A Better Book Club

  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by  Mark Haddon 1.  On pages 45–48, Christopher describes his "Behavioral Problems" and the effect they had on his parents and their marriage. What is the effect of the dispassionate style in which he relates this information? 2.  Given Christopher's aversion to being touched, can he experience his parents' love for him, or can he only understand it as a fact, because they tell him they love him? Is there any evidence in the novel that he experiences a sense of attachment to other people? 3.  One of the unusual aspects of the novel is its inclusion of many maps and diagrams. How effective are these in helping the reader see the world through Christopher's eyes? 4.  What challenges does  The Curious Incident  present to the ways we usually think and talk about characters in novels? How does it force us to reexamine our normal ideas about love and desire, which are often the driving forces in fiction? Since Mark Ha

Discussion Questions In the Time of Butterflies             Minerva, Patria and María Teresa  Mirabal Although she does not reveal the details, Alvarez lets us know from the start that the novel will end tragically. Why do you think she made this choice? How do the sisters differ in personality, goals and self-expression? How does Alvarez dramatize these differences? How does the Trujillo regime portray itself? What means does it use to build a positive public image? How does this police state control its citizens? How do its methods develop over the course of the novel? What kinds of violence are directed against women both politically and socially? How do these forms of violence connect to the experiences of the men? Turning again to the men in the book.  Does the father make you feel sympathetic or judgemental? Do your feelings change as the book progresses?  Is Jaimito a good man or not?   Alvarez has said, "You can get rid of a dictator, but it's much harder to get rid of

Exerpt from Smithsonian article, Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction, by Erick Trickey  1. The man was bleeding, wounded in a bar fight, half-conscious. Charles Schuppert, a New Orleans surgeon, was summoned to help. It was the late 1870s, and Schuppert, like thousands of American doctors of his era, turned to the most effective drug in his kit. “I gave him an injection of morphine subcutaneously of ½ grain,” Schuppert wrote in his casebook. “This acted like a charm, as he came to in a minute from the stupor he was in and rested very easily.” 2. Physicians like Schuppert used morphine as a new-fangled wonder drug. Injected with a hypodermic syringe, the medication relieved pain, asthma, headaches, alcoholics’ delirium tremens, gastrointestinal diseases and menstrual cramps. “Doctors were really impressed by the speedy results they got,” says David T. Courtwright, author of   Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America .  “It’s almost as if someone ha

  1.  Do you think you could solve a real murder using only the skills learned by reading detective stories?  2. Both Arthur Conan Doyle and Harold think that they can solve a real crime?  Are they being naive? Imaginative? Foolish?  Inspired?  3.  Have you ever been so angry about the death of a fictional character that you could imagine physically accosting his/her creator?   The Londoners of 1893 were evidently so upset about the death of Holmes that they became almost violent with his "murderer", Arthur Conan Doyle?  Could you imagine feeling more hurt over the death of a fictional character than over the death of a real person?  4.  Do you think the ending of The Sherlockian is happy or sad?  Both Harold and Arthur are, in a sense, worse off than when they both began.  And yet the last chapter suggests that at least the fiction endures.  Is this consolation or redemption? 5. Arthur starts the book as a firm believer in chivalry, and he possesses a very typical--for the p

                                    "In the Clutches of the Chinese Tiger" Image shows a kitten marked "Chinese cheap labor" growing up to be a tiger that kills everybody in its path.   1. In  How Much of These Hills is Gold , Pam Zhang crafts a re-imagined American West, filled with magic and myth, at the height of the Gold Rush. The epigraph reads: "This land is not your land" but within Chapter One, Lucy recalls Ba’s words: "You remember you belong to this place as much as anybody." (24). What do you think the novel is saying about birthrights? Are they inherited or claimed? 2. Much is made about the burial process—for loved ones; for things and animals; for past selves. Is there a right way to honor the dead as seen in the novel? What does Sam’s decision to take the two silver dollars from Ba’s burial tell us about their relationship? 3. Ba and Sam are prone to fanciful storytelling. Consider the many stories told within the novel, as well as