Free Choice Genre Discussion

[Heidi M Simone]

I thought it might be fun to have a free choice month, so for this month's genre discussion, you can decide what book/genre you would like to read. By sharing our genre choice, we might inspire others to choose either the same genre for their next read or even the book we've read!

As we begin this month, please consider the following as a guide to our discussion:

• What did you read or what do you think you'll be reading?
• What genre(s) does it fall under? Is this your typical genre of choice?
• Can you tell us a little about the book?
• Would you recommend this? Why or why not?

As always, let's have some fun this month!

[srividyag1]

I’m currently reading “The Silent patient” by Alex Michaelides. It’s a psychological thriller which is one of my favourite genres. The book is about a lady who killed her husband, and then has not spoken a word since then. She’s convicted, but institutionalised on grounds of mental illness. A psychotherapist is trying to make her open up, but he has a lot of dark secrets himself. From all the reviews I’ve read and from the 80+ pages I’ve read till now, I’ll definitely recommend this book. It resonates with me a lot since I’m also a psychologist. So I’m able to understand the psychotherapist, Theo’s, motivations and ethical conundrums.

[SmrutiS]

I have just begun with a text written by Kamala Das entitled 'My Story'. Autobiographies are not a genre that I love, since I feel they are dry. But at the same time, I am interested in how authors 'choose' to present to the readers snippets of their life that would make them popular and etch them in the minds of the readers. But then, what drove me to pick this particular text was, the reviews said that this one depicted a taboo topic that we would not normally want to talk about - sexuality of a woman. This text is supposed to be a very frank and candid expression of the author and in a society like India, many eyebrows were raised when the book was published.

[SavannaEGoth]

I'm currently on the hunt for a new book to review, but when I'm in-between books or in a reading slump I tend to fall back on fantasy books I read when I was younger. My favorite series were Warriors by Erin Hunter and The Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky. I love fantasy stories from the perspectives of animals and mythical creatures. Always have always will. Having an author interpret and utilize animal behavior and incorporate it into their characters and their mannerisms and societies is a lot of fun for me to read. I'm just a sucker for talking animals.

The first series I mentioned follows wild clans of feral cats who battle for territory and hunting rights. They live by a code in organized hierarchies and live to serve their individual clans while going to war if the need arises. There are prophecies, quests, forbidden romances, betrayals, and even murders. You follow different generations in each of the series, and with so many additional novellas, comics, guides, and super editions to choose from outside of the main series there's always something to occupy your time.

The second series follows the different kingdoms of owls in a fictional world seemingly without knowledge. The birds are so advanced that they have written language, books, forges, weapons and armor, and architecture. The series initially follows young owlets who are captured from their homes to be raised as soldiers for a nefarious, dark owl. A band of owls and escaped owlets attempt to find the Guardians of the legendary tree of Ga'Hoole to free their kind from the clutches of the murderous enemy.

Both books have been described as The Lord of the Rings but with cats/owls. They are aimed at younger readers, but they don't sugar-coat conflict or battle and death scenes. Thet treat their audiences maturely enough that even as an adult I can still get a lot of entertainment our of them.

[Adair]

I have recently read the historical fiction genre work titled To Capture What We Cannot Keep by Beatrice Colin. It is a true to life story of four young people defining themselves during the late 19th century against the backdrop of the building of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The brother and sister of a wealthy Scottish industrialist, Jamie and Alice, are chaperoned by Cait to live in Paris while Jamie works on the Eiffel Tower site. The industrialist father`s not so hidden agenda is for his company to begin working with Gustave Eiffel. Caught in the middle is Jamie`s boss, Emile who falls in love with Cait who, in turn, reciprocates the affection. The pretense for the trip was mainly that Alice find a husband except, Alice seemed unable to find romance and found herself giving advice to Cait. I enjoyed the weaving story themes of the stages of the Eiffel Tower`s construction with the changing relationship dynamics between the four leading characters. This technique of combining story threads is what attracts me to this genre and I expect others would be drawn to imagine what it may have been like to be alive at different times.

[Adair]

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey falls into one of my favorite genres which is historical fiction. The story is set in Alaska late in the 19th century where explorer Henry T. Allen leaves his pregnant young wife, Sophie, to embark upon mapping one of the largest unexplored waterways in the region. It is potentially hostile territory both in terms of the topography and the indigenous population who he encounters periodically and learns to appreciate their foreign customs. Meanwhile, Sophie takes up the newest invention of technology at the time which is photography and the reader experiences her learning curve of what it took to produce even one clear (not in the least blurry) picture of a bird in a tree. I particularly enjoyed this subject matter since it was relatively outside of my own frame of topical knowledge and was about people in a different time period adapting to what was completely new and foreign. I would guess many others who enjoy letting their imaginations wander over realistic possibilities of a past and different era would enjoy this work.

[Adair]

A different type of historical fiction is represented with the book When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation by François Furstenberg. While the author has been acclaimed for translating historical accounts and then documenting the influence of French expats in the capital of the United States of the late 1700`s, Philadelphia, he inserts many cultural conjectures, based upon norms of the time. The effect is one of reading historical accounts interspersed with snapshots, or vignettes, of what daily life may very well have been like, but not on the level of historical certainty. I found this approach to be a fresh new read that I`m sure others would enjoy also.

[Adair]

Another different approach to historical fiction is found in Covenant with Death by John Harris. It is set in World War I with fictional characters yet, as every reader of historical fiction knows, this subject requires the utmost of factual accuracy where arguably the only fictional aspects surround the invented characters who end up with story lines exemplified many thousands of times over in real life. In this account, Mark Fenner from England has joined the war effort with many of his pals who together experience a very vivid series of battles on the continent, leaving the reader with multiple impressions of the reality of this war. It is a serious undertaking to read. However, I`m sure almost everyone at some point will want to have read such a tale, if only to have a realistic frame of reference about this generational defining event.

[Adair]

A genre which is difficult to write without coming across as a text book is that of war non-fiction. Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark is an Illuminating examination of the forces behind the outbreak of World War 1 based upon the premise that each empire`s planned actions, appeared in retrospect to be, first of all, not strongly rooted in avoiding conflict, and secondly, very motivated by possible domino-like scenarios including neighboring empire`s acting to cancel their own troops time off (as an early indicator that troops might be amassing soon at the border). This book tells a logical, riveting story that keeps the reader`s interest and offers the answer that there were realistic story threads underlining the empires` actions.

[Adair]

One of my favorite genres of which there are amazingly few examples is that of non-fiction science books focused on the very latest, up to the month, advances in science. In the case of MASS by Jim Baggott, not only is this premise achieved, he also effectively takes the reader on a journey of what the concept of the mass of an object or particle has meant throughout recorded time. This is intriguing because, of course, in current quantum physics science, the scale of a particle`s mass is almost infinitely small. A substantial amount of the discussion centers around the Higgs boson particle in terms of a) how it became clear that it was only a matter of time until a discrete discovery was achieved, b) the exact particle interactions that can make a Higgs boson, and c) since a Higgs can give mass, what the new concept of potentially creating mass from virtual particles means to a possible new definition of mass. This is not an easy read, however it is very current and educational in the sense of knowing the edge of science. For this reason, I would recommend the general population reads, and maybe even reviews a few pages a second time.

[Adair]

The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean Carroll is a thorough documentary of the history behind the building of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN complex underneath France and Switzerland where the Higgs boson was discovered. As such, it would be in the genre of science non-fiction. Carroll focuses on the history of particle colliders in terms of what they had previously discovered and how they are designed towards specific types of discoveries. He also dives deep into the details of the science which the theoretical physicists had prepared in their search for the Higgs boson particle, billed as the last remaining particle not yet found in the Standard Model which itself had been derived from Einstein`s theories. The fact that this book was published shortly after the Higgs discovery acts as a sort of story climax with a happy ending, as if to say, it was all worth it. While some readers might have to wade through quantum mathematics in order to appreciate the story threads that Carroll has to offer, the book is essentially one of real life, current day, scientific discovery and for that reason I strongly recommend it.

[Heidi M Simone]

It's interesting how many books are out there that I've never heard of! Thank you all for sharing!

My favorite genre is fantasy, so I read a young adult fantasy for this month. I read The Deepest Blue by Sarah Beth Durst. The idea of water spirits, air spirits, and earth spirits definitely make this into a fantasy. It also included some romance and coming-of-age, which I really enjoyed.

The story follows Mayara, a young woman, who has a secret that she's been trying to hide. However, on her wedding day when a severe threat comes, she is forced to use her power to protect those she loves. By using her powers, though, she is exposed and now must serve the queen. Before she can do that, she, along with other women who hold the same power, are placed on an island to see who will survive. Will she able to? What about the other threats that surround her, will she survive those?

I actually really enjoyed this one - it was fun, sweet in some parts, and had good world building. When I first picked up this book, I didn't realize that there is a trilogy prior to the release of this one. Because I enjoyed it so much, I do plan on reading the author's other books.

For those who enjoy young adult fantasies that is set on an island, then I'm sure you'd enjoy this one!

[CinWin]

I read Final Notice - finally. Everyone else has probably already read it. I enjoyed it because it pertained to what the US is facing today in the form of gun control, minority discrimination, and aging. However, I am still trying to decide what I would do if I only had ten days left to live. I guess my time would be up by now, so it is a moot subject.