FAQ

[riselikelions]

These People Ought To Know Who We Are And That We Are Here: An FAQ.

Welcome. I'm Jim.

What is this thing?
It's basically a book club. We're doing it in the summer because we have time then. This isn't even a week old, so bear with us.

Is there more than one book?
Yes!

Wait, like multiple books?
Yes! There are two lists of books!

What is this about two lists of books to choose from?
There's The List Of Books We're Actually Doing and The Other List. There's four books on The List Of Books We're Actually Doing and there's nine million on The Other List.

In short, The Other List is aspirational.

Do I have to do all of the books?
No!

Can I just do one book?
Yes!

Does it have to be from The List Of Books We're Actually Doing?
No, but the more people reading one book, the more interesting the main discussion is. The aim is to have a main discussion and then multiple discussions of other texts coiling or swirling around it.

When will it start?
We don't know, but were I forced to answer, I'd say after Larky's classes are finished and she's settled into summer break. May? June?

When will it end?
NEVER. (Well, probably September.)

How will this take place?
Over email, I think. Larky and I haven't talked about this much, but I'm guessing an email chain in which everyone uses the REPLY ALL button. If this thing goes according to plan, if you have a smartphone hooked up to your email, it should be buzzing all the time this summer. If we're vague about the timing, it's because we're figuring this out.

What are the lists?
As befits the title, The List Of Books We're Actually Doing isn't final yet, but most currently it looks like this:

The List Of Books We're Actually Reading:
Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers: A Novel by Xiaolu Guo
Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner
The A Man Mistook His Wife For A Hat And Other Stories by Oliver Sacks OR Another Non-Fiction Book To Be Named Later


The Other List:
Small Gods, Good Omens and American Gods, but Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, generally.
The Man In The High Castle, but Philip K. Dick generally.
Galapagos, but Kurt Vonnegut, generally.
Snow Crash, but Neal Stephenson, generally.
Neuromancer, but William Gibson, generally.
The Maltese Falcon, but Daschell Hammett, generally.
The Long Goodbye, but Raymond Chandler, generally.
Murakami, generally.
The Autumn Of the Patriarch and Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
The Turn Of The Screw and The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James
The Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Feast Of the Goat, Death In the Andes and The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
Labyrinths and Complete Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas
Dune-Frank Herbert
Journey To The West by Wu Cheng'en
Eats, Shoots And Leaves by Lynn Truss
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Essays On Modern Music by Theodor Adorno
Distant Star by Roberto Bolano
How I Became A Nun by Cesar Aira
The Prince Of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
C: A Novel by Tom McCarthy
The Book Of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley



What if the book I like is on The Other List? Can I still participate?
Yes! Please do. Announce over email "I have Snow Crash/Death In The Andes/Labyrinths! Does anyone else want to read Snow Crash/Death In The Andes/Labyrinths?" and hopefully, someone else will say yes. If so, you two/three/four/five/etc will be off to the races. Just hit reply all to keep the rest of the group in the email chain.

Can I read books on both lists?
Yes! If you want to do one or all of the main books and one of the other books at the same time, totally cool. Just make sure to keep your human being schedule balanced with your inner library hermit.

What if the book I like isn't on either list? Can I still participate?
Yes! Please do! We obviously can't guarantee someone else has it, but if it's one of the classics, it's worth playing the odds. More to the point, you lose nothing by asking. The Other List leans real heavy into literature and science fiction, not entirely by design. It's what we buy or hear about, but never find the time to read. We tried to be more varied in The List Of Books We're Actually Going To Read, so if you can only carve out time and money for one book, you're gonna get something out of any of the four books on The List Of Books We're Actually Going To Read.

This whole thing sounds like an excuse to read a lot in the summer.
It is. The aim is for this to be fun. The internet has made us all alone together. I like the idea of a shared social experience over the summer. Also, I have three shelves with books I haven't read yet. HELP ME.

Who are you?
I'm Jim. Larky and I have known each other for six years now. Soon, seven. Hardcore punk (by which I mean Bane, Crime In Stereo, Minor Threat, Paint It Black, etc) changed my life.  My interests in this life are, like most people here, videogames, books and music. I'm currently enraptured by China Mieville and Roberto Bolano. To give you an idea of my personality, I've written this.

Any further questions? Comment away.