Jacob Jankowski is a student at Cornell University with a promising future in veterinary medicine. That all changes when his parents are killed in a car accident. Grieving and unable to pay his college tuition, Jacob leaves school and joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus. Jacob's job is to care for the animals in the circus menagerie, a task made more difficult by the abuses heaped upon the creatures by the circus's boss, August. Jacob forms a close relationship with an elephant, Rosie, whom he strives to protect from August. He also falls in love with August's lovely, abused wife Marlena. This atmospheric tale is based on actual circus stories and is documented with historical circus photographs. Have you read this book? Post a comment. You can also come to a discussion of the book as a member of Johnson City Library's Tales & Talk book group. For more information about Tales & Talk call the library at 434-4454 or come by the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.
Showing posts with label Book Discussion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Discussion. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Book Discussion
Revenge by Laura Blumenfeld
As a college student, Blumenfeld vowed to avenge the shooting of her father, a rabbi. Years later, as a Washington Post reporter covering many of the world's hot spots, she develops an obsessive curiosity about revenge. She uses the occasion of a one-year stay in Israel to find the Palestinian who tried to kill her father and to exact some kind of revenge. She saw Israel as an ideal place to study this most primitive of emotions, a land that "possessed an archaeology of revenge that layered all the way down to the beginning of time."
What does "revenge" mean to you?
As a college student, Blumenfeld vowed to avenge the shooting of her father, a rabbi. Years later, as a Washington Post reporter covering many of the world's hot spots, she develops an obsessive curiosity about revenge. She uses the occasion of a one-year stay in Israel to find the Palestinian who tried to kill her father and to exact some kind of revenge. She saw Israel as an ideal place to study this most primitive of emotions, a land that "possessed an archaeology of revenge that layered all the way down to the beginning of time."
What does "revenge" mean to you?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Book Discussion
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers is a powerful story. It won the 2006 National Book Award and was a 2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. William Kowinsky of Bookmarks wrote "The mysteries of perception and cognition, of normality and dysfunction of reality and dream -- all of them are louder echoes of the most pressing mystery that Powers begins to deal with: the neglected relationship of human beings with the rest of nature, as well as their own... there's an apocalyptic feel to The Echo Maker, with intimations of an imminent and unstoppable finality and of people dealing in their way with this fragility."
What does the title "The Echo Maker" mean to you?
What does the title "The Echo Maker" mean to you?
Monday, March 3, 2008
Book Discussion
What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Have you read the book by Peter Hedges or seen the movie starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo Di Caprio?
Here's a reminder of the story:
"Grape is 24 and stuck in a rut. Trapped by feelings of responsibility to his eccentric family, he works bagging groceries in their small Iowa town. And what a family! At its core lies his beached whale of a mother; she never leaves her TV chair and clamors constantly for more food and cigarettes. There is Ellen, his maddeningly pubescent sister; 17-year-old retarded brother Arnie, whom Gilbert loves dearly; and his older sister Amy who devotes herself to keeping everyone happy. Gilbert is saved by a beautiful and strange girl who startles him into life. That such a creature would take an interest in an apparent loser like Gilbert requires the reader's willing suspension of disbelief; but with such appealingly funny writing, one is only too happy to oblige." Sheila Riley/Library Journal
Check out the Literature Resource Center to read what Richard Aleva says about the movie:
"...Yes, in Gilbert Grape, we do have that flat landscape and that dreary town and those dead-end jobs and a seemingly nonexistent future for our hero. But you also become aware that desolation and ugliness are just part of the fabric of Gilbert's life, and the movie is really about that entire fabric, with its elements of pity, comedy, lyricism, and nascent sexuality, as well as its boredom and squalor. Gilbert certainly does feel trapped by his "beached whale" of a mother (his description), his boring job in a grocery store, and his obligation to bathe his backward but all-too-energetic brother Arnie every night and to fetch him down from the water tower that he periodically climbs. But, sometimes through Gilbert's eyes and sometimes over his shoulder, we're looking at the flow of life in a particular place at a particular time. And, as life flows, it refuses to be labeled as "boring" or "wasteful" or even "charming." Life flows and sweeps away these categories..."
Have you felt stuck in your life? What do you think of Gilbert's relationship with his mother and his siblings?
Have you read the book by Peter Hedges or seen the movie starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo Di Caprio?
Here's a reminder of the story:
"Grape is 24 and stuck in a rut. Trapped by feelings of responsibility to his eccentric family, he works bagging groceries in their small Iowa town. And what a family! At its core lies his beached whale of a mother; she never leaves her TV chair and clamors constantly for more food and cigarettes. There is Ellen, his maddeningly pubescent sister; 17-year-old retarded brother Arnie, whom Gilbert loves dearly; and his older sister Amy who devotes herself to keeping everyone happy. Gilbert is saved by a beautiful and strange girl who startles him into life. That such a creature would take an interest in an apparent loser like Gilbert requires the reader's willing suspension of disbelief; but with such appealingly funny writing, one is only too happy to oblige." Sheila Riley/Library Journal
Check out the Literature Resource Center to read what Richard Aleva says about the movie:
"...Yes, in Gilbert Grape, we do have that flat landscape and that dreary town and those dead-end jobs and a seemingly nonexistent future for our hero. But you also become aware that desolation and ugliness are just part of the fabric of Gilbert's life, and the movie is really about that entire fabric, with its elements of pity, comedy, lyricism, and nascent sexuality, as well as its boredom and squalor. Gilbert certainly does feel trapped by his "beached whale" of a mother (his description), his boring job in a grocery store, and his obligation to bathe his backward but all-too-energetic brother Arnie every night and to fetch him down from the water tower that he periodically climbs. But, sometimes through Gilbert's eyes and sometimes over his shoulder, we're looking at the flow of life in a particular place at a particular time. And, as life flows, it refuses to be labeled as "boring" or "wasteful" or even "charming." Life flows and sweeps away these categories..."
Have you felt stuck in your life? What do you think of Gilbert's relationship with his mother and his siblings?
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