Not Your Oprah’s Bookclub

I’m particularly excited about this month’s meeting because we’re discussing our own Chris Barzak’s The Love We Share Without Knowing. We’re holding our meeting on Tuesday December 30th, 7:00 at Cafe Cimmento (in the board room). Chris will join us at 8:00 to answer our questions or to explain all of that Japenese stuff.

Here are some links to reviews that Chris was so kind to send me (he even included an unfavorable one, brave soul).

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/sfw19921.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2008120403097.html

http://christopherbarzak.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/booklist-1111loveweshare1.jpg

I’ve already read them, and then I started re-reading sections of the book because, well, it seems I missed some important things. I don’t want to spoil, so let me just say that my gaijin brain wasn’t holding onto the Japanese names so well (I ended up making a chart).

I will, however, share my early reactions. I was about 40 pages into the book, and I said to my husband, “I wasn’t sure how this was going to work with the Japanese setting and all, but now I’m reading a Chris Barzak book.”

If you’ve read One For Sorrow, you’re already familiar with the ways Chris’s characters move between the worlds of the living and the dead. This time, these magical crossings are woven among people who all connect to one core event in a van in a rice paddy, and the books title derives (I think) from the fate of those four lonely souls and the spiritual trails they left in the lives they touched.

I hope to see you all on Tuesday.

Kris