through arid lands in search of water reveal the natural world at its most extreme. -- Jacket.

In this book of striking images what was the most striking for you?

Is this a memoir? What story is he telling about himself?

How does Childs create drama?

Give examples of his descriptions of the desert landscape?

Can you give examples of hyperbole in his writing?

Has this changed your view of the desert? How? With what passage?

Which of his experiences were you most interested in? Why?

Were any of the experiences troubling for you? Why?

September 7, 2011, Dwellings

Give some examples of author’s portrayal of nature that resonant for you.
Or didn’t seem quite authentic? And why.
We’ve now read many portrayals of landscape. Give some examples of the author’s point of view that were new.
The author is trying to make clear ideas about how when humans are disconnected from nature they are less caring and things like the Holocaust, Rwanda, etc. happen. Can you give examples of how the author balances that with her other portrayals of nature?
Can you give examples in this book that seem to be of the time it was written and not necessarily viewed that way now? Has anything gotten better in ways the author suggested? Give examples from the book.
I was intrigued about how landscape shapes thought. Can you give some of her examples or some from your own life?

July 6, 2011, Land of Little Rain

Cover of Mary Austin's Land of Little Rain

Land of Little Rain By Mary Hunter Austin, Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin, 1903.

"Beautiful, poetic study of the Southwestern desert. Fourteen sketches describe plants, animals, mountains, birds, skies, Indians, prospectors, towns, other features in serene, beautifully modulated prose. Desert seen as a place of rare, austere beauty that weaves a lasting spell over its inhabitants." Preface of Penguin, 1997 publication.

Do the chapters create architecture for the structure of the book? If so, what is that architecture?
What was Mary Austin trying to achieve with this writing?
Some of her plant names are hard to follow and figure out what plants she really meant, such as “buckthorn”. For those that aren’t reading it as a piece of natural history, how do these plant names read, just as sounds? Yearning to understand?
There was an awful lot of talk about water in a book title Land of Little Rain. How do you interpret that?
Are there any parts of the book that you have to frame a context around?

June 2011 - Curse of the Starving Class

Curse of the Starving Class cover

Who were the cat and the eagle?

What was the function of having the names so closely related? Ella, Emma, Wesley, Weston

How does it relate to Southern California landscape? Avocado, sheep ranching, frost, artichokes? Where?

Are there other author’s who work with transience as much as S. Shephard does?

Tell me about Emma? Can you believe she is a young teenager?

How do the children deal with their parents?

Is Wesley really hungry? For what?

Was Taylor really the gentleman who sold both plots of land?

May 2011 - The Blue Plateau: an Australian Pastoral

Blue Plateau cover

Discussion on Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

The Blue Plateau is located in the Blue Mountains southwest of Sydney. This book reveals the plateau through its inhabitants: the Gundungurra people, the Maxwell family, the ranchers and firefighters; and the author himself. This book incorporates poetry, history, ecology, mythology, and memoir. From the WorldCat summary.

Why entwine the people and the land?

By framing his story with these people is he romanticizing the land?

How does landscape shape the characters?

Tell some passages where geology has shaped the character of the book.

April 2011 - A River Runs Through It, and Other Stories

A River Runs Through It cover

From a review: "[Maclean] would go to his grave secure in the knowledge that anyone who'd fished with a fly in the Rockies and read his novella on the how and why of it believed it to be the best such manual on the art ever written--a remarkable feat for a piece of prose that also stands as a masterwork in the art of tragic writing." (Philip Connors Nation)

Specific questions for this book include:

Talk about the women in this book. Describe a passage about women where they don’t seem objectified.

What is the reason for the way the author portrays women?

What does this book say about familial relationships?

What is Maclean generally trying to say?

How does the last line fit with the rest of the story?

What can Maclean cherish in the story?

Give some examples of how nature relates to the people for better. Or worse?

March 2011 - In a Desert Garden: Love and Death Among the Insects

In a Desert Garden cover

From Booklist: Biologist Alcock calls Arizona home, and that is where he tends a desert garden that provides a working laboratory for observing and appreciating insect behavior. Alcock's limitless curiosity about all manner of bugs propels his latest book--beginning with the story of how he converted an unappealing front lawn area into a minidesert environment. Although Alcock makes no bones about mosquitoes that cause malaria and other dreaded pests that color the way most of us see insects, he nevertheless has written an ode celebrating those small creatures. Whether commenting on the fascinating mating rituals of various mantids, spiders, and beetles, or wondering at the camouflagic accomplishments of grasshoppers, butterfly larvae, and caterpillars, Alcock writes with a wry humor that appears as well in reflections on growing vegetables and cultivating compost. Graced with lively line drawings and color photographs, Alcock's engaging, illuminating text offers delightful reading for all who appreciate the natural world. Alice Joyce