Required Reading Revisited – March

In the Required Reading Revisited Book Club we focus on books considered “Required Reading” by most educational institutions, i.e. books you read (or were supposed to read) in school – either high school or university.

Valentine’s Day greeted the Required Reading Revisited book club with a lovely day on the BookPeople patio (our regular 3rd floor meeting space was occupied by some young upstart sci-fi author!) We discussed Emma by Jane Austen, and the only thing lacking, at least for me, was a proper serving of tea.

The reactions to Emma were generally positive,  though for our Jane Austen superfan, Emma is her least favorite Austen novel. We all found Emma, as a character, to be difficult to like in general, though Austen herself admitted her purpose with Emma was to craft a heroine that not many people besides herself would much like. It seems she succeeded! It also seems to be the least romantic of all the Austen novels, as the story revolves mostly around Emma’s misguided plots to match up her acquaintances to each other, and never around her own romantic interest until the very end. Personally I found this to give the novel its own kind of charm, distinct from her other novels. But what is perhaps best about Austen’s novels in general is how they give us a realistic look into the lives of women of the era. Austen’s characters, while confined to a specific kind of society, all have a unique voice and depth of feeling about their situations. Due to the frequency with which her novels are adapted into film, it’s fairly safe to say Austen’s perspective will not soon be lost to us.

Our March title takes us back into contemporary literature with Sherman Alexie’s bildungsroman, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This young adult novel is a first-person narrative by a Native-American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr, who decides to attend an all white high school in the off-reservation town of Reardon, WA. If the title sounds familiar it’s probably because this title tends to get banned in at least one (if not multiple) school district every year, thereby making the Banned Books Week reading list regularly since its publication in 2007.

The controversy has to do with how the book deals with the issues of alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, racism, sexuality, and mental illness. Those attempting to prevent young people from reading this book don’t seem to understand that young people deal with these things in real life every day. Alexie himself said this: “I have yet to receive a letter from a child somehow debilitated by the domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty, sexuality, and murder contained in my book. To the contrary, kids as young as ten have sent me autobiographical letters written in crayon, complete with drawings inspired by my book, that are just as dark, terrifying, and redemptive as anything I’ve ever read”

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has won a number of awards, including the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Sherman Alexie is a poet, writer, filmmaker and comedian. The Absolutely True Diary is a semi-autobiographical novel.

The Required Reading Revisited Book Club, hosted by Consuelo Hacker and Sarah Holdgrafer, meets on the 2nd Sunday of every month at 4pm at Book People (the next meeting is March 13th). We typically meet on the 3rd floor. Just stop by the 1st floor information desk when you arrive if you are unsure where to go. Emma and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian are available online at Bookpeople.com. Use the code BOOK CLUB when purchasing online, or if you come in to the store, mention it’s for Book Club at the registers and you’ll receive 10% off! Join our Facebook page to get all the latest information on what we’re reading! We look forward to talking with you on March 13th!