Last month's book club selection was Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. I actually didn't finish the book in time for our discussion on Wednesday (I only finished yesterday), but I was rereading and remembered enough that I wasn't going to worry about spoilers.

We had a full and lively discussion on the book, hitting on topics like
- who is the blind assassin referred to in the title
- how would we have reacted to the book if we were older and had lived through more of the time period described in the book
- who was responsible for Laura's death and way
- the fairy tale aspects of the book (this came from one of those sets of discussion questions put out by publishers and we completely disagreed with the question-author about the story being at all fairy tale-like)

One of the best things about reading this book is that it introduced quite a number of our members to Atwood for the first time and left them asking the rest of us about which of her books to read next (we recommended Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale).

I'm mailing this book out to BookCrossing member Teasipper at her request.

Just received in the mail from fellow book crosser: to be used for spring term class in "20th Century British Lit."

Read and discussed this book in PSU class, "British Writers of the 21st Century." Excellent read, and I learned so much being with a group of people who read it in detail. The professor has asked permission to share some term papers with the whole class because they were so thoughtful: I can hardly wait.
The 5 books for this class all contained elements of Romantic poetry: in this one, "Miss Violent," the 2 girls' favorite tutor, instills the love of poetry. The basic story is one of a lot of sadness, loneliness, and frustrated dreams. But I love Iris, the narrator: an old lady's old lady.

RELEASE NOTES:

At family reunion.