Our Next Book is The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard

First published in 1970 and widely regarded as a prophetic masterpiece, this is a groundbreaking experimental novel by the acclaimed author of Crash and Super-Cannes. The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force. The central character's dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown. Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim, pscyhopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoils to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.

Come discuss The Atrocity Exhibition Saturday September 18th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink. 

Some thoughts about Blood and Guts in High School

- What is punk?

- What is obscene? Would be okay if this book was banned from a high school library?

- Is Janey mentally ill? Does she want to get better? Can she get better?

- Is the plot literal, or its it symbolic of processes in Janey's mind? Is it symbolic of processes that happen on a social level?

- By the end of the novel, is Janey empowered or is she a victim?

- Why is the book titled Blood and Guts in High School?

Come discuss Blood and Guts in High School Saturday July 17th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink.

Our Next Book is Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker

Jamey lived in the locked room. Twice a day the Persian slave trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. One day she found a pencil stub and scrap of paper in a forgotten corner of the room. She began to write down her life...

Kathy Acker, whose work has been labeled everthing from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, has created a brilliantly subversive narrative built from conversation, description, conjecture, and moments snatched from history and literature.

Come discuss Blood and Guts in High School Saturday July 17th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink.

Some thoughts about Billy the Kid...

- Who is the narrator of this book?

- My copy had blank photographs in it. I had the knee jerk response to an experimental form, "is this a typo?" What were the blank photographs, or whatever they were, about?

- Ondaatje started his career writing very nonlinear texts like Billy but slowly his works came to have more straight forward narratives. Are artists by nature more daring at the beginning of their careers?

- It feels to me that Billy the Kid has lost some of his mystique since the 19th century. Does the American West have the same appeal as it used to, or have we deconstructed it beyond "repair"? Do we have any contemporary figures that youth simultaneously look up to or are afraid of in equal measure?

- Can you define "cowboy psychedelia"?

Come discuss The Collected Works of Billy the Kid Saturday May 15th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink.

Our next book is The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint.

A major gear shift after Infinite Jest, Ondaatje's volume combines photography, historical documents and poetry.

Come discuss The Collected Works of Billy the Kid Saturday May 15th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink.

Some more thoughts about Infinite Jest...

- Does this book have a protagonist?

- One theme is the idea that people have to bottom out before they can change: drug addicts destroy their lives, tennis students eliminate their personalities. References to self annihilation occur often, especially via destruction of the head-brain-mind: the infinite jest mind wipe, reference to people being "unmapped," and James Incandenza's microwave suicide. What is this about?

- Marathe says Americans would gladly kill themselves for the "entertainment," aka Infinite Jest V or VI. Is this true? Are Americans more puerile than other people?

- Were Avril, John Wayne, Gately and Hal part of a Quebecois conspiracy?

D.F. Wallace's papers were recently acquired by University of Texas at Austin. Go here to check out handwritten manuscripts and pages from Wallace's personal dog-eared dictionary.

Wallace did a stint in a substance abuse recovery house not unlike Ennet House. This anonymous resident's account of his experience there has been attributed toWallace.

Come discuss the second half of Infinite Jest Saturday March 20th at the Main Library in the 3rd Floor Program Room at 11am. Feel free to bring food and drink.

A new space for the Experimental Literature Book Club

Starting March 20th the Experimental Literature Book Club will meet in the 3rd Floor Program Room. This is the space which used to house the Interlibrary Loan office, behind the nonfiction service desk on the third floor. This is a permanent change.

It is an asymmetrical space for an asymmetrical book club... sort of. This gives book clubs at NPL a permanent place to meet and frees up the conference rooms for rental.