Honors Book Club
The Honors Book Club was all about getting to read books and have great conversations about them afterwards. As any book club should do. The individuals that took part in the book club also completed projects along with normal classwork. We read four different books during the book club. First we read The Stranger by Albert Camus, then Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, then A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (My personal favorite), and last but not least The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
The book that left the biggest impact on me during the book club was A Tale for the Time Being. Not only was it well written with a great story line, it was interesting in the way that the two main characters developed separately from each other (on opposing sides of an ocean) but could still have profound affects on each others lives. It was less an education about how the power of words can affect people but rather a teaching on quantum physics and how they could and can be very real. It is an ode to the idea that anything is possible and is in the same realm as Interstellar. Throughout this whole book club experience I would say that the greatest thing that I have learned was that intertextuality is everywhere and cannot be ignored. The importance of being able to relate, in some way to every text that was read was important to the book club experience. Reflection and simple thought can bring you the most profound connections or ideas, which would've been much harder to reach if I had not found some way to bring each text into some kind of context that made it easier for my mind to rap around.
Well, as a person who has never participated in a book club of any form before, I can happily say that I would participate in another if I got the chance. The academic experience of reflecting on a text in an intimate setting was rewarding. Reading a book and keeping the thoughts to myself can only last me so long, getting the chance to discuss and sometimes debate a text was a more than welcome experience for me. It was tiring and sometimes confusing to take on the extra weight of often reading two books, not including the third book that I was reading at home. Not that doing so is particularly hard but keeping the books straight or keeping the details vivid was often quite a chore. Overcoming this simply came down to reading them and then having a discussion with my mother, of all people, about what happened in the piece that I had just read. It certainly was fun once I got past the two books at once deal, and it did turn into a fun personal experience as well. I say this because I like reading books. In a book club you read books, little known fact, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I thank my classmates and especially my teacher for finishing out what has been a great school year, it has been unforgettable.
The book that left the biggest impact on me during the book club was A Tale for the Time Being. Not only was it well written with a great story line, it was interesting in the way that the two main characters developed separately from each other (on opposing sides of an ocean) but could still have profound affects on each others lives. It was less an education about how the power of words can affect people but rather a teaching on quantum physics and how they could and can be very real. It is an ode to the idea that anything is possible and is in the same realm as Interstellar. Throughout this whole book club experience I would say that the greatest thing that I have learned was that intertextuality is everywhere and cannot be ignored. The importance of being able to relate, in some way to every text that was read was important to the book club experience. Reflection and simple thought can bring you the most profound connections or ideas, which would've been much harder to reach if I had not found some way to bring each text into some kind of context that made it easier for my mind to rap around.
Well, as a person who has never participated in a book club of any form before, I can happily say that I would participate in another if I got the chance. The academic experience of reflecting on a text in an intimate setting was rewarding. Reading a book and keeping the thoughts to myself can only last me so long, getting the chance to discuss and sometimes debate a text was a more than welcome experience for me. It was tiring and sometimes confusing to take on the extra weight of often reading two books, not including the third book that I was reading at home. Not that doing so is particularly hard but keeping the books straight or keeping the details vivid was often quite a chore. Overcoming this simply came down to reading them and then having a discussion with my mother, of all people, about what happened in the piece that I had just read. It certainly was fun once I got past the two books at once deal, and it did turn into a fun personal experience as well. I say this because I like reading books. In a book club you read books, little known fact, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I thank my classmates and especially my teacher for finishing out what has been a great school year, it has been unforgettable.