2016 Theme Reads Planning

It's only six weeks until 2016.

It's time to suggest theme reads for the year. What and where in the world would you like to read?

Please suggest your ideas for themes with two or three titles that might fit them, just to give others an idea of the topic. Please suggest regions as well, so that we can continue with both themes and regions, giving a wider range of choices for those not interested in a particular theme.

Also, don't forget that if, like me, you've stocked your TBR piles with masses of books for previous theme reads, there are always the ongoing theme read threads to update.

We'll vote on our themes around the end of the month so that we will have time to get ready for January.

I'll get the ball rolling with a theme read that I've suggested in past years: Caribbean literature.

I loved Simone Schwarz-Bart's The Bridge of Beyond from Guadeloupe, and liked Tiphanie Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning, from the US Virgin Islands, a lot (I also read her earlier volume of short stories, How To Escape from a Leper Colony, which wasn't as good but was good enough to encourage me to read her later work). And I have several books on my TBR, including Jose Lezama Lima's Paradiso, from Cuba. I am a big fan of Cuban Alejo Carpentier (especially The Lost Steps), and I have various works by Haitian Edwidge Danticat, some of which I read a long time ago, on my TBR.

>2 rebeccanyc: Caribbean literature is a great suggestion. The 2015 Booker prize winner A Brief History of Seven Killings is set in Jamaica. I just read it and I was very impressed.

I would like to suggest the former Soviet Socialist Republic area as a possiblity. There are of course lots of classic books like Anna Karenina and War and Peace and more modern works from Alexander Solzhenitzyn but it could even include some genre writing like Gorky Park or The Winter Palace.

>4 gypsysmom: In 2013, we did 20th/21st century Eastern & Central European literature (http://www.librarything.com/topic/146033), but I don't think we've ever had a theme read involving just Russia and the central part of the USSR. I've read a lot of Russian/Soviet literature over the years, and would you want to concentrate on any particular time period? Soviet/post-Soviet might be interesting.

Thanks for your suggestions rebecca and gypsymom.

>2 rebeccanyc: What a diverse set of histories and languages from one fairly small area. I've only read The Lost Steps, which I loved. Is there a sub theme in these books, say of colonialism or alienation? As an area read, there doesn't need to be, but I was just wondering.

>4 gypsysmom: The 20th/21st Century Eastern and European literature theme read led by DieFledermaus is a great resource. Many of the books necessarily touched on their neighbour to the East, so reading those authors' side of things would be a good complement. There is an enormous amount of writing from that part of the world, so as Rebecca says, is there a particular time period that you would like or a particular theme from that side of the equation?

Good to hear the endorsement of A Brief History of Seven Killings

>5 rebeccanyc: and
>6 SassyLassy:

I think writing based in the Soviet/post-Soviet era would be interesting and would be a stretch for me because I don't think I've read much from that time period.

>7 gypsysmom: gypsymom:

I strongly agree, and would add that most readers are unfamiliar with the writers from this period, many of whom are only now being translated (or have yet to be translated) into English.

>6 SassyLassy: Without having read widely in Caribbean literature, I hesitate to comment, but I would say in the books I've read colonialism (and in some slavery) are always in the background.

Both suggestions sound great to me. I'd like to read the latest Nobel prize winner in the near future (too lazy to look up her name) so that would fit with the post-Soviet theme perfectly. Not sure I have anything from the Caribbean in my wishlist but that would be easy to remedy!

What about a theme that is not necessarily location specific?

I recently read The Feast of the Goat and Autumn of the Patriarch close together and discovered there was a genre for Dictator novels. I suspect limiting it to Latin America might be too narrow -- perhaps broaden it to any region, as long as the book is about life under dictatorships. Or it could be very broad and encompass any book published in a country during a dictatorship.

We have previously done theme reads that weren't location-specific (e.g., Migration, the Sea -- you can see the list on the RG home page). I am interested in reading dictator novels as I've read a few myself, but I worry that it is too limited a theme. Maybe expanding it to life under dictatorships, as you suggest, would work. And dictatorships could be expanded to not just one strong man but military juntas, etc.

That sounds like a good theme. I like all these ideas. I may actually try to join in this group for once! The past couple years that I peeked in it was always themes/places I'm not very interested in/don't have books fitting, and I try to read a significant portion off my shelves, plus not being in an English speaking country, library options are hugely limited. The public library doesn't have translated books in English, only Dutch, so zero luck there! Keep up the good ideas, guys! XP

>11 ELiz_M: Dictators was a theme I had put down in this thread and then didn't post, wondering whether or not I should. I had sort of thought of it as Dictactors, Despots and Disciples, which does broaden it somewhat and takes a look at not only the dictators themselves, but the people who follow them. I like >12 rebeccanyc:'s idea of expanding this to life under dictatorships as well. Like you, this thought was inspired by my current reading of The Feast of the Goat, which you mention, and which I am loving. I was also going to use novels such as Ismail Kadare's The Successor, about the death of the chosen successor to Enver Hoxha of Albania, and The Last King of Scotland, which is one of the titles Idi Amin gave himself, as examples.

>13 .Monkey.: Love to have you join in. What themes or places particularly interest you?

Well I have a lot of Russian lit, so Russia is always on my list, lmao. I also read the Oxford collection of Caribbean short stories several years back and enjoyed it a lot, so that's definitely an area that interests me, although I don't know how much I'd be able to join in since I'm not sure I have any at all on my shelves, nor do I know if either library has much/any. I'd look into that, though. Trying to think of any others is a bit difficult for me at the moment as I can't scan my shelves, the books are all still in stacks since the move, because we still haven't put together the other 3 bookcases yet, bah.

Oh, one other area of interest I do know, though, is the Benelux (plus former colonies). Dutch/Flemish canon in particular, as it is my adopted home and I'm always looking to read more of the area's classics & highly regarded authors. Not sure if there's much interest in that or if there's a theme to be had there, but may as well mention it in case. :P

Here's an idea that's just come to me, although someone else may have had this idea already: writers who are/were refugees?

To name just a few names that have come up (there are lots of very helpful lists when you Google this as it's so topical):

Elias Canetti, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Mann, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Isabel Allende, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, Christine Arnothy, Vicki Baum, Joseph Brodsky, etc etc etc...

Here's one of the lists:

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c74-page2.html

>15 .Monkey.: I've read The Forbidden Kingdom and a bunch of mysteries by Janwillem van de Wetering but that's about it for Dutch literature. I've also read two of the quartet by Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer (for a previous theme read), but that's about it for colonies. Not sure I've read anything by a Belgian or someone from Luxemburg (although I've read some Congolese writing, not sure if they were from the former Belgian or former French colony). So I'd be up for this if it included the former colonies too.

>17 rebeccanyc: I'd definitely say it should include the colonies. Max Havelaar, for instance, is one of the big classics in the Dutch canon, which is about the Dutch East Indies and how messed up things were. There's a lot of literature from the colonies that's intertwined with Dutch culture so it's only fitting they'd stick together! I don't offhand know of any Luxembourger authors myself, but it seemed proper to include the Benelux as a whole, especially since both Belgium and Luxemburg were part of NL also. :P

I thought I'd list some themes that didn't make it for 2015 but that got a lot of votes last year in case any of them still resonates.

Writers from Australia and New Zealand, or maybe Oceania more broadly
Works that take place in cities
"Rediscovered" writers, writers who have gone out of print or who were not much recognized in their day who have since been rediscovered
Memoirs and biographical or autobiographical novels

My vote goes to Memoirs and biographical or autobiographical novels.

A lot of great suggestions already...I'll add a few more to consider:

- Writers from the Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden + associated territories (Greenland, Faroe Islands). I only joined the group recently but looking at previous years this region hasn't been the subject of a quarterly read. Nordic literature is an area of interest for me and if it were chosen I'd be willing to lead the discussion.

- Fiction dealing with World War I, and/or with its leadup or aftermath

- Transportation as a theme -- fiction featuring (for example) planes, trains, automobiles, ships as a central motif. An idea spawned by the novels by the writer/aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

- For something completely different, we could explore humour and satire not originally written in English. This idea inspired by The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.

>15 .Monkey.: and >17 rebeccanyc: There would be lots of contrast here if as rebecca suggests, the theme included colonies.

>16 anisoara: What an amazing list! Going by the people on the list whom I have read, there is certainly lots of good reading there. I know that refugees were one of the suggested themes in the past, and we could add them to rebecca's list in >19 rebeccanyc:. I would be tempted to add Anna Seghers to it. Transit was the first novel that came to mind when I read your suggestion.

>18 .Monkey.: Perhaps edwin would have some suggestions for Benelux reading. Based on his threads, the problem might be getting these authors in translation.

>19 rebeccanyc: Thanks for bringing those forward again.

>20 Samantha_kathy: There will be a voting thread in about a week. Do you have any particular novels in mind?

>21 Andrew_MC: Hello Andrew and welcome to the discussion. The Nordic countries have been mentioned several times, so there is support for that. Thanks for your offer to lead. I like the idea of including Greenland and the Faroes.

World War I was a theme read in Club Read 2014. There is some overlap of members, but probably the surface was just barely scratched. The lead up and aftermath ideas would round it out.

Transportation and humour are new ideas for the list, so more grist for the mill.

Lol I suggested including the colonies right off the bat. ;) Rebecca was agreeing that would be a good thing. :P

I only read them in English myself, and while plenty of things are of course not translated, there are certainly a number of them that are, especially those considered to be among the Dutch/Flemish classics/greats.

>22 SassyLassy: I'm currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran which is a good memoir/autobiographical book. I loved Agatha Christie's autobiography and I'm also working my way through the US presidents (not being from the USA, it's a lot of new info for me). I also have the (auto)biography (2 different ones, actually) of Dutch resistance fighter Erik Hazelhoff Roelzema on my shelves. And that's just off the top of my head.

If tyranny is the theme, you can have both Caribbean and Soviet literature as well as Asian (thinking Chinese and North Korean books and books about), and the huge continent of Africa. Of course, the Middle East, ditto. You can even have historical novels about Europe -- think Puritans, think The Terror, and the Borgias. Don't forget Henry VIII!

This theme allows and includes, of course, stories about refugees and dictators, as well as dystopian fiction and science fiction. The con is, it may be too broad to appeal to the group because it is so inclusive of more focused themes.

Some great ideas! For dictator books, I could suggest In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez; Junot Diaz's Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits. Also The Orphan Master's Son. And lots of Soviet-era Russian books….

Oh, and Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o

Great suggestions coming in. Keep them coming as I think November 30th is a good cut off date to allow time for voting and for people to organize themselves for the various threads.

One aspect of tyranny/ dictatorship that has led to a whole genre of writing is that of political prisoners. Books such as One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (the Gulag), Darkness at Noon (the Moscow show trials) and The House of the Dead (Siberia) all fit. Besides the Russian examples there are many from other parts of the world, including nonfiction: Oscar Wilde, Breyten Breytenbach, Jacobo Timerman to name just a few.

>25 Limelite: Themes have worked best in the past when they are narrower, or focused on a particular region, so I tend to think "tyranny" is too broad a theme to work, as you suggest in your last sentence. But perhaps we could have a year-long "subtheme" of tyranny, so we could be alert to it whenever it pops its evil head up in our other reading.

>26 banjo123: I too have read a ton of "dictator" books, from all over the world.

Another byproduct of tyranny is exile. I think there are many great books written about this, though I have to admit none comes to mind right now. :-/

I highly recommend The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov or Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak if you're interested in literature from the Soviet Union.

I think all the themes mentioned are rich resources-dictatorships, Russian empire, Caribbean, novelized memoirs, I look forward to participating on whatever the group decides.

much thanks to SassyLassy for taking on the lead on this group.

For location, I like the idea of Caribbean and Nordic literature (hot and cold?)

For themes, I like political prisoners and exile.

For the USSR, I wonder if we wouldn't have to make the theme the "former USSR" because the lines have been redrawn over and over again in the last 40 years so that many authors would no longer live in the current USSR. Frankly, my grasp of geography is so poor, like most of my generation, that I don't really know, just wondering. The current Nobel prize winner is from Belarus, but would have been considered part of the USSR when I was in high school.

I also like the idea of Dictators, probably because I've read several novels about countries suffering such repression. Lost City Radio was particularly good and Voices From Silence was also very stirring.

I just participated in a year's reading of Oceania and there is a very rich variety of reading there. We barely scraped the subject, I'm sure.

Also, Nordic literature would be wonderful, but perhaps too large? I did a year's reading of just Iceland and, again, we barely touched it. However, I absolutely loved the subject and have continued to add more and more icelandic literature to my list of "some day".

The suggestions are all excellent. I'm sure that it will be hard to not choose all of them. I'm especially interested in the theme of exile, although I have no specific books in mind. Former USSR is also intriguing and I have done far too little reading from authors in that region.

I made a quick check on exile, and found a lot of soviet authors! But also authors from other countries I might not have thought about, such as Marjane Satrapi. And of course if you widen the theme to include economic exile in addition to political, there should be even more interesting books. I also thought about Pablo Neruda, but after a short search I realized this was because of the movie Il Postino, and I don't think he himself wrote about exile. There is a book related to that (The Postman) but I don't know how good it is.

Great suggestions all. Luckily there are four quarters and the possibility of a year long theme on top of that.

If you haven't made a suggestion already, this is the last day to jump in before the voting thread is set up!

A question about posts 9 through 11 in the poll thread (I don't know whether you prefer it here or in the other thread) -- a couple of people here had suggested literature from the former Soviet Union, which, broadly interpreted, includes now-independent countries like Latvia, Belarus, Kyrgyztan, Georgia, etc. Not all authors from these places wrote in Russian, even during the Soviet period.

So my question, is it necessary to restrict the theme read to authors writing in Russian? There are some non-Russian-language writers I'd be interested in and I had rather assumed the theme would include them, otherwise I would have brought it up in the discussion. But maybe I am alone here?

Soviet writers would certainly include these.

Yes, I was also surprised by the restriction to the Russian language.

>38 spiphany: A good and reasonable question. A direct answer would be it is not necessary to restrict the theme read to authors writing in Russian.

Here are some of the thoughts that led to the wording of the question.

>38 spiphany: >39 anisoara: >40 FlorenceArt: Based on the suggestion in >4 gypsysmom: above and the reading suggestions, I had taken the former Soviet Socialist Republic to mean the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one part of the federation of the former USSR, and not to mean the former USSR.

While there has not been a theme read of authors writing in Russian, there have been reads on the Balkans and on Eastern Europe, which seemed to make the already huge topic of Soviet writers easier to pare down by continuing those threads, and creating a separate Russian one to distinguish that writing.

I think the question comes down to how does the writer see him or herself, as Russian, as assimilated Russian, or as a member of a subsumed nationality.

If this theme is selected by the group, the theme leader(s) in their planning would arrive at a consensus with the group as to the geographic, linguistic and time frames involved. We have had huge themes in the past that worked well.

__________________

I am going to post this on the voting thread too.

Omitting Eastern Europe and the Balkans absolutely makes sense as it would make the theme read quite broad indeed (and technically most of the countries typically included these regions would have been part of the Eastern Bloc/satellite states and not the USSR).

What I missed was the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan), and central Asia (the "-stans").

Because of the history of the Russian Empire (and the USSR and the Russian Federation today) being multi-ethnic, I suspect the identity and language politics are rather complicated -- you end up with people like Yuri Rytkheu (Chukchi) and Fazil Iskander (Abkhaz) and Chinghiz Aitmatov (Kyrgyz) who, although they wrote in Russian (and sometimes also their native language) may or may not have considered themselves Russian (or not only Russian), and it seems odd to have them "count" while other authors who grew up in the USSR, like Otar Chiladze (who wrote in Georgian) or Arvo Valton (Estonian), would not.

Edit: Just in case it comes across the wrong way, I'm not trying to start an argument or belabor the point -- it's simply that I tend to be interested in literature and writers who defy easy classification, so I have an interest in not drawing the boundaries too sharply. It may be a fairly moot point, though, as I suspect that few authors from this region who write in a language other than Russian have been translated into English (although the selection might be slightly wider for people who read other European languages or Russian).

How about Travelogues: Spiritual and Otherwise

I have enjoyed sprinkling my fiction lists with travelogues ranging from Free Country to To the Field of Stars to Chickens, Mules, and Two Old Fools. These books range in subject from cycling to backpacking to home restoration. The first is in Britain and the other two in Spain. I am going to continue in this vein in 2016.

I plan to read another Camino de Santiago book as well as expanding into other parts of the world. The Caribbean sounds interesting.

Am I on track here with the thread?

>42 spiphany: As is the case in so many countries, the identity and language politics are indeed complicated, part of what makes the region (however you define it!) so fascinating. In the end, it is the readers themselves who will define it, so there is huge scope here.
All the writers whom you mention with the possible exception of Valton have been translated into English. Rytkheu has been translated into many languages.

>43 brodiew2: Travel and Travelogue Literature was a theme in 2014 and you can comment on the Travelogues you are reading there.

You are on the RG track with the travel and Caribbean reading you mention. The voting thread is still open if you wish to vote.

I read a lot of Russian literature in the seventies when it was trendy. I'd love to revisit some of these books. There is one by Solzhenitsyn about being in a Siberian prison that still haunts me. I can't remember the name of it. I'd like to join in with some of these group reads, but I won't have time until mid spring.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. And I will gladly reread that along with you. I've read it a few times, and it never fails to astonish.