Links for the next meeting - Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka

Wikipedia is useful for background on Sri Lanka, the Civil War and the National Team
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka_national_cricket_team

A couple of reviews:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/01/the-chinaman-shehan-karunatilaka-review
http://jaiarjun.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/absent-spinner-cricket-and-life-in.html
http://bitethebook.com/2012/04/17/shehan-karunatilakas-chinaman-the-legend-of-pradeep-matthew-2/

And following on from the above, an interview with the author:
http://bitethebook.com/2012/05/25/book-chewing-an-interview-with-shehan-karunatilaka-author-of-chinaman/

And mixing fiction and reality again:
http://pradeepmathew.com/
& also
http://thegreatpradeepmathew.com/
& finally - Articles by WG Karunasena
http://kreedasl.com/

Links for the next meeting - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Wikipedia gives the plot, and the background to the story

Spark Notes gives some context and explanations

Spark Notes also has some suggested questions, including:


"What role does social class play in Great Expectations? What lessons does Pip learn from his experience as a wealthy gentleman? How is the theme of social class central to the novel?"

A five star review on Amazon:

"This is my favourite Dickens novel. I would not dispute that several others are its equal but they do not pull at my heartstrings in quite the same way.I doubt seeing them knocked about on TV would have annoyed me quite so much."

& a one star review


"Does it make me a philistine that I thought this book was simply awful? I suspect not. This book is spectacularly dull; it's inane, directionless, confused, dreary, circumlocutory and self-indulgent. "

Links for the next meeting - To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

There is so much information about To Kill a Mockingbird, with a plethora of on-line notes about hypocracy, symbolism, contrasting characters and "foil pairs"  (and the meaning of their names) - even the Symbolism of the Tree and Boo as Christ (Yahoo voices):
- the use of language ,
-growing up,
-conditioning/conforming to be accepted/becoming independent,/who belongs where
-fear and courage  etc.
-hypocracy (Is Dolphus Raymond a hypocrite?- he protects his children by sending them North)
:it has been really difficult to find a few to the point articles that really does justice to the complexity, delicacy and power of the book. Set in time in 1935  but published in 1960 , it was published when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum (Rosa Parks was 1955) and Kennedy's Presidential Commission into the Status of Women was 1961.  It is described as a Bildungsroman (growing up) and Southern Gothic in that it incorporates the grotesque, describes derelict settings and sinister events in order to explore social events and uses suspense (eg Jem and Scout being followed by Bob Ewell at the end) - so Harper Lee is using a traditional format (the book was originally submitted as short stories to the publisher).

The moral growth of children in To Kill a Mockingbird

Themes, motifs and symbols - the book begins with the ending 

Symbols and symbolism - flowers /Tim Johnson

Background to 'jim crow' laws - circumstances in which the book was set

Calpurnia's double life

Stereotypes, assumption of guilt prior to trial

Links for the next meeting - A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Robin writes:

You could pick any major newspaper/blog/podcast and find a kind interview/review - e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/may/07/jennifer-egan-life-goon-squad

This is a heavy-going but exhaustive interview by Heidi Julavits: (worth reading if you enjoyed the book!). http://bombsite.com/issues/112/articles/3524

The author also happens to be tweeting a new story this week, 120 characters at a time (more info. on this in Wired - http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/05/jennifer-egan-black-box-twitter/). Most critics seem to be sceptical about this, which is striking because most were very positive about Goon Squad.

Also, as a refresher, here's a list of the main characters in each chapter:

1 – Sasha & Alex

2 – Bennie & Sasha

3 – Alice, Bennie, Scotty, Lou, Jocelyn, Rhea

4 – Lou, Rolph, Charlene, Mindy

5 – Lou, Bennie, Jocelyn, Rhea, Alice

6 – Scotty & Bennie

7 – Stephanie & Bennie, Jules, La Doll, Bosco

8 – Dolly, Lulu, Kitty

9 – Jules & Kitty

10 – Drew, Bix, Sasha, Lizzie, Rob

11 – Sasha & Ted

12 – Alison, Sasha, Drew, Lincoln

13 – Bennie & Alex, Scotty

Links for the next meeting - The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

A quick video to get you started! The Wellcome Collection always has some interesting stuff...

This site has loads of links and information

...and he talks again...!

UCLA’s epidemiology department’s book review and John Snow site links

An interesting article about the more recent 2010 outbreak in Haiti, with a picture of the sort

of thing that I would be looking for at work! A sample requesting, or suspect for Vibrio cholerae

undergoes an enrichment stage before being plated onto selective agar with all the right ingredients that Cholera bacteria like! The result is the growth of these yellow colonies. You don’t really want to grow them!!

OK, perhaps a bit technical – Quorum Sensing is the name given when bacteria live together in a film and have to communicate with each other – basic survival. This is done through chemical sensing of the environment, and most weirdly, sensing the group’s needs. It has been revolutionary in helping to understand why infections persist within the body when antibiotics should have worked, and has been crucial, as with cholera, in understanding how bacteria know when to resume the next stage of their life cycle:

There’s any amount of book reviews on the internet, and even the Wikipedia page is worth a brief glance (though it wasn’t me what said that, honest guv!!) I’ll try and get hold of a diagram to show how the bacteria have such a devastating effect on the human body (always cheerful!), but in the meantime, happy reading!

Links for the next meeting - When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

A review on Huffington Post culture blog (favourable)

A review on the Canadia Globe and Mail (less-favourable)

Sarah Winman talks to Richard & Judy

A random bookshop owner (employee?) interviews Sarah Winman

And a podcast (courtesy of Robin), which talks about the book from the point of view of the publishers -- a rare insight

Some discussion questions to make you think before the meeting

See you on Wednesday!

Links for the next meeting - The Hare With The Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

Official site, including netsuke gallery, and reading guide