Argobot

New ep is up! Share your thoughts on Munro....

Hey guys, sorry for the delay! We haven't forgotten and are hoping to have this out soon.

I live right outside of Golden Gate Park and love that my neighborhood is consistently foggier/colder than other parts of the city.

Just an FYI, there's a half marathon on Sunday that's going on in Golden Gate Park. Keep that in mind for transit.

The Idle Book Club 16: Mr. Fox This month, the Idle Book Club discusses Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox, a 2011 book that blurs the line between novel and short story collection. Join us, as Sarah offers her reactions and Chris offers his confusion! For next month, we'll be reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, followed by Runaway by Alice Munro. Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Haha, I picked this book in part because of Franzen's review. Munro's short stories are often connected implicitly or explicitly. Viewing them that way helps me get through the sometimes jarring nature of reading short stories.

Nevermind

That's a very dangerous line of thinking to follow. Whether we like it or not, plenty of Americans are going to vote for Trump for president. If he wins, that too will lead to deaths. Calling him a murderer implies that the people who voted for him have some responsibility for his actions. What would we do with those voters then? Where does this thinking get us to?

We recorded our first ep last week! Just need time to edit/do art design.

Yeah, I agree with Chris' fear of a litmus test. I remember in the 2008 election when people were saying Obama was a better choice than Hillary because he didn't vote for the Iraq War. But he wasn't even in a position to vote for the war (while he publicly expressed his opposition, he wasn't a US Senator at the time). I don't think the vote for the war was a good one, but who knows what Obama would have done if he had been in a position where he had to actually follow through with his public statements. Similarly, who knows what kind of decisions Sanders would make if he had a more diverse constituency (like say, the rest of the United States). I'm really happy that Sanders did as well as he did, because I think it would have been bad for Clinton to go unchallenged. And I'm really hopeful that the Sanders movement will turn into an important state and local force. But I refuse to buy into this idea that Hillary Clinton is basically a Republican, or Thatcher reincarnated.

Yeah, I'm sure we'll explore all those extra books/movies

I'm worried that the Left is turning into Republican primary voters in that both groups are demanding more and more ideological purity from their candidates. I can't begrudge anyone disliking Hillary, but this attitude that I've seen some liberals (exclusively on twitter) profess conflates supporting Hillary with murder. It's a dangerous path to set down. What really bothers me is that of course a politician who has ascended as far as Clinton will have a ton of compromises and questionable decisions in her past. National politics under any political system is going to be fraught with this stuff and pretending otherwise strikes me as a little naive. Sanders enjoys the benefit of being from a small, very liberal state, a fact that I never see his followers cop to. If he was running in a state like New York, or California, there's no way his policies would be as liberal as they currently are, because he would no longer have the luxury of appealing to a very niche portion of Democratic voters. Finally, I'm kind of bummed that the numbers show Clinton getting more demographic support that mirrors the actual population of America, but yet Sanders is cast as the politician of the people. Whether you like it or not, more Americans (and more diverse Americans!) voted for Clinton and seem to think that she would be a better presidential nominee than Sanders. I want the Democratic party to get pushed more to the left but I also want to win the presidency (and more state and local elections, so I hope that all the young Sanders supporters get active in those spheres as well). Really the final part, I'm so exhausted by the vitriol surrounding the Clinton/Sanders divide that I cannot even feel happy that Clinton is the first woman to get the nomination. I've seen too many people say they are disappointed that it is Clinton who has this honor and not some other, more deserving woman. The problem is, I doubt that there will ever be a woman who actually "deserves" being the first female presidential nominee, because of the gross standards that we hold all women to, especially successful women. /end

Fine, it's called The Great Gatling Gunsby

I made a variation on the dill gin and tonic served at Carthat Circle in Disneyland 2oz gin 3oz tonic 1/2 dill pickle brine dash of celery bitters Serve over ice with dill sprig garnish.

All of these stories are really great! I'm especially interested in hearing about people who have read these books in different languages. I read the last Harry Potter book in Russian and was really amused by some of the changes (for instance, the title is not Deathly Hallows but instead is The Gifts of Death). For the reread - and honestly for my Russian practice - I'm going to try and read a few of the books in Russian...

Can we try to replicate a cocktail we've had at a bar? Because I'd love to make a dill gin and tonic.

This series is responsible for young adult fiction being what it is today. It'll be interesting to go back and look at the books that lead to the current YA landscape.

Something that I'm curious to know at least is everyone's memory of first reading Harry Potter. I have a strong memory of that first book and I'd love to know if people around my age (so you were in middle school when the first three books came out) feel similarly.

Amazon has all of them!

So I'm reading Oyeyemi's short story collection, which is her most recent work, and finding it much better than Mr Fox - and I liked Mr. Fox! She's definitely growing as an author and I think has improved in the span of writing Mr Fox and the short story collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours. Mr Fox is not a bad book, but more of a good book in progress. It's rewarding over a span of two books to see her grow more comfortable in the the topics she wants to write about. I would really recommend it to everyone who came away disappointed in Mr Fox because I think Oyeyemi is an exciting new voice in the literary scene and is worth another read.

Really well put. I agree with a lot of your points, especially the idea of what this book adds beyond the theme that violence against women is bad. I'm really excited to talk about this one.

The new episode is up! https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlebookclub/episodes/the-man-in-the-high-castle

Oh, interesting! I was thinking of that a little because Yiddish Policemen is the most recent Alt History novel that I read prior to Man in the High Castle.

Honestly, I think you can skip Dear Mom. The people who owned when it was a frequent Idle Thumbs spot have left and the quality has kind of gone down.

I should reread that book now that I live in SF.