The Universe Versus Alex Woods
Gavin Extence, 2013
Redhook
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316246576
Summary
A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy target for bullies, Alex hasn't had the easiest childhood.
But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.
So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he's fairly sure he's done the right thing ...
Introducing a bright young voice destined to charm the world, The Universe Versus Alex Woods is a celebration of curious incidents, astronomy and astrology, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and the unexpected connections that form our world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1982
• Raised—Swineshead, Lincolnshire, UK
• Education—Ph.D. in Film Studies
• Awards—Waterstone 11 Literary Prize
• Currently—lives in Sheffield, UK
Gavin Extence is a contemporary English writer. He won the Waterstones 11 literary prize for his first book The Universe Versus Alex Woods (2013). He has a PhD in Film studies, is married, has a daughter and is also a keen chess player.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods is Extence's début novel and is the everyday tale of a teenage science nerd hit by a meteorite who strikes up a friendship with a pot-smoking Vietnam veteran. It is the story of wilful teenager Alex, who acquires a fascination with science and astronomy after being struck by a falling meteorite and going into a coma. After recovering, Alex forms an unusual friendship with an aged, dope-smoking Vietnam vet, the reclusive Mr. Peterson, who is a dedicated aficionado of Kurt Vonnegut. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/12/2013.)
Book Reviews
The Universe Versus Alex Woods will put you through the wringer. But oh, what a wringer!
NPR Books
With wit and warmth, Gavin Extence shines a light on one of the darkest, most difficult subjects of our times.
Sunday Express (UK)
When the material darkens towards the end, Extence skilfully manages to keep the narrative engaging and surprising. Mr Peterson, in particular, is a welcome antidote to those endless depictions of wise old men who know everything, being a spiky, contradictory figure raging against the dying of the light with impressive and stirring verve. After it finds its voice, this is a hugely enjoyable and even wise book, with plenty to say about life and death, and Vonnegut fans, in particular, will absolutely love it.
Observer (UK)
Perfectly crafted and beautifully written.... The Universe Versus Alex Woods may be a debut novel but it is an outstanding novel by any standards. Unforgettable.
Red (UK)
(Starred review.) Seventeen-year-old Alex Woods was a household name even before authorities discovered 113g of marijuana and the ashes of an old man in the car he drove across the English border. At the age of 10 Alex became a national celebrity after being hit by a meteorite.... Extence’s engaging coming-of-age debut skillfully balances light and dark, laughter and tears.
Publishers Weekly
Most teens think the universe is against them at some point. Seventeen-year-old Alex Woods has plenty of evidence for his case: a tarot-reading witch for a mother, his father a one-night Solstice stand long since forgotten, a chunk of meteorite crashing through the roof and smashing into him, the onset of epileptic seizures, and school bullies eager to target him.... Verdict: A bittersweet, cross-audience charmer, this debut novel will appeal to guys, YA readers, and Vonnegut and coming-of-age fiction fans. —Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.
My Education
Susan Choi, 2013
Viking Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143125570
Summary
An intimately charged novel of desire and disaster...
Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill.
He’s said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He’s condemned on the walls of the women’s restroom, and enjoys films by Roman Polanski.
But no one has warned Regina about his exceptional physical beauty—or his charismatic, volatile wife.
My Education is the story of Regina’s mistakes, which only begin in the bedroom, and end—if they do—fifteen years in the future and thousands of miles away.
By turns erotic and completely catastrophic, Regina’s misadventures demonstrate what can happen when the chasm between desire and duty is too wide to bridge. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—South Bend, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.F.A., Cornell University
• Awards—PEN/W.G. Sebald Award; Asian American Literary Award
• Currently—lives in New York City (Brooklyn)
Susan Choi is an American novelist. She was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and the American daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas. Choi earned a B.A. in Literature from Yale University (1990) and an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
After receiving her graduate degree, she worked for The New Yorker as a fact checker.
Choi won the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction and was a finalist of the Discover Great New Writers Award at Barnes & Noble for her first novel, The Foreign Student. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her historical fiction novel, American Woman. In 2010, she won the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award.
With David Remnick, she edited an anthology of short fiction entitled Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. Choi's second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009. My Education, her fourth, was published in 2013; her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, came out in 2019. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/10/2013.)
Book Reviews
A scorching hot read…a chaise-lounge literary page-turner par excellence: sexy, smart, well-plotted, jammed with observations witty and profound, and so well-written it occasionally leaves you gasping.
New York Newsday
A tricky book to categorize. On the one hand, it’s a campus novel…At the same time, this is just the background against which the larger story unfolds. What Choi is after is the elusive territory of experience, the way people and events imprint us when we’re young and then linger, exerting a subtle pressure over how we live our lives.
Los Angeles Times
The academic novel married to the novel of obsession is almost too pleasurable to contemplate, but that’s what this book is…Choi’s an extremely confident writer, and in My Education she beautifully explores the way a young person tries, and often fails, to navigate her budding and intersecting sexual, intellectual, and emotional lives. The writing in this novel is masterful – but the book did something to me emotionally, too. I felt like I was in an obsessive relationship with it. I wanted to read it all the time.
Meg Wolitzer - NPR.org
Choi gets top marks for slyly re-inventing the affaire de l’Académie in My Education.
Vanity Fair
A fascinating examination of sexual politics and the many disguises of desire.
Daily Beast
Explores a young heart and its painfully naïve and bold ways…It’s The Graduate meets The L Word meets the Carey Mulligan flick An Education.
Marie Claire
The throes of an obsessive relationship allow a young graduate student to avoid growing up for a little while in Choi’s dark and stormy fourth novel.... Regina Gottlieb, anxious about being a new student in a prestigious graduate English program...embark[s] on a torrid, all-consuming affair.... Even as Regina loses her way, though, the narrative never lacks direction. Choi keeps the moments between her characters believable while building momentum toward the illicit lovers’ inevitable falling-out.
Publishers Weekly
Promising graduate student Regina Gottlieb finds herself attracted to her libertine professor, Nicholas Brodeur. However...instead [she] becomes physically entangled with Nicholas's wife, Martha.... Verdict: As with her previous novels, Choi's talent resides in her densely layered prose and her slowing down the pace to draw readers into the inner worlds of her characters. The result is a deeply human tale of intentional mistakes, love and lust, and the search for a clearer vision of one's self. —Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH
Library Journal
The sexual initiation of a graduate student, who learns how much she does not know, in a novel that somehow feels both overstuffed (style) and undernourished (substance). From the reference in the first sentence to "a highly conspicuous man,"....Choi makes it obvious to the reader that the novel's rites of passage won't be confining this education to the classroom.... [Regina's] education leaves her by the end knowing even less than when she had started. There seems to be a happy ending here, though it's hard to be certain for whom.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.
Small Change
Lynn Rodolico, 2013
Eccolo Editions
334 pp.
ISBN-13: 9788890698668
Summary
NEWBORN TWINS ABANDONED IN DUMPSTER
From an act of desperation is born the inspiring tale of love and good fortune, not only for the twins but for the couple who have been waiting to adopt.
Set in England and Italy, Small Change is a poignant recounting of love, loss and steadfast commitment.
Rich in empathy and humor, embedded in delightful, thought-provoking prose, best-selling author Lynn Rodolico offers a viable alternative to the modern-day despair of the individual’s inability to make a difference.
Half the proceeds from Small Change are donated to Children’s Rights charities (From the publisher.)
See the video.
Author Bio
• Birth—April 1, 1953
• Where—Santa Monica, California, USA
• Education—Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara
• Awards—Book of the Month Award (France)
• Currently—lives in Sicily and Florence, Italy
Lynn April Barber Rodolico was born in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in the coastal town of Pacific Palisades. Her earliest, happiest memories come from inventing stories beneath the large fruit trees in her backyard, and later, when she was old enough to roam, the dramatic pounding of the Pacific Ocean below the town's cliffs.
Writing had always been a favorite pastime but it wasn't until she left her job as Administrator of a Shakespearean theatre company in Massachusetts that she started to write full time. She gave herself one year in which to succeed or fail as a writer. To perfect her skills, first in the Berkshires and later in New York City, she wrote commercial novels in the Romance genre under a series of pseudonyms. Her success was quick and exceptional.
Lynn's first published novel, Passion’s Flight sold 350,000 copies and was translated into seven languages. Her second novel, Heart & Soul, proved a greater success, both commercially and literary, winning the Book of the Month Award in France. Opening Bid was another best seller romance and was translated into eleven languages. Intimates moved out of the romance category, allowing for real character development, but its circulation was thwarted when her editor changed publishing houses and the book remained orphaned in the warehouse.
In 1985 Lynn moved to Italy for a year to finish a novel. On her first day in Florence she met the man who would transform her life from a solitary search to a unified communion. Two Seas is a fictionalized memoir of their life on an olive farm in the Tuscan hills and their unexpected love affair with the Island of Sicily. Her most recent novel, Small Change, takes place in Italy and England. It was published in 2013. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Tender and eloquent...an extraordinary eye for detail.
Trisha Thomas - AP Journalist, Rome
A novel of great intercultural sensitivity.
Charles de Chassiron, London
The new book by Lynn Rodolico, Small Change, marks an interesting deviation from her previous novel, Two Seas. The change is not only literary in form, but alters the perspective about the essence of life itself. Two Seas is a romantic discovery of a new land where nature dominates the story with a continuous sense of wonder, which leads to an exploration of the self, whereas Small Change takes a modernistic approach, where the characters (some of whom appear in Two Seas) move the plot forward with their behavior, feelings and thoughts, while nature remains discreetly in the background. Written in a fluid and personal style, almost like an Impressionist painting, Small Change presents a fascinating story set in both England and Italy. Starting with the misery of a tragic decision, Small Change leads the reader through a tangled web of beautifully described situations, to a happy conclusion which, in a sort of modern catharsis, will transport the reader to an optimistic and confident view of the spontaneous goodness of humanity.
Luigi Giannitrapani, Genova
Discussion Questions
1. Love is presented in many forms in Small Change: a mother and her children; a wife and husband; a son’s devotion for his parents; sisters and friends. Which of these relationships is most successful and why? How are they similar or different from your definition of love and caring?
2. Small Change begins with a desperate act and deals with difficult issues, but Rodolico proposes the novel as “a viable alternative to modern-day despair." Did you find the novel inspiring? Did it make you want to better the world, even in a small way?
3. One of the characters is a self-confessed liar, and therefore may be considered an unreliable narrator. Did this short-coming influence your sense of compassion for her? Or did the complication in her character make her seem more human and therefore more worthy of your sympathy?
4. The protagonist, Christine, has a sixth sense, if and when she chooses to follow it. Does the unexplainable spiritual aspect of the story seem realistic or far-fetched?
5. Each of the characters in Small Change experiences an alteration during the course of the book. How does Thomas change? Christine? Anne? Does this metamorphosis occur for the secondary characters as well? Has their transformation altered you, as a reader?
6. In Rodolico’s previous novel, Two Seas, nature played a significant role, almost as if it were the protagonist of the story. How is nature portrayed in Small Change? How does it alter as the story shifts from the English countryside to London to Florence, Italy? Do the characters behave differently according to the nature that surrounds them?
7. Was the unfolding of Small Change predictable or unexpected? Were you surprised by the book's ending? Were you sorry to say goodbye to the characters?
8. How would you categorize Small Change? Is it a love story? A story about adoption? Family and Relationships? Mothers and Children? Human Rights?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque, 1929
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780449213940
Summary
Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . .
This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
In-depth (Spoiler alert)
More than fifty years after its jolting prose, haunting poetry, and powerful truths slashed their way into the consciousness of a worldwide readership, All Quiet on the Western Front still stands at the forefront of a host of novels on that most tragic recurrence in the history of human experience: war.
Through the observations of Paul Baumer, a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I, readers taste war in all its horror. Baumer and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, egged on by parents, teachers, and other one-track-minded adults who are unable to foresee or unwilling to consider the hell into which they are cheering their "Iron Youth."
But war soon transforms Paul and his comrades into "old folk" and "wild beasts." Thrust into an open-air asylum reeking of sulfur, excreta, and clotting blood, emblazoned by colorful fireworks that kill, teeming with flesh-eating vermin, these battered, weary, famished friends struggle to make sense of their plight, capturing some measure of peace only when they accept the fact that their reality makes no sense, has no reason.
For these soldiers, there is no thrill of victory, only the certainty of one onslaught after another. To look to the future brings them no comfort: they envision no careers, no use for their pre-war education, no romance, no life beyond the battlefield. What lies before them is "the abyss."
War strips away ideals these boy-men once valued. Their respect for authority is eroded by their disillusionment with the schoolteacher Kantorek who pressed them into service—a laughingstock when forced to don a uniform himself—and is shattered by the contemptible tactics their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline. Even their belief in the sanctity of human life must be compromised every time they kill; this is best illustrated by Paul's journey from anguish to rationalization of his dispatch of Gerard Duval, the printer turned enemy who leaps into the shell-hole already occupied by Paul.
War destroys these men—even those who survive the bombings, the bullets and bayonets. Yet unless their bodies are annihilated by physical attacks or their sanity exploded by the weight of one too many atrocities, some soldiers manage to maintain vestiges of humanness: their caring for animals (Detering, the farmer turned warrior, rails against the army for its "vilest baseness" in exposing innocent horses to slaughter; the group shares its once-in-a-wartime feast with a little grey cat); compassion for each other (Baumer, little more than a child himself, comforts a terrified, crying recruit and literally covers his behind); their sense of fun (Baumer and Kropp ride high atop a tuck on a canopied, four-poster bed; the Second Company risks their lives amid a shower of explosives for two roast pigs and a platter of potato pancakes); a flair for the romantic (ailing soldiers band together to allow Lewandowski, his wife, and child an intimate reunion in the infirmary); defiance of the near-inevitability of an ugly death (Peter, young and lung-damaged, triumphs over the spectral aura of the Dying Room).
Their hope in a seemingly hopeless situation attests to the endurance of the human spirit. That ghost of a chance that they would return home someday inspires them to think and fight like murderous automatons, to thump along on bleeding stumps where feet used to be until they could reach relative safety from a barrage.
But as the war wears on and the western battlefront soaks up the blood of Kemmerich, then Haie Westhus, then Muller, Paul's hope ebbs. His trip home on leave whets his appetite for family life, civilian clothes, and a civilian job and at the same time tortures him with the knowledge that should he succeed at fighting his way back home he can no more fit into the life he led at peacetime than he can fit into his old dress suit.
After the deaths or dismemberment of his classmates, other comrades, and finally his most cherished fired Katczinsky, Paul speaks of being "broken, burnt out, rootless." When, on the eve of the resolution of World War I, Paul's own end arrives, the expression on his corpse indicates that he has welcomed it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 22, 1898
• Where—Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany
• Death—September 25, 1970
• Where—Loccarno, Switzerland
• Education—University of Munster
Erich Maria Remarque (pronounced Ray-mark; born Erich Paul Remark) was a German author, best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front. He was born into a working class family in the German city of Osnabrück to Peter Franz Remark and Anna Maria (née Stallknecht).
First World War
During World War I, Remarque was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. On 12 June 1917, he was transferred to the Western Front and stationed between Torhout and Houthulst. On 31 July, he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck, and was repatriated to an army hospital in Germany where he spent the rest of the war.
Jobs
After the war he continued his teacher training and worked as a primary school teacher from 1919-1920. After teaching he worked at a number of other jobs, including librarian, businessman, journalist and editor. His first paid writing job was as a technical writer for the Continental Rubber Company, a German tire manufacturer.
Novelist
Remarque had made his first attempts at writing at the age of 16. This included essays, poems, and the beginnings of a novel that was finished later and published in 1920 as The Dream Room (Die Traumbude).
He made a second literary start in 1927 with the novel Station at the Horizon (Station am Horizont), which was serialised in the sports journal Sport im Bild for which Remarque was working. It was published in book form only in 1998.
His best known work, All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues), was written in a few months in 1927. Unable to find a publisher the work wasn't published until 1929. The novel describes the experiences of German soldiers during World War I. A number of similar works followed; in simple, emotive language they described wartime and the postwar years.
At the time he published All Quiet, Remarque changed his middle name in memory of his mother and reverted to the earlier spelling of the family name to dissociate himself from his novel Die Traumbude. (The original family name, Remarque, had been changed to Remark by his grandfather in the 19th century.)
In 1931, after finishing The Road Back (Der Weg Zurück), Remarque bought a villa in Porto Ronco, Switzerland, planning to live both there and in France.
His next novel, Three Comrades (Drei Kameraden), spans the years of the Weimar Republic, from the hyperinflation of 1923 to the end of the decade. Remarque's fourth novel, Flotsam (in German titled Liebe deinen Nächsten, or Love Thy Neighbor), first appeared in a serial version in English translation in Collier's magazine in 1939, and Remarque spent another year revising the text for its book publication in 1941. His next novel, Arch of Triumph (Arc de Triomphe)first published in 1945 in English, and the next year in German. It was another instant best-seller, reaching worldwide sales of nearly five million.
Nazi era
On 10 May 1933, the German government, on the initiative of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, banned and publicly burned Remarque's works. Remarque finally left Germany to live at his villa in Switzerland. The Nazis continued to decry his writings, claiming he was a descendant of French Jews and that his real surname name was Kramer, a Jewish-sounding name, and his original name spelled backwards. This is still cited in some biographies despite the complete lack of evidence. The Nazis also claimed, falsely, that Remarque had not seen active service during World War I. In 1938, Remarque's German citizenship was revoked, and then in 1939, after he and his ex-wife were remarried to prevent her repatriation to Germany, they left Porto Ronco, Switzerland, for the United States where they became naturalized citizens in 1947.
In 1943, the German government arrested his sister, Elfriede Scholz with her husband and two children. After a short trial in the "Volksgerichtshof" (Hitler's extra-constitutional "People's Court"), she was found guilty of "undermining morale" for stating that she considered the war lost. Court President Roland Freisler declared, "Your brother is unfortunately beyond our reach—you, however, will not escape us." Scholz was beheaded on 16 December 1943, and the cost of her prosecution, imprisonment and execution—495,80 Reichsmark—was billed to her sister Erna.
Switzerland
In 1948, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life. A gap of seven years—a long silence for Remarque—separated Arch of Triumph and his next work, Spark of Life (Der Funke Leben) in 1952. While writing The Spark of Life, Remarque was also working on Time to Live and Time to Die (Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben), which was published in 1954. In 1958 Douglas Sirk directed a film adaptation in Germany with Remarque making a cameo appearance as the Professor.
In 1955, Remarque wrote the screenplay for an Austrian film, The Last Act (Der letzte Akt), about Hitler's final days in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, which was based on the book Ten Days to Die (1950) by Michael Musmanno. In 1956, Remarque wrote a drama for the stage, Full Circle (Die letzte Station), which played successfully in both Germany and on Broadway. An English translation was published in 1974. Heaven Has No Favorites was serialized (as Borrowed Life) in 1959 before appearing as a book in 1961 and was made into the 1977 film Bobby Deerfield. The Night in Lisbon (Die Nacht von Lissabon), published in 1962, Remarque's last finished work. The novel sold some 900,000 copies in Germany and was a modest best-seller abroad as well.
Marriages
His first marriage was to the actress Ilse Jutta Zambona in 1925. Their marriage was stormy and unfaithful on both sides. The two divorced in 1930 but fled together to his home in Porto Ronco, Switzerland, when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933; in May 1933, his novel All Quiet on the Western Front was burned in one of the first of the Nazi book burnings and it became clear that neither Remarque nor Zambona could return to Germany.
During the 1930s, Remarque had relationships with Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr and then with Marlene Dietrich. The love affair with Dietrich began in September 1937 when they met on the Lido while in Venice for the film festival and continued through at least 1940, maintained mostly by way of letters, cables and telephone calls. A selection of their letters were published in 2003 in the book Tell Me That You Love Me (Sag Mir, Dass Du Mich Liebst) and then in the 2011 play Puma.
In 1938, Remarque and his ex-wife Zambona remarried each other in Switzerland as a protection to prevent her being forced to return to Germany. In 1939 they emigrated to the United States where they both became naturalized citizens in 1947. They divorced again in 1957, this time for good. Ilse Remarque died on 25 June 1975.
Remarque married actress Paulette Goddard in 1958, and they remained married until his death in Locarno in 1970 at the age of 72. Remarque was interred in the Ronco Cemetery in Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland.
Goddard died in 1990 and was interred next to her husband. She left a bequest of $20 million to New York University to fund an institute for European studies, which is named in honour of Remarque. Tony Judt was the first Director of The Remarque Institute. Remarque's papers are housed at NYU's Fales Library. NYU also named an undergraduate dormitory building after her: Paulette Goddard Hall. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/09/2013.)
Book Reviews
(Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reivews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.
New York Times Book Review
Discussion Questions
1. Baumer paints a grim, sadistic picture of Corporal Himmelstoss, yet credits the training period under him with supplying the recruits with attributes they lacked. Is it possible that Himmelstoss purposely employed his methods to "toughen up" the recruits and inspire esprit de corps in them? Consider Himmelstoss' encounters with his troops.
2. Why does Kat say "we are losing the war because we can salute too well"?
3. What does Haie Westhus mean when, after the recruits ambush Himmelstoss, he comments that "Revenge is black-pudding"?
4. A certain matter-of-fact quality pervades the descriptions of the wounds inflicted and received by soldiers; the face-to-face attacks with rifle butts, spades, and grenades; the sounds, smells, and colors of death and dying in this book. Why do the soldiers regard war in such an indifferent manner? Point out dialogue and events that lead you to believe that Paul and his fellows are not as nonchalant as they sometimes sound.
5. Paul says in Chapter Six, "I wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of love." Trace the comments and episodes throughout the book that seem to indicate that Paul does indeed experience love, in one form or another.
6. While on the front Paul daydreams about his lovely, tranquil home; when he finally makes it home on leave, he fights back visions of his comrades in the war. Why does he regret having made the trip home? In what ways does his experience there support Albert Kropp's assertion that "The war has ruined us for everything"?
7. As Paul stands guard over the Russian prisoners, he ponders how commands from higher-ups have transformed men so like his own countrymen into enemies and could just as swiftly turn them into friends. But his thoughts frighten him. What is "the abyss" to which he fears such thoughts will lead?
8. Why does Paul feel a "strange attachment" to the soldiers in his outfit once he returns from leave?
9. While on an especially risky patrol, Paul promises himself that, should some soldier hop into his shell-hole, Paul will be the first to strike. Once he carries out this strategy, why does he try to save the French soldier he has mortally wounded? Why does he later make promises to the dead man that he soon realizes, or decides, that he will not keep?
10. All Quiet on the Western Front abounds with reports of inadequate medical supplies and care, slipshod or shady procedures, and outright malpractice (refer to Chapters One and Ten). How could the government and army allow this problem to go unrectified? How could the soldiers tolerate it? Why didn't more of them report, if not revolt against, the treatment they received?
11. Why do you think the author timed Paul's death in October 1918, just before the long-rumored armistice? (Germany signed The Treaty of Versailles on November 11, 1918.)
12. When All Quiet on the Western Front debuted in the United States it drew tremendous reviews from critics. Even so, one critic tempered admiration of the book's realism with this comment: "It is not a great book; it has not the depth, the spiritual insight, the magnitude of interests which make up a great book" (The New York Times Book Review, June 2, 1929). Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? What ingredients are essential to the making of a great book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Evil Beneath
AJ Waines, 2013
CreateSpace
444 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781490303543
Summary
The Evil Beneath is a Psychological Thriller by debut UK author, AJ Waines. It is set in London, with the River Thames taking a central role and has a strong female lead.
Impulsive and intrepid psychotherapist, Juliet Grey, can’t resist responding to an anonymous text message telling her to go to Hammersmith Bridge at dawn. But it isn’t simply the dead body in the water that disturbs her, it’s the way something uniquely personal to Juliet has been left on the corpse.
Another obscure message—another London bridge—and Juliet finds herself caught up with a serial killer, who leaves personal mementos instead of collecting trophies. Teaming up with local detective, DCI Brad Madison, Juliet strives to find out why she has been targeted and how it’s connected to the accident that killed her brother, nineteen years ago.
Can Juliet use her knowledge of the human psyche to get inside the mind of the killer, before another body is found under a bridge? And how long before Juliet herself becomes the next target? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 15, 1959
• Where—Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, UK
• Education—Diploma, (Psychotherapy), Univeristy
of East London; M.A. (Music), Reading University;
• Currently—lives in Southampton, England
AJ Waines is a Crime Fiction Writer, specialising in Psychological Thrillers. She draws on over fifteen years of experience as a Psychotherapist, including work with clients from high security prisons. This exclusive and privileged role has given her a rare insight into abnormal psychology. She is interested in writing about the extraordinary dilemmas and traumas ordinary people often have to face—particularly "crimes of passion," hidden motives, family secrets and moral dilemmas. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Five Stars) AJ Waines first novel is an explosion of thrills a rollercoaster of a read that will have you second guessing yourself throughout the book. A Clever and well thought-out plot a mix of interesting characters, you’ll be thinking it is him; no it is not, yes it is.
Goodreads - Member review
Discussion Questions
1. The title of the novel refers initially to the foul murders of women found under London bridges. How else does this idea surface throughout the book and why do you think Alison chose it as the title?
2. Why do you think the killer leaves the corpses in places where they could easily be found?
3. How important is the setting to the novel? Could it have been set anywhere?
4. How does Juliet Grey’s character develop as the story moves on? Is she the same person at the ends as she is at the beginning? What shifts have occurred for her?
5. Why is this book a Psychological Thriller and not simply a crime novel?
6. What are the central themes of the book? Do you think Juliet acts rationally to events that occur? Could she have done more to prevent the murders?
7. What is the motive of the killer? How much do you sympathise with the killer, and do you feel as though Alison would like you to sympathise with that person?
8. Did the book challenge your assumptions about any issues? Such as psychotherapy, Asperger’s, bullying, retribution, grief? Did reading the book help you understand any issues better?
9. What are the arguments for a psychotherapist seeing clients in their own home? Does it matter that she is female? What are the risks involved? How can these be overcome?
10. There are several twists and revelations in the novel? What came as the biggest shock?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)