Booklovers

What does it mean to be a person? What does personhood mean? What about humanity? You might think you know, but Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Borne and its titular character are here to test what you think you believe. After finding a small pulsating blob on the side of a tremendous sleeping bear, scavenger Rachel brings it home in hopes that her partner Wick will be able to make use of it. But when the blob begins to grow, take shape and ultimately talk, Wick realizes that Rachel is in for more than she bargained for, but Rachel protects her charge as best she can. How Rachel does so and the decisions she makes for herself, for Borne and for Wick, all in the shadows of a giant bear, a half-destroyed Company and a mostly destroyed City run by a drug dealer named the Magician, will change her life forever.

As we discussed in our episode on The Left Hand of Darkness, science fiction’s goal is to push a situation to its logical limit, then let the story fully unfold from there. In Borne, VanderMeer has created a world not so far from our own, both in terms of modern society and in terms of Spartanburg; lean too close to the Company and you might catch the whiff of the crumbling abandoned textile mills that dot the Upstate. The City is all the more chilling and relatable due to its rough references that put it somewhere in the American south, kind of far from the ocean, but not too far from the mountains. In addition to discussing the relationship between Borne and the upstate (be it real or imagined), we’re talking about the way we relate to the non-human beings in our lives and who should read Borne in the first place—and much more importantly, why it should be read.

In 2013, Booklovers read George Saunders’ short story collection Tenth of December, which was considered one of the best books of the year by a number of outlets, including the New York Times, and was widely heralded as a masterwork of the format. Saunders is considered one of our greatest living American writers, and his talent as a writer and creative thinker seems to know no limits. So when Booklovers met to discuss Tenth of December, we were shocked at what we heard:

The group hated it.

So in 2021, Jess decided to return to the short story collection that caused such strife in the group (they don’t usually hate anything!) and analyze it with Joseph and Carmanita to see how Tenth of December has aged, if it’s still controversial, and what Saunders may have about the world we’re living in today. As it turns out, George Saunders is out here working in 3013, trying his hardest to catch us all up to his sense of humanity, of kindness, and of self-awareness, all conveyed through a light toe-dip into the world of speculative fiction, especially science fiction and horror. The ten stories in the collection range in length and scope, from “Puppy”, a vignette about two mothers coming together over the sale of a puppy, to “Home”, a Stoker Award nominee about a veteran who can’t figure out where he fits now that he’s back in America.

When Thomas Hardy wrote his final novel, Jude the Obscure, a reader wonders what may have been going through his head. After writing Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which shocked the Victorian England countryside, Hardy released Jude in 1895 in a serialized format. While Jude was a hit, it was also breathtakingly scandalous, earning the nickname “Jude the Obscene” and causing some booksellers to sell copies of certain sections in brown paper bags. Hardy, dismayed by the reception of his novels, turned to poetry and never wrote fiction again.

As local kid Jude Fawley grows into a young adult, he is endlessly troubled by the out-of-reach world of academic and pastoral splendor that he can never truly attain, due to a lack of ability, privilege, and knowledge (it is, after all, a rare accident to learn the wrong kind of Latin, even in the 1800s, but Jude manages to mess up even that). As Jude moves through his life, he is haunted and taunted by his first wife, Arabella, who is a true mismatch for Jude, and his beloved cousin Sue, who has Jude’s heart. When Sue announces her marriage to local schoolmaster Phillotson, Jude takes things into his own hands, with utterly disastrous results.

In Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy describes a world on the brink of change; he skewers the Victorian noble institutions of marriage, religion, parenthood, feminism, sexuality and family, but it’s his youngest named character, Young Father Time (or as Jess calls him, “Creepy Baby Man Child”), who pushes Jude—both the character and the book—over the deep end and into the melodramatic, scandalous, messy abyss.

Even in 2021, Hardy’s themes are still revolutionary, including his portrayal of Sue, who is perhaps the earliest fictional character to reflect a type of asexuality, an unexpected and in some cases radical acceptance of divorce, and the shocking act of familicide. As the end of the Victorian era licked at Hardy’s heels, he described a new world where things don’t have to be exactly what they’ve always been—and maybe that’s not a completely bad thing. The people weren’t ready for Hardy, and even now there’s plenty to find scandalous about Jude the Obscure, but it’s also a deeply influential, powerfully told story, and in this episode, we’re breaking down Hardy’s lasting power, the rapture with which we obsess over serialized stories, and what we hope you’ll read next.

Music is the oldest type of media we have, both in terms of when it was probably created (40,000 years ago) and when it was first recorded (the late 1800s). Music is in the background of our lives from beginning to end: from birdsongs and train whistles to lullabies and symphonies. And as tricky as it may be to write about music, that hasn’t stopped critics, analysts, theorists, biographers, and fans from trying their hardest anyway. In this episode, we look at our relationships with music and music writing, and how what we know about music informed what we read for this episode. Music is a deeply personal medium in a way that television, film, and even books are not: music is essentially built to access our emotions directly, which means that comfort zones, even in reading about what we like, can be very isolated. We also discuss the future of music, which is speeding rapidly away from a physical medium at a rate we’ve never seen before. How that impacts music writing is anyone’s guess, but we share a few ideas of what we expect to see over the next ten years.

To say that true crime is popular is to say that ice cream is popular. Sure, it’s true, but that doesn’t really cover the scope of its popularity: there are different flavors and styles that broaden its reach to just about anyone who wants a taste. In this episode, we’re discussing true crime and why readers, listeners and watchers love it so much. We discuss how true crime came to be, and Jess stumps for nonviolent true crime as a solid alternative for readers who think true crime isn’t for them because it’s too graphic. We also dig into why, exactly, true crime keeps readers coming back for more, and why we all read three true crime books when each of us only meant to read one. What does this say about true crime’s appeal? A lot, we think.

The topic of this episode, James McBride’s stellar novel Deacon King Kong, explores a rara avis among book club reads: it’s funny. Not just amusing or humorous, but laugh-out-loud, tears-in-your-eyes kind of funny, and thanks to McBride’s skills as an author, Deacon King Kong is also full of heart and hope. Following the misadventures of neighborhood drunk Sportcoat after he shoots the community drug dealer, Deacon King Kong explores the lives and livelihoods of the residents of the Cause Houses, a large housing project on the banks of the East River in Brooklyn in 1969. McBride’s ability to use humor to engage readers allows him to dig deeper into hard topics like the early introduction of heroin, alcoholism, and the generational trauma of slavery. But shining brightly through the darkness are things like the relationships and celebrations shared among charming characters, the legendary exploits of Sportcoat and his best friend Hot Sausage, and most importantly: Cheese Day. We dig into McBride’s latest, the winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and talk about everything from urban biodiversity to the Brooklyn Dodgers. And as usual, we share our suggestions for what to read, watch and listen to after you’ve finished reading Deacon King Kong.

We’re shaking things up with this episode: rather than highlight a specific title or genre, we’re taking a closer look at one of very few literary awards given with the reader in mind. Every January, the American Library Association holds its Youth Media Awards, which include eighteen individual awards: fifteen awards for excellence in writing for youth, two for lifetime achievement in writing and supporting children’s literature, and lastly, one special award that considers the readers of books and what works for them, rather than awarding the merit of the creator.

The Alex Awards, which were first handed out in 1998, celebrate novels written for adults but that have “special appeal” for readers ages 12-18. The Alex Awards are named annually by a committee of the Young Adult Library Services Association, and the 2021 winners were recently announced. So why do the Alex Awards matter? What is their purpose, and how can we as librarians and as readers use these winners (and nominees) to navigate the immense amount of books published every year? In addition to discussing the history of the Alex Awards and their use in librarianship, we talk about our favorite winners and nominees, and we throw out some suggestions (just in case YALSA is listening!) of possible retrospective Alex Award winners.

In 1993, Octavia Butler published Parable of the Sower, a work of speculative fiction that takes place in 2024. The main character, Lauren, lives in California in carefully cultivated safety with her family in a walled-in cul-de-sac while the ravages of climate change, severe poverty, robbery and drug addiction rage outside. After a major tragedy forces Lauren and the rest of the neighborhood outside the walls of the cul-de-sac, she hits the road and heads for higher ground, hoping to find a new safety in northern California. As she travels, Lauren gains followers, both physically and spiritually, as she fleshes out the belief system of Earthseed, which aims to harmonize humanity and change. In this episode we dive into Parable of the Sower, which today is almost unnervingly accurate, and we discuss aspects of adventure fiction and survival that appeal to us as readers, even during a pandemic.

On this episode, we discussed Lydia Millet's prescient 2020 novel "A Children's Bible" and William Golding's 1954 classic "Lord of the Flies" as species of the survivalist novel. Along the way, we recalled our earliest encounters with Golding's novel to the best of our ability and examined both stories in light of the most pressing cultural and political crises of their respective moments of publication.

Since its release in June, The Vanishing Half has been what feels like everywhere: atop the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers List, across dozens of Best of 2020 lists, and even on Barack Obama’s favorite reads of last year. For this episode, the team discusses highlights from the novel and what struck them most, plus recommend titles that help readers decide where to go next.