August 2009 – Little Brother

Welcome to August – the hottest month of the year and the time when my reading malaise often kicks in. We thought we’d jump start the lazy days of summer with a fast paced techno-thriller from one of the brightest minds of our generation – Boing Boing‘s Cory Doctorow.

Here’s the review from Booklist:

Seventeen-year-old techno-geek w1n5t0n (aka Marcus) bypasses the school’s gait-recognition system by placing pebbles in his shoes, chats secretly with friends on his IMParanoid messaging program, and routinely evades school security with his laptop, cell, WifFnder, and ingenuity. While skipping school, Markus is caught near the site of a terrorist attack on San Francisco and held by the Department of Homeland Security for six days of intensive interrogation. After his release, he vows to use his skills to fight back against an increasingly frightening system of surveillance. Set in the near future, Doctorow’s novel blurs the lines between current and potential technologies, and readers will delight in the details of how Markus attempts to stage a techno-revolution. Obvious parallels to Orwellian warnings and post-9/11 policies, such as the Patriot Act, will provide opportunity for classroom discussion and raise questions about our enthusiasm for technology, who monitors our school library collections, and how we contribute to our own lack of privacy. An extensive Web and print bibliography will build knowledge and make adults nervous.

Please come join us in discussing this interesting title on Tuesday, August 25th at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park. If you need to pick up a copy of Little Brother, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up with one!

July 2009 – Consider the Lobster

In July we’ve decided to take on another nonfiction selection. This time we’re delving into our first collection of essays by the sorely missed David Foster Wallace. We felt this was a more manageable Wallace selection than Infinite Jest (although I have a feeling many of you are already experiencing an Infinite Summer).  Here’s the Booklist review for Consider the Lobster:

In his latest essay collection, Wallace, known best for his expansive metafiction, traverses a wide swathe of territory, swinging from a consideration of pornography to a reading of John Updike (perhaps not such a stretch), from the 2000 campaign trail of Republican John McClain to reflections on Kafka and Dostoyevsky, and from Bloomington, Illinois, to lobster-trawling Maine. The uberliterate Wallace is a subtle Hunter Thompson, pointed, yet sly, in directing transitions to reveal his true intention–that is, he misleads, then opens up. Humorous, engaging, albeit a bit perplexing in his style, he is a little too trendy in his postmodern use of boxes, arrows, footnotes, and so on. But when Wallace is on the mark, few can compare in craft and craftiness. And there is enough that is uncool here to make it cool in a truly culty sense. Wallace’s complex essays are written, and rightfully so, to be read more than once.

Please come join us in discussing the last collection of essays Wallace published on Tuesday, July 28 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park. If you need to pick up a copy of Consider the Lobster, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up with one!