Hello Lovely Cannonballers, did you read A Wrinkle in Time? Did you comment on our Book Club post? Did you see the movie? (I didn’t read the book, did see the movie, and I have *thoughts*). Most importantly, are you ready for two more book clubs this year?
As we celebrate our tenth anniversary we asked you to vote in two categories, a well-reviewed Cannonball book (10 or more reviews and an average Cannonballer rating higher than 4.6) and something that AlabamaPink read during the first Cannonball Read. You made your voices heard, and we’re happy to announce that Friday and Saturday, June 8-9 we’ll be book clubbing Kindred by Octavia Butler; and Friday and Saturday November 2-3 we’ll be discussing Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson.
I’ll be posting a Discussion Topics post in May before our June 8-9 discussion, as a reminder to finish up and food for thought. In August I’ll send up a reminder beacon to get going on Between the Bridge and the River. As in Book Clubs past, feel free to visit us here on the group blog for the dedicated post, or in our Facebook Cannonball Read Book Chat group where we’ll have even more topics to discuss. You can even chime in on our other social media platforms.
Here are the synopses of the final two 2018 #CannonBookClub selections:
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes she realizes the challenge she’s been given.
Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson
Two childhood friends from Scotland and two illegitimate half-brothers from the American South suffer and enjoy all manner of bizarre experiences which, as it turns out, are somehow interconnected and, surprisingly enough, meaningful. An eclectic cast of characters includes Carl Jung, Fatty Arbuckle, Virgil, Marat, Socrates, and Tony Randall. Love, greed, hope, revenge, organized religion, and Hollywood are alternately tickled and throttled. Impossible to summarize and impossible to stop reading, this is a romantic comic odyssey that actually delivers and rewards.
As you get started with either novel, we’d love to see a picture of the edition you have, or even you reading your copy! Tag your pictures with #CannonBookClub on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and show off.
Visit our AlabamaPink page for links to her reviews from the very first Cannonball Read in 2008, or look through the Five Star ratings for more reading suggestions. The Book Club page is a geat place to see what we had to say about our other #CannonBookClub books.
See you on June 8th and 9th!
?? Kindred??
I’m personally exceptionally pleased with our choices.
Yay! The last time I looked at the poll, The Book Thief was still in the lead. I am very much looking forward to reading Kindred.
Kindred was already in my next few reads anyway, so this is perfect timing. Woohoo!
THESE WERE BOTH MY CHOICES! I don’t think we’ve ever read one of my choices at CBR book club before. I’m so happy right now.
Also I have shame because I read the book and saw the movie for Wrinkle in Time and I got overwhelmed and never commented on the book club post.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/92c9776381398a3d14f101202b86bf50/tenor.gif?itemid=5394715
I didn’t either.
*insert Dug cone of shame*
But… how did you feel about the movie? I thought the middle was… slow. And definitely meant for the 8-10 year olds in the audience, not me. Which is fine, not all art is for me. :)
I have so many thoughts about the WOT movie but there are so many I don’t know how to sum them up. I didn’t like the way they changed It to be the evil that is blanketing the universe, and that Meg defeated them with Love. It was much more nuanced in the book, and IT was only a symptom of the darkness people have to fight against.
I liked the way they had her confront herself at the end and had her tie in her ability to Tesser with her ability to accept herself. I didn’t like that they cut out Aunt Beast, or the themes of “like not being equal” in favor of other themes. I didn’t like that they cut out Meg’s self-realization moment, that she had to stop waiting for her dad to come back and fix everything, she had to do it herself.
I did like the three Mrs, even though I pictured them very differently in the books. I also missed the tone of the 60s version, the creakiness and creepiness and such.
The scene at the end with Charles Wallace was INTENSE.
I know I had more thoughts but I will stop now.
So excited that Kindred won!
Nice!