Launching the Radio Galaxy Book Club
For all you faithful members of the BPP Book Club who said you would follow where I went, and for those who are joining us for the first time, the moment has come for the announcement of the first Radio Galaxy Book Club selection.
And it is…Like You’d Understand, Anyway, by Jim Shepard. I can’t tell you all how excited I am to be able to share it with you.
In this superb collection of short stories, Shepard inhabits the lives of an executioner during the French Revolution, a Roman soldier on patrol, a Soviet cosmonaut about to go into space, and an American boy at summer camp, among others. Each story is utterly engrossing and utterly different. Read this book and you’ll see why it was a finalist for the National Book Award and why it won the prestigious Story Prize.
Not only is he incredibly talented and prolific (he’s written six novels and two other collections of stories), Shepard is also a really nice guy. So he has agreed to do an interview with us, in the style of the old BPP Book Club, in which he’ll respond to some of the questions that come up in our discussion.
Then we’ll get you that interview, most likely in podcast form. Stick with us, we’re working on the details.
The paperback comes out August 12. We’ll give you at least a month to read it. I’ll be blogging about the book periodically here.
If you’d like to receive Radio Galaxy Book Club alerts, send me an e-mail here.
-- Filed by Sarah Goodyear
August 5th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
wow this is so exciting! i have LOVED the book club selections… reading things i probably never would’ve picked up on my own and being blown away! i’m very excited to pick this one up and read along. thanks so much for keeping it going sarah!
August 5th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Neato
I come home from my other job and find something awesome waiting for me.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:47 am
This sounds great! I am so excited to be able to continue to be a part of this club.
I look forward to reading this and discussing here.
August 6th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Here’s hoping I can get one the Austin library’s five copies!
August 6th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Yay!
August 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Hip, hip, hurray! Way to go, Sarah!
August 7th, 2008 at 5:02 am
My mouse is hovering over amazon’s “buy now” button as we speak.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Look forward to reading it. Yay for Radio Galaxy Book Club!
August 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I’m excited for this book. I just got it from the library today. In fact, I had a to quickly finish the book that I was reading — Bill Flanagan’s New Beldam — before I could start this.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:56 am
What a horrible novel! I got the title off the blog entry without reading much more because I wanted to go into the book with a completely open mind. I skipped even the dust jacket. Fresh as a daisy I plunged in last night. After the first 40 pages or so I was completely baffled. The author picked up and dropped characters at a whim. The plot seemed to be going in a dozen directions at once. Even the style varied from chapter to chapter. And don’t even get me started on the layout. Still there was some reason for hope. I liked the author’s prose and most of the characters were engaging, although under-developed. Bleary eyed and confused I put the book down at 10:30 and tried to drift off to sleep while simultaneously attempting to puzzle out the larger picture. One of my last thoughts was, “You know this reads a lot more like a collection of short stories than a novel.” Ohhhhh. I think I’ll start again today.
My monomania against spoilers does have occasional drawbacks.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Hey, Dave,
I sure hope you like the book more now you know what it is.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:51 am
The book arrived today!
September 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
So I’ve finished most of it. (Some parts twice.
I’m eager to get started talking about it. One of the things that struck me was the structure of these short stories is completely different than anything I have encountered before. For the most part they read like fragments of novels rather self-contained stories. I’m still not certain whether this is a good thing or not.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I just picked up a copy of this today. I’ve only read the first couple of stories, but wow! I like the writer’s way with words. Often I’m reading novels or non-fiction or technical writing, that I miss out on the impact a good short story can have.
Actually, I just read Aryn Kyle’s “God of Animals” recently, and I was impressed by how the original story (Ch1 of the book) expanded well into a full novel.
This is the first time I’ve participated in a book-club type activity - I love how it opens my eyes to writing I probably wouldn’t have encountered otherwise!
September 9th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Dave Wiley: I agree with you. I was trying to figure out why I had a difficult time getting into the stories, I think it’s because I felt like I had jumped into the middle of an existing novel. It’s an interesting style which I find a little unapproachable - I can’t really sink my teeth into the story until about midway through. I’ve had to reread a few of them to understand the writer’s voice and really get the impact.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
It’s just not my cup of tea. After 4 stories I am giving up. I cannot empathize with testosterone-filled young men who hate their brothers, have dysfunctional relationships with their fathers and talk about getting diarrhea and the joy of beating up football players. Let me know when you choose the next book.