Arboretum Library: Book Club reads from 2019

“As Opal’s mother says, ‘You have to know that we should never not tell our stories.’ [It] describes how untold stories can become a wound, and how false stories hurt. Perhaps to tell your own story is an attempt to heal, at least a little...[The book] itself is a kind of dance. Even in its tragic details, it is lyrical and playful, shaking and shimmering with energy. The novel dips into the tiniest personal details and sweeps across history. Orange, like Orvil, creates beauty out of tragedy. Yet the novel remains a warning about the desolation that results when you separate parents from their children and try to eradicate a people.”—Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, The Guardian.

"This is a novel about what it means to inhabit a land both yours and stolen from you, to simultaneously contend with the weight of belonging and unbelonging. There is an organic power to this book--a revelatory, controlled chaos. Tommy Orange writes the way a storm makes landfall." --Omar El Akkad, author of American War.
Tommy Orange's "groundbreaking, extraordinary" (The New York Times) There There is the "brilliant, propulsive" (People Magazine) story of twelve unforgettable characters, Urban Indians living in Oakland, California, who converge and collide on one fateful day. It's "the year's most galvanizing debut novel" (Entertainment Weekly).
As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland Powwow--some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent--momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. It's "masterful . . . white-hot . . . devastating" (The Washington Post) at the same time as it is fierce, funny, suspenseful, thoroughly modern, and impossible to put down. Here is a voice we have never heard--a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. Tommy Orange has written a stunning novel that grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide. This is the book that everyone is talking about right now, and it's destined to be a classic.

Here are the questions discussed at the Reading the Western Landscape Book Club at the Arboretum Library of the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden on January 30, 2019:
• What about the ending?
• Who was your favorite character? Why?
• What did you think about the structure of the book?
• This is a debut novel? Does it seem like that to you? Why? Or Why not?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• What did you think about the first lines? What did it add? How?
• What did the sections/quotes in “Prologue”, “Remain”, “Reclaim”, “Interlude”, “Return”, “Powwow” do for the book?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: Have you ever been confronted, even ever so briefly, in a culture you didn’t understand? When? What made you realize you didn’t understand? How did you try to understand?

“[It] is the result of this award-winning journalist’s years of contemplating and writing about the arts, culture, and social issues of Los Angeles, always with an emphasis on place and the identity of the people who live in—or leave—... [She] explored place after place that makes the city tick, met person after person, and encountered the cumulative heart of the city. … [Her] reportage focused on Los Angeles beneath-the-surface—both the past and the here-and-now ”—Publisher’s website

Here are the questions discussed on Wednesday, February 20, 2019:
• How does this book confirm or shift your view of the LA and/or the west?
• Who was your favorite person in the book? Why?
• What is the overarching theme of this book?
• What did the pictures do for the book?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• Tell us about a passage that resonated for you as the flavor of your LA too?
• What is unique about the author’s experience?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: How long have you lived in the Los Angeles area? What change did you most revolt against?

“[She] knows these characters and this world [northern New Mexico]; she knows their importance, their reality, and their humanity...Instead of cultural tourism, there is authorial assuredness and the earnest investigation of human experience. ...[Her] fiction invokes a circus of a different name and is closer to the meaning of carnival itself: a site of inherent contradictions where the wounds and revels of the flesh are a means to access the holy. With each story we experience... a moment in which profane reality is transformed into the visceral, messy, and revelatory sacred.”—Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes, The Georgia Review

With intensity and emotional precision, Kirstin Valdez Quade's unforgettable stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters defined by the desire to escape the past or else to plumb its depths. The deadbeat father of a pregnant teenager tries to transform his life by playing the role of Jesus in a bloody penitential Passion. A young man discovers that his estranged father and a boa constrictor have been squatting in his grandmother's empty house. A lonely retiree new to Santa Fe becomes obsessed with her housekeeper. One girl attempts to uncover the mystery of her cousin's violent past, while another young woman finds herself at an impasse when she is asked to hear her priest's confession.Always hopeful, these stories chart the passions and obligations of family life, exploring themes of race, class, and coming-of-age, as Quade's characters protect, betray, wound, undermine, bolster, define, and, ultimately, save each other.

These are the questions discussed on March 20, 2019:
• Generally what is the author trying to tell us?
• Why did the author end the bulk of the stories the way she did?
• Any ambiguities to clear up before we get going?
• “Nemecia”
o Did you believe the premise? If not, what does that do for your reading of this story?
• “Mojave Rats”
o Are we seeing the point of view of the mother or the daughter? Why?
• “The Five Wounds”
o Was this story primarily about northern New Mexican religious traditions or family/community relations? Why?
• “Night at the Fiestas”
o Why did the guy walk by the bus station in the end? What did that do for the story?
• “The Guesthouse”
o Did you believe the story? Why? Why not?
• “Family Reunion”
o What did Claire learn?
• ”Jubilee”
o How, can you reconcile those differences in socioeconomic status?
• “Ordinary Sins”
o Why did she stay sitting with Father Paul?
• “Canute Commands the Tides”?
o Does this story fit in with the other ones? How? How not?
• “The Manzanos”
o Is there any kind of epiphany in this story?

Icebreaker: Tell of a time when you realized that there was great socioeconomic disparity in situation you found yourself in.

“Fox's book is a linked series of five essays on the complicated way that the natural world coexists with big-city Los Angeles. ...He is at his most memorable in explaining the peculiar balance between urbanism and industry in Los Angeles; he describes a number of places where Los Angeles the global city disappears and an entirely different landscape -- wilder or more industrial -- takes it place.”—Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times

William L. Fox is a longtime explorer of cognition and landscape -- the notion of what makes a space into a place. In this book he turns his gaze on Los Angeles, a city dominated by the movie industry, which specializes in bringing places from far away in time into what we experience as here and now -- making time, in essence. Time, Fox tells us, is the most invisible nature of all, "its effects are always and everywhere around us." The five essays of this collection take us to the Le Brea Tar Pits and local oilfields, the telescopes and telecommunication towers of Mt. Wilson, massive landfills, the Forest Lawn Memorial and Griffith parks, a Hollywood special effects firm, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. All of these facilities are devoted to manipulating time on our behalf, be it how we represent prehistory, attempt to maintain an identity after death, or make movies on Mars. A master of combining science, history, and his own experiences into a riveting read, Fox will make you look at L.A. -- and any urban landscape -- in an entirely new way.

Here are the questions discussed on April 24, 2019:

• How does this book confirm or shift your view of the LA and/or the west?
• Who was your favorite person in the book? Why?
• What is the overarching theme of this book?
• How did the musings on time effect your reading of the book?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• Can you recall a passage that resonated for you as the flavor of your LA too? What is it?
• What is unique about the author’s experience?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: Have you been to any of these sites? Do you have a story to tell about them from your life?

They mix Wilder’s common-sense advice, acute observations of Americana, and nostalgia for her childhood. Some radiate the pioneer virtues, spirited optimism, and pluck that give Wilder’s books enduring appeal. ... A number of letters provide rich descriptions of road trips through California and the still untamed West. ...Wilder’s letters display a writer who kept her head amid growing fame, remaining sweet, down-to-earth, and immensely likable until her death in 1957.”— Publisher’s Weekly

Available for the first time and collected in one volume, the letters of one of America's most beloved authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder--a treasure trove that offers new and unexpected understanding of her life and work. The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a vibrant, deeply personal portrait of this revered American author, illuminating her thoughts, travels, philosophies, writing career, and dealings with family, friends, and fans as never before. This is a fresh look at the adult life of the author in her own words. Gathered from museums and archives and personal collections, the letters span over sixty years of Wilder's life, from 1894-1956 and shed new light on Wilder's day-to-day life. Here we see her as a businesswoman and author--including her beloved Little House books, her legendary editor, Ursula Nordstrom, and her readers--as a wife, and as a friend. In her letters, Wilder shares her philosophies, political opinions, and reminiscences of life as a frontier child. Also included are letters to her daughter, writer Rose Wilder Lane, who filled a silent role as editor and collaborator while the famous Little House books were being written. Wilder biographer William Anderson collected and researched references throughout these letters and the result is an invaluable historical collection, tracing Wilder's life through the final days of covered wagon travel, her life as a farm woman, a country journalist, Depression-era author, and years of fame as the writer of the Little House books. This collection is a sequel to her beloved books, and a snapshot into twentieth-century living.

Here are the questions discussed: May 29, 2019:
• How did the letters help you get to know the person?
• What was your favorite aspect of the author that you discovered through the letters?
• What did you think about how she handled aging?
• What surprised you about the letters?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• How did the editor do with the paucity of materials? Did that work/not work?
• What was your favorite historical fact?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: What were your favorite books as a child?

“Cantero’s imagination is vivid, and the story, once it gains speed, continues at a breakneck, roller-coaster pace. He plays with form and style, which makes for an enjoyable romp. Fans of modern takes on Lovecraft and those that are nostalgic for the cartoons of their childhood will like this novel, which is also a sure bet for your Stranger Things-themed display. — Carolyn Ciesla, Booklist


NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The story proves as cleverly witty as its title. It's filled with high jinks both terrorizing and hilarious." --USA Today   In 1977, four teenagers and a dog--Andy (the tomboy), Nate (the nerd), Kerri (the bookworm), Peter (the jock), and Tim (the Weimaraner)--solved the mystery of Sleepy Lake. The trail of an amphibian monster terrorizing the quiet town of Blyton Hills leads the gang to spend a night in Deboën Mansion and apprehend a familiar culprit: a bitter old man in a mask.  Now, in 1990, the twenty-something former teen detectives are lost souls. Plagued by night terrors and Peter's tragic death, the three survivors have been running from their demons. When the man they apprehended all those years ago makes parole, Andy tracks him down to confirm what she's always known--they got the wrong guy. Now she'll need to get the gang back together and return to Blyton Hills to find out what really happened in 1977, and this time, she's sure they're not looking for another man in a mask. A mad scientist's concoction of H. P. Lovecraft, teen detectives, and a love of Americana, Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids is a story filled with rich horror, thrilling twists, outright hilarity, and surprising poignancy.

These are the questions discussed on Wednesday, June 26, 2019:
• How did the book use landscape, real or imagined?
• One of the Goodreads reviews called it a “romp.” Do you agree with that? Why/Why not?
• What aspects of this book do you think made it into a bestseller?
• Who was your favorite character? Why?
• What surprised you about the book?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• How was the author’s portrayal of people of color or LBGTQ?
• What did you think of the romance?
• What did you think of Peter? Both dead and hallucination.
• Is this fan fiction? Why? Why not?
• What was up with the dog?
• Why do you think the author used quotes for some of the dialog and screen writing dialog style for others?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: Who is your favorite mystery or science fiction writer? Why?

“In 1926... [the author] packed her five young children into a twenty-five-foot boat and, for the next fifteen summers, they cruised the ragged, perforated coastline of British Columbia. Following deep, narrow fjords walled in by towering mountains, sheltering in uncharted coves, touring the abandoned winter villages of “the coast Indians”—Blanchet...created with her kids “a little realm of our own making” and explored it exhaustively. ...[S]he produced a superlative text of travel writing and of the Pacific Northwest.— Murat Oztaskin, New Yorker

"Our world then was both wide and narrow -- wide in the immensity of sea and mountain; narrow in that the boat was very small, and we lived and camped, explored and swam in a little realm of our own making." -- M. Wylie Blanchet The 50th anniversary edition of this coastal British Columbia classic, now in beautifully illustrated hardcover, will make a timeless keepsake. This is a biography and astonishing adventure story of a woman who, left a widow in 1927, packed her five children onto a 25-foot boat and cruised the coastal waters of British Columbia, summer after summer. Muriel Wylie Blanchet acted single-handedly as skipper, navigator, engineer and, of course, mother, as she saw her crew through encounters with tides, fog, storms, rapids, cougars and bears. She sharpened in her children a special interest in Haida culture and in nature itself. In this book, she left us with a sensitive and compelling account of their journeys.

Here are the questions discussed on July 24, 2019:
• What surprised you about this book?
• What are some examples in the book that really makes it of its time?
• What did you think about her parenting skills?
• What did you think about the writing style?
• Should this have been a book? Why?/Why not?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• Did you believe all she had to tell?
• What was the most striking part of the landscape for you?
• Why did you think she focused on the two boys almost exclusively?
• What did you think about the “California man”?
• I perceived some of the stories and nail-bitingly dangerous? Did you? Is that what she intended?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

Icebreaker: Can you tell a brief story about a time you were on a boat?

“[O]n 29 April 1986...the LA library caught fire, destroying more than 400,000 books and devastating the community reliant on its resources...This book is a homage not just to the spirit and resilience of those who rebuilt the library, but to those whose lives are transformed by these public palaces of reading, on both sides of the lending desk. ...Orlean moves smoothly between dealing with the fire and its aftermath, the life of the resurrected library today, and its foundation and subsequent history.”— Alexander Larman, The Guardian

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018

"A constant pleasure to read...Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book." --The Washington Post

"CAPTIVATING...DELIGHTFUL." --Christian Science Monitor * "EXQUISITELY WRITTEN, CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING." --The New York Times *
"MESMERIZING...RIVETING." --Booklist (starred review)

A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution--and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries--from the bestselling author hailed as a "national treasure" by The Washington Post . On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie.'" The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library--and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present--from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as "The Human Encyclopedia" who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves. Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books--and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist's reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

Here are the questions discussed on August 28, 2019:
• What surprised you about this book?
• What do you think this book is about?
• Do you think Harry Peak started the fire? Why/Why not?
• Did the chapter entry points (library cards) make sense to you?
• Should this have been a book? Why?/Why not?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• The tale she told seemed very scattered to me? Why? Did it coalesce for you? Why?
• Did you get any special sense of LA from this book? Why? Why not?
• Why did you think she focused on particular issues that were beyond the fire?
• Do you think these are the right issues to explore about libraries? Why? Why not?
o Were there other issues that would have been more important to bring up?
• What were her best ideas about libraries?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• If you were the author or editor what is one thing you might change about the book?

“In crime novels, information is everything...and in [this book] all this is done with brilliance. The flow of the narrative, at times garrulous, gossipy, inventive, deadpan and above all ironic, disperses information in a manner that allows Tom Spellacy to act on it and close the narrative net until it captures the truth--which in the nihilistic world of jaded police and clergymen doesn’t do anyone a bit of good. [It] is a novel that even the least sensitive readers can feel vibrate in their hands.”—J. Kingston Pierce, Rap Sheet

In 1940s Los Angeles, an unidentified murder victim is found bisected in a shadowy lot. A catchy nickname is given her in jest--"The Virgin Tramp"--and suddenly a "nice little homicide that would have drifted off the front pages in a couple of days" becomes a storm center. Two brothers, Tom and Des Spellacy, are at the heart of this powerful novel of Irish-Catholic life in Southern California just after World War II. Played in the film version by Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro respectively, Tom is a homicide detective and Des is a priest on the rise within the Church. The murder investigation provides the background against which are played the ever changing loyalties of the two brothers. Theirs is a world of favors and fixes, power and promises, inhabited by priests and pimps, cops and contractors, boxers and jockeys and lesbian fight promoters and lawyers who know how to put the fix in. A fast-paced and often hilarious classic of contemporary fiction, True Confessions is about a crime that has no solutions, only victims. More important, it is about the complex relationship between Tom and Des Spellacy, each tainted with the guilt and hostility that separate brothers.

Here are the questions discussed September 25, 2019:

• What surprised you about this book?
• What do you think this book is about?
• What did you think about the way the book started as opposed to how the later chapters worked?
• What did you think about the changes in narrator? Did that work/not work? Why?
• Did this book seem like a realistic portrayal of LA of its time or fanciful? Examples?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• What did you think about the female characters? What about the imbedded misogyny?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up? Or what happened in the end?
• What did you think about the relationship between the brothers?
• How was the author’s writing style? Good? Or what could be improved?
• What were your emotions as you read the book?
• How has this book aged?

Icebreaker: Tell a story about a person you have known whose religion shaped them in some way?

National bestseller 2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist ABA Indies Introduce Winter / Spring 2017 Selection Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Spring 2017 Selection ALA 2018 Notable Books Selection An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family's journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui.   This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.   At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent--the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.   In what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls "a book to break your heart and heal it," The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui's journey of understanding, and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.

Here are the questions discussed on October 30, 2019:

• How did being a graphic novel improve or not improve this story?
• Is this a straightforward story? Why/Why not?
• What did you like/not like about the art?
• What stayed with you after you finished reading the book?
• Do you think writing this book improved the author’s relationships in her family?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• Who was your favorite character? Why/Why not?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• What was amazing about this story?
• What were your emotions as you read the book?
• What did you think about the ending? Do you think the author has some semblance of peace?

Icebreaker: Tell about your decision process when you had to leave something?

“Socrates, drunk and enraged, murdered... for which he spent 27 years in the penitentiary. Now he wants to do something good...He is ...a fully dimensioned, unexpected character with something to say...He has also evoked an entire world of language, strivings and personalities that few...readers will have encountered in their own lives. Moreover, Mosley is a ...Wynton Marsalis of the printed page, his themes subtly, obliquely, quietly stated, almost imperceptibly bubbling up from the rhythms of ordinary life...[W]e gain a sustained and compelling view of a struggle for redemption we won't soon forget.”—Richard Bernstein—New York Times

From the best-selling author of A Little Yellow Dog -- the eagerly awaited debut of Socrates Fortlow, a bold and original new hero. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned introduces Walter Mosley's most compelling new character since the debut of his immortal detective Easy Rawlins: one Socrates Fortlow, a tough, brooding ex-convict determined to challenge and understand the violence and anarchy in his world -- and in himself.Three decades ago, the young Socrates had, in a burst of drunken rage, murdered a man and a woman with his huge rock-breaking hands. Twenty-seven years of hard time in an Indiana prison followed. Now Socrates lives in a cramped, two-room apartment in an abandoned building in Watts, scavenging bottles and delivering groceries for a supermarket. In each of the stories that comprise this richly brooding novel, Socrates Fortlow, like his namesake, explores philosophical questions of morality in a world beset with crime, poverty, and racism. He is an unforgettable presence and his perceptions cast a glow of somber lyricism upon an often harsh world. Socrates is a creation of stunning originality; the book he inhabits is Walter Mosley's most powerful and eloquent to date.

Here are the questions we discussed on Tuesday, November 19, 2019:
• What did you think of the moral ambiguities in this book?
• Do you think the author planned turning this into a book?
• Do you want to read the other two in the series? Why/Why not?
• Was LA a character in this book? Why? How?/Why not?
• What do you admire about Socrates?
• Are there things that are frustrating about Socrates? What?
• What did you like best about this book/least?
• Who was your favorite character?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• What do you think compelled the author to write this book?
• Did the stories work well with each other? Why/Why not?

Icebreaker: Tell about a time when your major mode of transportation was not a car.

“This delightful, provocative collection is subdivided into five sections that are not easily categorized. Rios, who grew up in the borderland culture of Nogales, Arizona, writes about this culture and his childhood...family and local legends... the Sonoran desert and its animal life...and the complexities and wonder of human experience and human relationships...Rios deals with both the real and the imagined, often moving from the former to the latter. Deceptively simple language lures the reader into the rich, original landscape of the poet’s vision." Felice Aull—Literature, Arts, Medicine Database

National Book Award finalist Alberto Ríos explains the world not through reason but magic. These poems--set in a town that straddles Mexico and Arizona--are lyric adventures, crossing two and three boundaries as easily as one, between cultures, between languages, between senses. Drawing upon fable, parable, and family legend, Ríos utilizes the intense and supple imagination of childhood to find and preserve history beyond facts: plastic lemons turning into baseballs, a grandmother's long hair reaching up to save her life, the painted faith jumpers leaping to the earth and crowd below. This is magical realism at its shimmering best. "Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie and magical perception, and of the threshold between this world and the world just beyond. With humor, compassion, and intelligence, Ríos's poems overlay a child's observation and imagination onto our society of daily inequity, poverty, and violence. The light of memory shines on culture, language, family, neighbors, and friends saving them all in stories that become legends, a light so sensual and full it is 'swallowed into the mouth of the eye, /into the throat of the people.'"--National Book Award Judges' comments "Alberto Ríos is a poet of reverie... Whether talking about the smell of food, the essence of a crow or a bear's character or of hard-won human wisdom, Ríos writes in a serenely clear manner that enhances the drama in the quick scenes he summons up."--The New York Times Book Review "... Rios's verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili."--The Christian Science Monitor "Alberto Ríos is the man you want to sit next to when it is time to hear a story."--Southwest BookViews "InThe Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, Alberto Ríos doesn't borrow a myth. Rather, he finds the myth underlying his own life--myth that translates effectively because it is not confined by language. The images of Ríos' life are so vivid, it is as if he has written a picture book that anyone can understand."--The Home & News Tribune "In his new book of poems, Alberto Ríos has given us evidence and motive for celebration. Ríos' poems follow a path of wonder and gently move us to emotional truths that grab our breath and link our inner and outer landscapes. His alchemy works a transformation in the inner vision, turning us toward the deeper mystery of life itself."--American Book Review Alberto Ríosteaches at Arizona State and is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir about growing up on the Mexican border. He is the recipient of numerous awards and his work is included in over 175 national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.

As we did last December, the group read their favorite poems from the book and we briefly discussed some of their challenges.
The titles we read were:
The Weekly Morning Meeting of the Town's Civic Band
Mr. Palomino Walks By Again
Los voladores de Papantla
Appointment Hours
Kid Hielero
In Second Grade Miss Lee I Promised Never to Forget
You and I Never Did
The Cities Inside Us
What We've Done to Each Other
Oranges in a Tree
The Fall of the Bears
Chinese Food in the Fifties
A September Death
Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science
but not in that order....

Icebreaker: Do you have a story about any of the fruits on the cover of this book?