The Blender Book Club discussion

Our first read of 2021 is Intimations, a very short collection of essays written by Zadie Smith during and about the COVID-19 lockdown. Published in July 2020, this is one of the first noteworthy works to come out of the pandemic, and I'm sure we can expect plenty of Smith's usual intelligence, compassion, and humor.

We'll meet to discuss Intimations on Wednesday, January 20 (yes, the night of the presidential inauguration, sorry!) at 7 pm. Here's the link:

https://meet.google.com/ssk-ywba-syc

Hope to see you all then!

I finished the audio version this afternoon, and this book has zoomed to the top of my all-time most-loved nonfiction books [beating out some of the great science titles we read when Ken was leading us, like Hidden Figures or Packing for Mars]. I actually wept in parts, and grieved when I got to the end, that there was no more book -- unheard of for me and a nonfiction title! Zadie Smith is a wonderful writer, a perceptive, incisive, unfailingly honest, brainy writer & thinker who has no trouble at all relating & communicating with lesser minds (like mine). So hard to pick a favorite essay; I would have said "Something to Do" or "Suffering like Mel Gibson" until I got to the penultimate one "Contempt as a Virus". I can only say, without wanting to spoil the book for those yet to read it, that this essay alone may shake me out of my well-intentioned but too comfortable with my lot in life, old white lady apathy, to try to cure myself of the 'virus'.
Zack, thank you for selecting this book, and I promise to be more open-minded about nonfiction in future [my lazy mind always preferring novels].

I was going to skip this in Jan. But Lucy, you made me want to read it. So I guess I will put it on hold.

Yay! You won't regret it.

I can’t wait to discuss this book! It is packed with discussion topics and such accurate and honest assessments of life. I’m reading it a second time. I am sure this group will help me see more deeply into the author’s messages!! Knowing that, I’m interested to see how I can possibly love this book more!

Just a reminder that we will be meeting to discuss Intimations TOMORROW (1/20) at 7 pm. Hopefully it'll be sufficiently post-inauguration that we'll have a good turnout. Can't wait for our first meeting of 2021, and a discussion of one of my favorite contemporary authors!

Here's the link for tomorrow:
https://meet.google.com/ssk-ywba-syc

Also, just an early heads-up that next month's book, Wandering in Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins, will not be available in the standard book club format at Schlafly. (I didn't know till my book list for the year had already been approved that it isn't yet available in paperback.) However, there are quite a few regular library copies in our system, and a few at the County as well, so I don't think it will be too much of an issue to get your hands on one in time. If any problems do arise, please let me know.

Since Zach and I share a computer and I work till late that evening, I won't be able to join in on the discussion. I did, however, read the book and will try to put together some cohesive thoughts to add here.

Hi Rachel & Zach, I'm definitely going to be there tonight. Wish Rachel could be too, but look forward to reading her thoughts about the book.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1) Which of these essays was your favorite, and why? Did any of them not work for you?

2) What fresh insights into the COVID-19 pandemic (or any other facet of life right now) did you find in Intimations? Do you agree with Smith’s interpretation of events?

3) Did you like the ultra-short length of this collection, or did you wish it had been longer?

4) What, if anything, was the unifying theme or message of these pieces?

5) What are some of the points Smith makes about race, class, and other forms of inequality throughout the book? Were any of these new to you?

6) In what ways have you experienced suffering during the pandemic, and in what ways have you been shielded by privilege? (“Suffering Like Mel Gibson”)

7) If you were to make your own list of “debts and lessons” from people in your life, who are some of the people that might appear in it? (“Intimations”)

8) Does this book benefit from its closeness to the subject matter (it was published July 2020), or would you have preferred something more distanced and polished?

9) Have you read any other books by Zadie Smith? If so, how did this one compare? If not, would you read more?

10) Have you read any other books so far which tackle the issue of the pandemic? If not, are you looking forward to the eventual onslaught of COVID books, or would you prefer not to revisit these events in literature?

Here is the book Lloyd mentioned during the discussion: Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

I’m so sorry I missed last Wednesday. I was so caught up in Inauguration I didn’t even realize I’d missed until late Friday night.

I enjoyed the book as much as one can enjoy a book about how terrible everything is and feels and seems to be. One part that struck me as a new way to frame an old concept was her thoughts and descriptions of “hate” crimes—as though one’s bigotry being “raised” to the level of “ideology” matters.

“The crime is so monstrous it seems impossible the motivation behind it wouldn’t have an equal weight to the lives it took. Yet the philosophy is no such thing. The special category has no weight. The manifesto is written in blood, and the “ideas” that motivated the killer barely deserve the term. No, the killer took a base urge—hate—and robed it in clichés.”

I’ve read two other books by Smith but it was a long time ago so would be interesting to revisit those as well as this in a couple years one we get some distance that isn’t just social distance.

Oh and reason this also reminded me I need to read this https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...