Books & Bars welcomes you, the writers/readers/book lovers/publishers and book sellers of Minneapolis & St. Paul, to shake hands like Minnie and Paul. Let’s get together and exchange good cheer and ideas to keep our Twin Cities’ literary scene vibrant.
Books & Bars enjoyed its biggest audience yet with 140 people in attendance to discuss Audrey Niffenegger’s smash hit, The Time Traveler’s Wife. We were fortunate to be invited to a larger venue, an art gallery named The Soap Factory. Our book club was part of an exhibit called Common Room based on large social gatherings. We made paper sculptures like the character Clare did in the novel and filled out card catalog info with blurbs, soundtrack suggestions and more related to Henry’s character.
Our discussion dealt with free will vs. fate and the metaphor of time travel.We felt the theme of the story was how lovers are not always in sync or even in the same place and time, but we should strive to be here now. Be present in the moment as it is all we really have for certain. Most of really enjoyed the book and more than a few had read it twice. (The movie is not so good, though. Imagine a flip book Cliffs Notes version of the book.)
Join Books & Bars’ Facebook group to see more photos of our event if interested.
Next month we read a lost classic, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy.
Check out website (booksandbars.com/forum) for our list of upcoming possible selections. Feel free to make a recommendation.
This is not my beautiful wife
Do you trust the critics for your book club picks? I used to rely on them quite heavily for my book choices but am beginning to doubt that process as a viable option. If you’re interested in a new book and can’t get a positive word-of-mouth review from a friend, perhaps it’s more useful to depend on sites like Goodreads.com or Amazon.com instead of paid published book critics. How do you make your book club choices?
Our 63rd selection was Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen. Most of the major critics raved about it yet we found it to be lacking, derivative and boring. I had noticed the Amazon.com review drop from 4 to 3 stars soon after the paperback publication which was a sign to me that regular readers may have liked it less than critics.
To be fair, Galchen’s novel does deal with some interesting issues of an unreliable narrator, obsession, jealousy, lasting love, falling out of love, psychosis and enabling. But the purported mystery is not here. It’s obvious from the start the main character is suffering from a mental illness. By the half way point of the book you realize it’s not going to be Vertigo but mostly Harvey meets A Beautiful Mind. Then you have another half of the book to read to this foregone conclusion.
At its best the book captures that feeling summed up in the Talking Heads’ tune, Once in a Lifetime. You wake up one day and wonder how your life became what it is. You feel its not what you had planned yet here you are. How did you get here? What can you do? Is the person you fell in love with the same person today as they were ten years ago? Are we who we think we are or who others perceive us to be?
The critics raved. We read it. We were underwhelmed. What next? I’ll tell you.
Join us at The Soap Factory for a discussion of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. M+Q’s Jay D. Peterson and the West Bank Social Center’s Miranda Trimmier will be curating a number of large group literary games and activities before and after the discussion. Jeff Kamin (that’s me) – comedian and improv artist – will lead the book discussion, per usual.
This event is part of Common Room – a temporary curated gathering space within The Soap Factory designed to facilitate interactivity and the blurring of the boundaries between curators, performers and audience, all within in a casual, living room-esque environment.
I’ll be back next month to let you know about the book club as art exhibit.
– Jeff Kamin, booksandbars.com
Twitter: Jefe23 Blog: mustacherobots.wordpress.com
118 people were in attendance as Books & Bars covered Mary Roach’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex on 6/9. With twenty people over fire code capacity we had our largest crowd (sneaking in) according to the Bryant Lake-Bowl servers.
In discussing Bonk, I allowed (encouraged) double entendres and sexual innuendos but warned you could get a shouted “BONK!” from the audience if you used one in your comments. It was a lot of fun with a seemingly still taboo topic for some people. A majority of the conversation was devoted to masturbation, perhaps not surprisingly, in our group of mostly singles.
Overall we enjoyed Bonk, though we felt it a little unfocused and slight on some of its topics. It may be hard to believe but we were ready for a more in-depth and serious take on the subject matters of sexuality and science. We usually do only one non-fiction book a year in our club. Non-fiction serves as a jumping off point for discussions, which end up being less about the book/author and more about the topics presented. Not always a bad thing, in fact they’re usually heated and informative debates, but after an informal poll we’ll continue reading mainly fiction.
Take a few minutes to see the video for the funny payoffs toward the end.
Next month we discuss Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.
Thanks for reading.
Jeff Kamin, moderator/director/writer
Booksandbars.com
Mustacherobots.wordpress.com
Seth Grahame-Smith chatted with Books & Bars via Skype video. It was our first video chat with an author and a rousing success we hope to repeat soon. A movie screen on stage held his image while we sat in the theater with a couple microphones to ask him questions. He could see us as though he was sitting towards the back of the theater and also see his own image the movie screen. We discussed his smash hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which pokes broader fun at the social changes taking place in Jane Austen’s classic and his other projects for about 45 minutes. Then had time to have our regular discussion without him (another 45 min), making for a good balance. Seth was thoroughly engaging and entertaining, even breaking some secret scoops for us. Topics included the process of writing a mash-up, late night humor, how anything + ninjas = awesome, the drunken washwoman defense, zombies as a metaphor (marriage, etc.), and much more. I’ll let you see for yourselves from the two 8-minute video clips. If you had a particular question you were wondering about, ask me, we may’ve gotten an answer.
Link to video clips:
http://mustacherobots.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/not-your-mothers-jane-austen/
Next month – non-fiction (!): June 9th we cover
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.
Please comment here, there, in a car, by a bar, with a goat, on a boat,
anywhere (otherwise we’re just yelling into a dark cave):
http://booksandbars.com
http://mustacherobots.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/jefe23
Thanks for reading,
Jeff Kamin
Moderator, Books & Bars
jeff@booksandbars.com
