Readalikes: If you enjoyed October's selection . . .

Autumn is the perfect time to enjoy a warm drink, a good book, and a cozy conversation! If you liked Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard, then you might also enjoy these other books recommended by our discussion group members:

• The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
• Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan
• Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones: Selected and New Poems by Lucia Perillo
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

October Not Fiction Book Discussions

Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard is the first in a seasonal quartet of books, Seasonal Encyclopedia, addressed to his unborn daughter, contemplating the question, "What makes life worth living?" His answer is paying close attention to the ordinary things of our daily lives. "These astounding things, which you will soon encounter and see for yourself, are so easy to lose sight of, and there are almost as many ways of doing that as there are people. That is why I am writing this book for you. I want to show you the world, as it is, all around us, all the time. Only by doing so will I myself be able to glimpse it." In these sixty brief essays, nothing is beneath his consideration: apples, teeth, piss, chewing gum, fever, autumn leaves, lice, Van Gogh, tin cans, vomit.

What do you think? Is the premise, that these essays are addressed to an unborn child who has never experienced the world outside her mother's womb, believable? Which essays surprised or delighted you? Which were not as interesting? Do the essays seems to be a random assortment of topics, or did you discern a theme? Does the book amount to more than the sum of its parts? How do you think Knausgaard's complicated relationship with his own father inform these essays to his unborn child? What view of the world "as it is, all around us, all the time" emerges from these essays? How do the illustrations fit into the narrative? Have you read any of Knausgaard's massive six-volume autofiction My Struggle, the sixth volume of which was just published in the United States in September? How do Autumn and the other three volumes in the quartet compare in scope, style, and interest to My Struggle?

We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, October 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 18, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed September's selection . . .

If you liked You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie, then you might also enjoy these books recommended by our discussion group members:

• The Leaphorn and Chee novels about the Navajo tribal police by Tony Hillerman
• The Love Medicine and Justice series by Louise Erdrich
• Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
• Elsewhere: A Memoir by Richard Russo
• Son of a Gun: A Memoir by Justin St. Germain
• Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

September Not Fiction Book Discussions

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie is a story of grief as complicated in form and content as the life it describes. Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, is the author of one of the most censored and yet beloved young adult novels in the United States, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, along with over twenty other books and films. Alexie says, "This book is a series of circles, sacred and profane." Repetitive and metaphorical in form and language, his narrative circles around his difficult relationship with his mother, his Native American heritage, his childhood of poverty and being bullied, his chronic health issues, his escape from the worst aspects of reservation life and his success as an author, and his deep need to belong and to be loved. Complicating any reading of Alexie's memoir even further is the fact that just months after its publication, a number of women authors, some of them Native American, accused him of using his fame and power in the publishing world to make sexual advances and inappropriate remarks over the years of his success. Alexie made a public apology and declined the American Library Association's 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. His publisher, Little, Brown, has delayed the publication of the paperback edition of the book. He has posted an open letter on his website saying that he has stepped away from public life for a while.

What do you think? How do you read Alexie's memoir in light of these recent events, and these events in light of the memoir? Is it possible to read the book on its own terms without reference to the allegations? An important question of the #metoo movement is whether we should even patronize the work of an artist guilty of ethical misconduct. What do we learn about Lillian Alexie? About reservation life in the 20th century? About the "spiritual burden" of being the last generation fully immersed in Native American language and tradition? About the experience of being "a first-generation cultural immigrant to the United States"? About the ways in which trauma can be cultural, generational, and personal? About our own cultural blindspots and our own willingness to judge?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, September 4, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, September 20, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed August's selection . . .

If you enjoyed The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui, then you might also enjoy these books, television shows, and films recommended by our discussion group members:

Books

• The Lover by Marguerite Duras
• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
• Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
• The Book of My Lives by Alexander Hemon
• Monsoon Mansion by Cinelle Barnes
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
• The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• Alone by Christophe Chaboute

Television shows

• No Passport Required with Marcus Samuelsson on PBS

Films

• East Side Sushi directed by Anthony Lucero

August Not Fiction Book Discussions

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui is an autobiographical, multigenerational story of the immigrant experience. With immigration in the daily news, reading this complex and moving memoir is a timely opportunity to consider the effects of war and displacement on generations of a family as well as the evolving relationships between all parents and children.

Inspired by and in the tradition of graphic novels like Maus by Art Spiegelman and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Best We Could Do tells the story of Bui's family's immigration to the United States from Vietnam during the 1970s. The narrative moves between the present and the past, with the birth of Bui's son as the center of the narrative, a catalyst for her reflections on family. The book evolved over nearly two decades from a family visit to Vietnam, to an oral history project for graduate school, to a graphic memoir for which she taught herself the art of narrative illustration. With her mother living in a studio apartment in her backyard, her father living four blocks away, and her siblings and their families nearby, Bui was able to include her family in the remembering and the writing of this story.

Bui told interviewer Carly Lanning of NBC News,

I wrote it from a place of empathy and trying to understand my parents as human beings rather than as just my parents. I’m hoping that translates to readers. This political discourse around immigration is so divisive, and I’m hoping that this story and where it was made from will remind people just to empathize. They’re human beings just like everybody else and I hope that will cut through and remind people that these are human beings we’re talking about, not “others.

What do you think? What historical events are tied to your own family history, and did any of these events influence your family to immigrate to another country? How and when did you first learn of your family's experience? What factors contributed to Bui's parents' decision to leave Vietnam after the war ended? What would you have done in their place? What is the difference between leaving a country voluntarily and being forced to leave your homeland? What are some positive and negative effects of such a dislocation? Bui's cousins in Indiana, who had been in the United States longer than Bui's family, criticize her behavior, saying, "Don't be such a REFUGEE!" What do they mean by this comment? When you hear the word "refugee," what do you think of? How do perceptions of refugees affect their experience? Consider the national and international stories about refugees in the news today. How do they compare to the Buis' experience? What is the difference between being born into a family and creating one? What is the difference between proximity to family and closeness to family? How did Bui's parents' experience affect their relationship with their children? What are Bui's concerns for her own child? What do think Bui is saying with her book's title, The Best We Could Do? Bui says in her book that she was seeking "an origin story . . . that will set everything right?" Does she find what she was looking for, or something else? How do you feel the graphic novel format Bui chose to tell her story affected its message and the power of its story?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, August 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, August 16, at 11:00 a.m. West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed July's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, then you might also enjoy watching Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa cooking show and reading her cookbooks. Gay says in Hunger,

What I love most about Ina is that she teaches me about fostering a strong sense of self and self-confidence. She teaches me about being at ease in my body. From all appearances, she is entirely at ease with herself. She is ambitious and knows she is excellent at what she does and never apologizes for it. She teaches me  that a woman can be plump and pleasant and absolutely in love with food. She gives me permission to love food. She gives me permission to acknowledge my hungers and to try and satisfy them in healthy ways. She gives me permission to buy the "good" ingredients she is so fond of recommending so that I might make good food for myself and the people for whom I enjoy cooking. She gives me permission to embrace my ambition and believe in myself. In the case of Barefoot Contessa, a cooking show is far more than just a cooking show.

That's quite a recommendation.

And you might also enjoy watching Roxane Gay talk about her first big success as an essayist in Breaking Big, Episode 6, which will air July 20, 2018, on SC-ETV at 8:30 p.m. Here is a link to a clip from the program: https://video.scetv.org/video/roxane-gay-gets-noticed-jnmgdf/.