Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

BBGMBC Discussion Question #7 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 10, 2012

This is our last discussion question for Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel.

Our next book is Imagine: How Creativity Works by Johah Lehrer.

You can read about the selection of the book for the club here.

You can order the selection here.

Please finish reading or listening to the the book by June 30th.

Our week-long discussion begins on July 1st right here. Happy reading!

• • •

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012.

Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 10th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

• • •

This quote is from an interview from The Rumpus:

Rumpus: Has your mom read the new book yet?

Bechdel: Yeah, she’s read it. I mean, I showed it to her as I was working on it. I felt like I had to do that so she wouldn’t totally freak out, you know? I didn’t feel like I could write about her without her seeing it. You can’t just show someone a finished published book about them, it’s really not fair.

Even though the author let her mother read the book as she wrote it, she seems to have felt a greater sense of freedom and comfort using her father as the subject matter for a book than she did with her mother and her second graphic memoir.

Where do you stand on these matters? Do you feel that it’s easier and more advantageous for a memoirist to write about other people after they have passed away? Or is that unfair to the subject, since he or she does not get to have a voice?

When writing about a living person, what kind of permissions, if any, does a memoirist need to procure?

Could you feel ethical writing about someone no longer living?

Could you feel ethical writing about someone still living, with or without permission?

What are the rights of the memoirist and what are the rights of the people being written about?

How do you feel about these matters?

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #6 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 9, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 9th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

• • •

I felt like this book was like a therapeutic journey for Bechdel, and she took us along with her.

Along the way, and with lots of reading and research she explored what prominent psychologists have to say about parent-child bonding and reflected on her relationship with her mother.

By presenting instances from her childhood alongside psychological theory, the author seems to have learned things about her relationship with her mother that are healing for her.

As a reader, I found myself learning about psychological theories I would probably not have sought out on my own, and yet, I found myself benefiting from reading these insights and witnessing pieces of Bechdel’s relationship with her mother.

Did you feel like you were on a vicarious healing journey in reading this book? Why or why not?

Do you think this opportunity for vicarious healing was intentional on the author’s part?

Is it possible for a reader to benefit psychologically simply by reading, witnessing, and learning about psychological theories?

I am interested in your thoughts on this topic. 🙂

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #5 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 8, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 8th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

• • •

Yesterday I had a bone to pick with Alison Bechdel. Today, I want to sing her praises. Want to help me?

Here is a short list of things I really found delightful about the book:

The cover: awesome! Love how it’s the companion to the earlier Fun Home cover.

The artwork, by Bechdel herself, is amazing. I mean think about it all you writers out there: not only does Bechdel write these books, she illustrates every single pane too. Incredible!

The images of Bechdel herself. For some reason I am really taken with the way Bechdel portrays herself artistically in Are You My Mother? I thought she did a really fine job. It seems to me that the sheer variety of images would have been daunting to any artist.

The universal moments in the book that often exist between mothers and daughters, or at least that I could relate to, like her mother’s makeup table, the difficulty of witnessing her mother’s strong emotion, painful moments for her between the two of them, and the constant comparison and contrast of mother vs. daughter, whether it was coming from Alison’s point of view or her mothers.

I liked how this was so clearly a story about an individual mother and an individual daughter, and yet how specific their stories were, while at the same time there were so many universal stories being played out between them.

What did you think?

While you are thinking, be sure to purchase Fun Home to read when you can!

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #4 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 7, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 7th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

• • •

I had a complaint about this book as I was reading it, after I finished it, and, especially, after I read Fun Home, which I did in two nights following reading Are You My Mother? (And PS, I LOVED it. Highly recommend!)

But, on the other hand, and as another author, I can identify with the baggage that comes along with writing a second book. Granted this is not Bechdel’s second book ever, but it’s the second book that has garnered mass appeal. And let’s face it, mass appeal is a fickle thing.

So, at the same time that I identify with the pressure Bechdel was under to produce a book as good, if not better than Fun Home, I want to take her to task a bit on some of what I perceived as some of the shortcomings of the narrative.

Even as I tip-toe towards the taboo, critiquing another author, I just want to acknowledge that writing second books is incredibly challenging and fraught with opportunities to choke. And I don’t think Bechdel choked totally. I just think she could have been a little more…straightforward in the storytelling.

Okay, here goes. I read a review in the Los Angeles Times that articulates precisely how I felt about Are You My Mother? And since I also just read Fun Home, it all made perfect sense to me.

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not read Fun Home, I suggest you stop, buy it, and read it, before you look at this review or respond to this discussion question.

Here’s the link to the review by David L. Ulin, if you still want to go there.

There, now I feel less guilty about bringing all of this up because I hopefully just created a small spike in this author’s next royalty payment.

Anyway here’s a quote from the review for those of you who don’t want to read it right now:

There’s so much talking here — talking about talking, talking about writing, talking about the dynamics of parents and children, talking about what everything means — that at times we lose the thread of the narrative altogether, ending up lost in the self-referential loops of Bechdel’s mind.

Did anyone else feel this way while reading this book? Cause I sure did.

And there, I said it. But not unkindly, I hope. I feel better now. And at least I know that one person, David L. Ulin, agrees with me.

What did you think?

While you are thinking, be sure to purchase Fun Home to read next!

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #3 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 6, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 6th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

Since we’ve just read two other memoirs, it seems a shame to miss the opportunity to compare them. What do you say?

In what way was Are You My Mother? like Wild by Cheryl Strayed?

In what way was Are You My Mother? like Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott?

Wild was about a journey from lost to found. What about this book? Was it about a journey?

Some Assmbley Required was a “journal” of a grandmother’s first grandchild (her son’s first son). Was Are You My Mother? a journal of types? In what ways was it a journal?

Journey, journal…hmmm. What do you think?

What other comparisons can you make between the three books?

You can respond to any or all of these questions, as you like. Have fun!

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Dear Oprah: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild Inspired My Book Club First

by @thewritermama on June 5, 2012

But it was Oprah’s original book club that inspired my Beyond Busy Global Book Club.

So I guess we’re even. 🙂

The day Wild arrived in the mail from Amazon, I was holding in it my hands looking down at it when I knew I needed to start a book club.

Why?

Because I knew without some peer pressure, I would never get around to reading Wild no matter how much I wanted to.

And I wanted to. So I started a book club.

Surely there must be other women out there, who are beyond busy and have trouble squeezing a little reading into their days, I thought.

And so The Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club was born. (Feel free to click on the link and join us.) As of today we are on our fourth book:

First, we read three wildly different memoirs in a row:

Wild, From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed LINK

Some Assembly Required, A Journal of My Son’s First Son by Anne Lamott LINK

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel LINK

And as of today, in June, we will read…IMAGINE: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer LINK

And then, what do you know, Oprah decided to jump on the bandwagon. On MY bandwagon. (This time.)

She decided to reboot her old book club because she was so inspired after reading Wild.

Well I can’t blame her. Here’s my Amazon review on the book:

The Archetypal Heroine’s Journey of the 21st Century For Every Woman, Young or Old

See the review on Amazon (Feel free to “Yes” it if you find it helpful!)

I am thrilled that Oprah decided to follow my lead. If she needs any more ideas, she knows where to find me.

I’ll be right here. Hosting The Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club.

Toodles, Oprah!

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BBGMBC: Our June 2012 Book is…IMAGINE: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer

by @thewritermama on June 5, 2012

The act of frustration is an essential part of the creative process.

This is the line that sold me on this book. If there is anything I know for sure from my decade of working with writers: it is this.

Also I had a hard time deciding what to choose for June. I know I promised fiction…but I could not help but choose a nonfiction book about creativity instead.

This book, Imagine: How Creativity Works by Johah Lehrer has captured my imagination. And I think that’s what the books in this book club ought to do — capture our imagination. And summer is a great time to read a book that can transport us.

Each book needs to carry enough promise that it will sway all of the members of the group. I feel confident this book will.

I will probably listen to this book rather than read it, but if anyone has a good reason why I should read it instead of listening to it, please let me know.

In the meantime, I will keep looking for fiction for next time.

Please suggest more in the Facebook group on the list…because there are still a couple memoirs calling my name.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to reading Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. I hope you will join me!

Order Imagine in Hardcover

Order Imagine on Kindle

Order Imagine in Audio

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #2 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 5, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th – June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 5th , we continue the discussion questions for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

Today’s question was suggested by Sue LeBreton:

As a first time reader of an adult graphic novel I sometimes felt the narrative was made choppy by going back and forth between pictures and the words. I felt at times I was not “reading it right”, should I go frame by frame, read the words on a page first? Did anyone else feel like this?

I know what Sue means. This was also my first time reading a graphic novel. I felt very unhip about the whole dilemma since both my husband and tween daughter read graphic novels. Therefore I was excited for this chance to “join the club.”

But it did seem to take me a while to get the hang of graphic novel reading. And that made me feel decidedly not cool.

I was happy to discover, however, that about halfway through the book I was flying through it. Clearly I eventually got the hang of it. And now I’m eager to read Fun Home, as well.

What did you think? Was the style of reading easy for you to pick up or did it take some getting used to?

Did reading this graphic novel leave you wanting to read more in this genre or if not, how did you feel?

You can respond to any or all of these questions, as you like.

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BBGMBC Discussion Question #1 for Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

by @thewritermama on June 4, 2012

The Beyond Busy Global Book Club discusses this book from June 4th - June 10th 2012, Join the discussion any time!

Today, June 4th , we begin the first discussion question for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club. We just finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama and now we will spend seven days discussing the book.

Anyone who has read the book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama is written by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

This is another book by an author with a huge following. It’s the second one like that we have read so far. The first was last month’s Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott. (Our first selection, Cheryl Stayed’s Wild did not originally have a huge following but it sure does now: watch Oprah talk about Wild as the inspiration to restart her book club on the same page!)

I’ll have more to say about Cheryl Stayed, Wild and Oprah in a future post, but for now, let’s kick off the discussion of Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel.

Had you read any of Bechdel’s work prior to reading this book?

Did reading her work make you any more or less receptive to this book?

Do you think it would have helped you as a reader of Are You My Mother? to have already read Bechdel’s book, Fun Home?

What did you think about the book’s beginning? Were you pulled right in or not?

Did you like the interweaving of several stories in this book: Alison’s story, her mother’s story, her father’s story, Winnicott’s story, and Virginia Wolf’s story?

You can respond to any or all of these questions, as you like.

Let the games begin! (I’ll announce the June book in a separate post tomorrow.)

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Day 31, 2012 Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway Winner!

by @thewritermama on June 1, 2012

And the winner of the three kick-ass women’s books by Karen Karbo…

How Georgia Became O’Keeffe

How To Hepburn

& The Gospel According To Coco Chanel

…is…

Dana Britt!

She was chosen by Random Number Generator.

Dana’s response was:

How awesome–these books are already on my wishlist!

I write about anything that strikes my interest, mostly non-fiction with a bit of fiction tinkering out there as well. My life’s passion is child development and learning, as well as relationships. I hope to write much more about these topics in the future.

Congratulations, Dana!

If you missed the drawing for three kick-ass women books by Karen Karbo, you can read all about it here.

Important, winners: I need you to send me an e-mail with your mailing address so that I can send it on to the author and she can send you your signed book! Please include a phone number, as well.

Please send your address in an e-mail to “christina at christina katz dot com.”

Please put “Book Winner” in the subject line.

Thanks for participating.

Hope to see everyone next year!

In the meantime, stay busy and productive.

Happy summer!

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