The Giver - Reader's Guide

If you Google "The Giver Reader Guide" you will get myriad links from big name reputable websites. When it comes to these sorts of sites, Shmoop.com is my favourite, so that' the only link I'm going to list. Feel free to explore the others and report back if you find anything special.

The Giver at Shmoop:  http://www.shmoop.com/the-giver/

Fifth Business - Discussion Questions

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Dunstan Ramsay feels compelled to write his autobiography after reading a patronizing portrait of himself in the school newspaper, in which he is presented as “a typical old schoolmaster doddering into retirement with tears in his eyes and a drop hanging from his nose” (p. 5). He feels the piece depicts him as a man who never had a life outside the classroom. How does Ramsay present himself in correcting this account? In what ways does the novel show the depth and complexity of character that lie beneath the clichés we quickly, and sometimes dismissively, use to sum up the lives of others?
 

Ramsay titles the chapter dealing with his war years “I Am Born Again” (p. 58). In what ways does the war change him? Why does he vow, after returning home, to “live henceforth for my own satisfaction” (p. 79)? What is the most life-altering experience he has during the war?
 

Padre Blazon asks Ramsay about the significance of Mrs. Dempster: “What figure is she in your personal mythology? If she appeared to save you on the battlefield, as you say, it has just as much to do with you as it has with her—much more probably” (p. 165). Why is Mrs. Dempster so important to Ramsay? In what ways has his interaction with her changed the course of his life? Why does Ramsay think she is a saint?
 

Dunstan Ramsay is fascinated by what he calls “a world of wonders”: saints, mythologies, miraculous events. “Why do people all over the world, and at all times,” he asks, “want marvels that defy all verifiable facts? And are the marvels brought into being by their desire, or is their desire an assurance rising from some deep knowledge, not to be directly experienced and questioned, that the marvelous is indeed an aspect of the real?” (p. 186). How would you answer these questions?

SOURCE: http://www.penguin.com/read/book-clubs/fifth-business/9780141186153

Summer 2015 Reading Suggestions

Here are all the outstanding books that I recommend since my last list in June 2013:

FICTION (in no particular order)

The Vanishing Act of Esme Marshall - Maggie O'Farrell

What a Carve Up! - Jonathan Coe

Before I Go to Sleep - SJ Watson

The End of the Affair - Graham Greene

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson

The Children's Act - AS Byatt

The Dinner - Herman Koch

The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst

Broken Harbour - Tana French (this is the 4th book in a series of mysteries, and the only one I've read, but I hear her other books are even better)

Harvest - Jim Crace

The Edwardians - Vita Sackville-West

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

Shame - Jasvinder Sanghera (British-Indian girl escapes forced marriage)

Without You There is No Us - Suki Kim (Korean-American teacher goes undercover in North Korea)

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs - Elissa Wall (not all that well written, but super fascinating and blood pressure raising).

NON-FICTION

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error - Kathryn Schultz

Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick (amazing survivor stories from North Korea)