DC Public Library discussion

Hi everyone! Welcome to our September book discussion!

Each month we'll announce the theme and you choose the book you want to read.

Even if your school days are well behind you, September will always be back-to-school season, so this month our theme is Retelling the Classics. We'll be reading books that retell or update the classics we read in school and as children. Below are a list of suggestions, both fiction and non-fiction, and there are many more on the Retelling the Classics bookshelf.

Please post a comment letting us all know what you plan to read and suggesting any good retold classics you've read...

English Lit 101
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Smith-Grahame
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Classics 101
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Strauss

I'll be reading Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is a retelling of The Aeneid. I recently read The Song of Achilles, a retelling of The Iliad that I highly recommend, so now I'm in the mood for more ancient Greece and Rome!

I also just finished When She Woke, a dystopian update of The Scarlet Letter. I didn't love the ending, but I would say it was definitely worth reading for the set-up.

This month I'm going to read Parrot and Olivier in America, a retelling of Alexis de Tocqueville's time in America.

This would also be a good opportunity to read this year's DC Reads book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Between October 15 and November 15, the library will be hosting several events related to the book, including appearances by the author, Azar Nafisi. Read it now before the holds list is a mile long!

Erissa-- one of my book groups did Parrot and Olivier in America in July, and it proved to be really divisive! I personally loved it as did about half the group, and the others all thought it was overwritten or just not their type of historical fiction. I can't wait to hear what you think! Also, only the eldest members of the book group had read the original Democracy in America which we all found interesting. I feel like I was supposed to have read it at one point, but can't remember ever doing so!

I don't know yet what I'll be reading, but I just downloaded The Child Thief, which is a retelling of Peter Pan that has been recommended to me by a few different readers.

For anyone thinking about reading The Song of Achilles (which, again, I highly recommend), one of my favorite book podcasts, The Readers, just did a whole episode on it. They interviewed Madeline Miller and spoke with a classicist, who also happens to be one of the hosts' mothers.

Here are some questions to be thinking about while you're reading and discussing this month:

- What drew you to this particular retelling?
- Were you familiar with the original text? How did the retelling compare?
- If you were not familiar with the original text, did this increase your interest in it?
- Why do you think the author wanted to retell this story?

Also, for those interested in meeting up this month, we'll be doing happy hour at RFD (810 7th St NW) on Monday, September 24 from 6-8pm. Again, this is a very causual thing and not meant as a replacement for our discussions here.

Kate wrote: "This would also be a good opportunity to read this year's DC Reads book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Between October 15 and November 15, the library will be hosting several events related to the book..."

Kate, you've just made my day I had no idea one of my favorite authors would be at my library! Do I need to sign up to attend?

Great Danae! We're pretty excited about it here too! Dr. Nafisi will be doing a book talk at the West End Library on October 24 and an onstage conversation with Scott Simon from NPR on November 10. You can find all of the details for these events and the other cool things we have planned on our DC Reads calendar. None of them require advance registration.

We'll be starting a thread here on the Goodreads group to discuss Reading Lolita in Tehran once DC Reads gets underway, so I hope you'll join in for that as well!

A few years ago I read St. Dale by Sharyn Mcrumb. McCrumb uses the death of famed racecar driver, Dale Earnhardt to retell Georffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Instead of a pilgrimage to the shrine of a dead saint, the action is placed in the modern day U.S. where a priest, a young couple, an elderly couple, a dying child and a former racecar driver and others travel across seven southern states in eight days to pay homage to Dale Earnhardt. Just like Chaucer's classic, some of the tales are funny and some are sad , but all are very entertaining.

Hi, good humans. This month, I will be reading a book of poems by one of my favorite poets, Anne Sexton, as she reworks the happily-ever-after endings of classic fairy tales into poem-narratives that quietly reveal the darker side of the human condition. The book is titled Transformations.

Er, Transformations!

I am gonna check outAvalon High this time around - I also suggest Ash by Malindo Lo for a YA take on Cinderella with freaky fairies and some lady love.

Everyone is reading such interesting things! I'm really looking forward to hearing about them all!

A quick reminder that for anyone who's interested, we'll be meeting for happy hour tonight at RFD from 6-8.

I finished The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz, and it was much, much better than I hoped it would be. Given recent Hollywood interpretations of Doyle's Holmes and the many bad television interpretations (not that there haven't been many good ones over the years), I didn't expect much from this book, but it really does read exactly like an Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes tale. All the aspects of Holmes' genius and his quirks are there, the narrative voice of Watson is spot on, and the mystery itself is great. Sherlock Holmes is depicted as an actual detective, not an action hero, and while the book does contain some "action" scenes, most of the text is devoted to the unraveling mystery.
Check out this essay by Horowitz on the "Ten Rules for Writing a Sherlock Holmes Novel" (it's included in the e-book version) and also this interview on NPR—it's really interesting, and I think it includes some of Horowitz's thoughts on the enduring popularity of the Holmes character.
Overall, I can tell you that if Anthony Horowitz is contacted by the Doyle estate to write another one of these, I hope he agrees, but if not, I hope they don't publicize it... I'd hate to know that we were missing out.

Bobbie -- I enjoyed Avalon High. I have a weakness for Meg Cabot, especially her Heather Wells series!

It looks like I won't be able to fit in a reading of a retelling this month, but I'm going to try to read St. Dale and The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel when time allows b/c Russell and Tim's recommendations sound really good!

Yeah I read Avalon High in less than 2 hours. Book candy! And a great refresher on Arthurian legend...

Lavinia was good, though maybe not quite as gripping as The Song of Achilles or The Penelopiad, but maybe just because I'm less familiar with The Aeneid. I love Ursula K. Le Guin's writing and the story was told beautifully. She made a very interesting decision to have Lavinia meet Virgil and hear parts of The Aeneid, almost as if she is receiving a prophesy, which created a great play between fiction and reality.

Thanks everyone for another great discussion! Just because September is over, though, doesn't mean our discussion of retold classics has to stop. If you didn't quite finish your September pick in time, if you read more great retellings in the future, or if you're looking for a suggestion, please post here!

Also, don't forget to let us know what your Things That Go Bump in the Night pick is for October!

The author of Havisham lists some of his favorite retellings in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...