Wrapped Up In Books relaunches January 24 with The Blind Assassin; vote for February’s book now
Hello, participants in and newcomers to The A.V. Club’s monthly book-club discussion, Wrapped Up In Books. This is a reminder that we’ll launch the year with a group discussion of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin starting January 24; look for the daily posts in the right-hand column of the front page the week of the 24th. We hope you’ll join us for those conversations and for the monthly live-chat with staffers about the book.
It’s a whole new year, and we have a few changes to the format in store. First off, we now have a Twitter account, @wrappedavc, solely for book-club announcements: date reminders, polls like the one below, and events like the live-chats. We promise it’ll be a low-volume feed.
Second, we’d like to start getting readers more involved in the book selection, so starting with February’s book, instead of one staffer pick per month, we’ll offer a menu of them and let you decide between them. February brings us back to Donna Bowman, who’s suggested we tackle one of the following three books. Here are her descriptions:
- Carolyn Parkhurst, The Dogs Of Babel (2003): This is a fascinating look at a man unable to deal with the loss of his wife, and convinced that if he could teach his dog to talk, he'd find out what happened to her. Far darker than Lost and Found, the first Parkhurst I read and fell in love with, but it's stayed with me far longer, too.
- Glen David Gold, Carter Beats The Devil (2001): I've been wanting to read this book for years but haven't found the right excuse. I'm a sucker for writing (fiction and non-fiction) about magic and magicians, and this is one of the most acclaimed recent books of that broad and varied genre.
- Shusaku Endo, Silence (1980): A slender novel about a crisis of faith suffered by a Jesuit missionary secretly teaching Christianity in hostile Tokugawa Japan. I have read and taught this powerful book many times; its depths seem endless to me.
Now the choice is yours: Which of these shall we talk about with you? Voting will be open until 11:59 p.m. Jan. 27, with a final selection announced Jan. 28 when we finish the Blind Assassin discussion. Look for more Wrapped Up In Books changes to come in the months ahead!