Episode 808 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

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Welcome to Reading With Libraries!

Thank you for joining us on the eighth season of our book group and Reader’s advisory podcast! 

Our organization is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we work with all types of libraries. Schools, public, academic, history centers, and more! We are here to support you and to bring you new knowledge to inform your library work. 

This season we continue to explore a wide variety of book genres and topics so you can expand your reading horizons and share more information with your library community. We are having fun with pop culture references in our genres, and looking at some different sources for book ideas. This week we are getting ready for the movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Nicholas Cage stars in this. From IMDB “Nicolas Cage begrudgingly accepts a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a billionaire super fan. When things take a wild turn, Nic is forced to become a version of some of his most iconic and beloved characters in order to extricate his wife and daughter from the fan who is a notorious drug lord.”

Let’s celebrate this movie with a look at books that are social satires. 

Beverages:

This is, of course, a book group. And every book group needs to have beverages, so you really get the feel for your reading! 

This week’s beverages are from Avery’s Beverages company, and the satirical side comes from their line of very gross beverage names for tasty carbonated drinks you will enjoy trying. The name is part of the fun! See if any of these sound like something good for you:

Fungal Fruit Soda While the fruit on the label might not look so fresh, the taste of this passionfruit and lime blend is sure to satisfy.

     Or you could try Alien Snot Soda

Toxic Slime Soda This electric blue soda with white floaty bits looks like a science experiment gone wrong.  Blue raspberry, orange and lemon are the dominant flavors in this tasty soda.

    Or, consider their Unicorn Yack Soda

Genre Discussion:

Satire can be funny, while it makes you wince at the truth it shares. The website Industrial Scripts defines it: “Social satire is a genre  that relies on irony, exaggeration, ridicule, or humor to critique an unfavorable aspect of society and/or human nature. The best social satires are entertaining at the surface level – often featuring elements of fantasy or absurdism – and also pack a critical punch.”

Some of the earliest novels were social satires, using wit and careful wording to say things the authors could not say directly. An article from Publishers Weekly says: “Satire … Oh, where do I start? The Romans did it. The Greeks did it. Who can doubt but that our earliest ancestors did it, prancing around a campfire lampooning some pompous hunter who decided he’d show everyone he could kill a mastodon by himself and succeeded so well that it fell on top of him.  You can aim it at governments, you can aim it at institutions. You can aim it at bureaucracies, businesses, special interests, religions and of course at individuals. Any place where hypocrisy and vice lurk – and where don’t they lurk? At its best, it’s like a blazing arrow that explodes into some hidden, stinking corner of humanity and scourges it with cleansing fire.”

Good social satires use some basic writing tools to make the story both entertaining and share their message: irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and humor. These should be fun stories to read, or watch, with the good guys making their points and the bad guys getting their just punishment.

Suggested Reading Resources:

Our Book Discussion

We have our beverages, we are familiar with this week’s genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We will give you a list of all the books we share today. You can click on any of these links to go to Amazon.com for more information. If you buy anything while you are there, Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits from your purchase. Thanks in advance for helping to support the mission of CMLE – we appreciate it! 

Good Neighbors, by Sarah Langan 

Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world.

But menace skulks among this exclusive enclave. When the Wilde family arrive, they trigger their neighbors’ worst fears. Dad Arlo’s a gruff has-been rock star with track marks. Mom Gertie’s got a thick Brooklyn accent, with high heels and tube tops to match. Their weird kids cuss like sailors. They don’t fit with the way Maple Street sees itself.

Maple Street’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder – a lonely professor repressing a dark past – initially welcomed Gertie, but relations plummeted during one summer evening, when the new best friends shared too much, too soon. By the time the story opens, the Wildes are outcasts.

As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes. Suddenly, it is one mom’s word against the other’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood.

Life for Sale, by Yukio Mishima

After botching a suicide attempt, salaryman Hanio Yamada decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper. Soon interested parties come calling with increasingly bizarre requests and what follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots – even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can’t seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the crosshairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate. By turns wildly inventive, darkly comedic, and deeply surreal, in Life for Sale Yukio Mishima stunningly uses satire to explore the same dark themes that preoccupied him throughout his lifetime.

My Year Abroad, by Chang-rae Lee 

Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself. 

In the breathtaking, “precise, elliptical prose” that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller’s outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion – on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.

Noir by Christopher Moore

The absurdly outrageous, sarcastically satiric, and always entertaining New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns in finest madcap form with this zany noir set on the mean streets of post-World War II San Francisco, and featuring a diverse cast of characters, including a hapless bartender; his Chinese sidekick; a doll with sharp angles and dangerous curves; a tight-lipped Air Force general; a wisecracking waif; Petey, a black mamba; and many more.

San Francisco. Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .

It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin tends bar. It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. ’Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he’s got the connections on the street.

Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainier, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.

When one of Sammy’s schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.

Think Raymond Chandler meets Damon Runyon with more than a dash of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes All Stars. It’s all very, very Noir. It’s all very, very Christopher Moore.

Notes from the Bathroom Line: Humor, Art, and Low-Grade Panic from 150 of the Funniest Women in Comedy, edited by Amy Solomon 

 A collection of never-before-seen humor pieces – essays, satire, short stories, poetry, cartoons, artwork, and more – from 150 of the biggest female comedians today, curated by Amy Solomon, a producer of the hit HBO shows Silicon Valley and Barry, performed by the author and Jo Firestone, Mitra Jouhari, Whitmer Thomas, Lauren Lapkus, Sasheer Zamata, Alise Morales, Sunita Mani, Hallie Cantor, Aparna Nancherla, Emily V. Gordon, Blythe Roberson, Shana Gohd, Mary Sohn, Aya Cash, Fran Hoepfner, Sydnee Washington, Sarah Thyre, Sarah Pappalardo, Rachel Sennott, Cecily Strong, Ilana Wolpert, Nicole Silverberg, Broti Gupta, Kim Caramele, Shantira Jackson, Sarah Naftalis, Ayo Edebiri, Alexandra Petri, Jessica Knappett, Sarah Goldberg, Briga Heelan, Sarah Walker, Nicole Sun, Joanna Calo, Karen Chee, Anna Seregina, Jessy Hodges, Ali Hodges, Atsuko Okatsuka, Riki Lindhome, Lennon Parham, Greta Titelman, Rebecca Shaw, Halcyon Person, Dylan Gelula, Emily Altman, Beanie Feldstein, Megan Stalter, Megan Gailey, Cathy Lew, Jen Spyra, Alex Song-Xia, Rachele Lynn, Carolina Barlow, Julie Durk, Nicolette Daskalakis, JoEllen Redlingshafer, Devin Leary, Amy Silverberg, Rachel Axler, Mary H.K. Choi, Diona Reasonover, and Katie Rich.

With contributions from:

Lolly Adefope Maria Bamford Aisling Bea Lake Bell Rachel Bloom Rhea Butcher Nicole Byer D’Arcy Carden Aya Cash Karen Chee Margaret Cho Mary H.K. Choi Amanda Crew Rachel Dratch Beanie Feldstein Jo Firestone Briga Heelan Samantha Irby Emily V. Gordon Patti Harrison Mary Holland Jen Kirkman Lauren Lapkus Riki Lindhome Kate Micucci Natalie Morales Aparna Nancherla Yvonne Orji Lennon Parham Chelsea Peretti Alexandra Petri Natasha Rothwell Amber Ruffin Andrea Savage Kristen Schaal Megan Stalter Beth Stelling Cecily Strong Sunita Mani Geraldine Viswanathan Michaela Watkins Mo Welch Sasheer Zamata and many more.

More than four decades ago, the groundbreaking book Titters: The First Collection of Humor by Women showcased the work of some of the leading female comedians of the 1970s like Gilda Radner, Candice Bergen, and Phyllis Diller. The book became an essential time capsule of an era, the first of its kind, that opened doors for many more funny women to smash the comedy glass-ceiling.

Today, brilliant women continue to push the boundaries of just how funny – and edgy – they can be in a field that has long been dominated by men. In Notes from the Bathroom Line, Amy Solomon brings together all-new material from some of the funniest women in show business today – award-winning writers, stand-up comedians, actresses, cartoonists, and more.

Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut 

The core of the novel is Kilgore Trout, a familiar character very deliberately modeled on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985), a fact that Vonnegut conceded frequently in interviews and that was based upon his own occasional relationship with Sturgeon. Here Kilgore Trout is an itinerant wandering from one science fiction convention to another; he intersects with the protagonist, Dwayne Hoover (one of Vonnegut’s typically boosterish, lost, and stupid mid-American characters), and their intersection is the excuse for the evocation of many others, familiar and unfamiliar, dredged from Vonnegut’s gallery. The central issue is concerned with intersecting and apposite views of reality, and much of the narrative is filtered through Trout, who is neither certifiably insane nor a visionary writer but can pass for either depending upon Dwayne Hoover’s (and Vonnegut’s) view of the situation.

America, when this novel was published, was in the throes of Nixon, Watergate, and the unraveling of our intervention in Vietnam; the nation was beginning to fragment ideologically and geographically, and Vonnegut sought to cram all of this dysfunction (and a goofy, desperate kind of hope, the irrational comfort given through the genre of science fiction) into a sprawling narrative whose sense, if any, is situational, not conceptual. Reviews were polarized; the novel was celebrated for its bizarre aspects and became the basis of a Bruce Willis movie adaptation whose reviews were not nearly so polarized. (Most critics hated it.)

Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid 

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young Black woman out late with a White child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At 25, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone “family”, and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.

Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
Arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig never believed his crimes were hanging offenses, until he found himself with a noose around his neck, dropping through a trap door, and falling into…a government job? Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may be an impossible task. Worse, the new Postmaster could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, money-hungry Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical head, Mr. Reacher Gilt. 

But it says on the building ‘Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Glo m of Ni t’…. Inspiring words (admittedly, some of the bronze letters have been stolen), and for once in his wretched life Moist is going to fight. And if the bold and impossible are what’s called for, he’ll do it; to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and deliver that invaluable commodity that everyone requires: hope.

Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe

A group of “settlers” (more like survivors) arrive in Virginia from the ravished island of Manhattan, intending to establish an outpost, find oil, and exploit the Indians controlling the area. But nothing goes quite as planned (one settler, for instance, keeps losing body parts). At the heart of the story is Pocahontas, who speaks Valley Girl, Ebonics, Old English, and Algonquin―sometimes all in the same sentence. And she pursues a heated romance with settler Johnny Rolfe via text messaging, instant messaging, and, ultimately, telepathy.

Deadly serious and seriously funny, Matthew Sharpe’s fictional retelling of one of America’s original myths is a history of violence, a cross-cultural love story, and a tragicomic commentary on America’s past and present.

A Little More Human by Fiona Maazel

Meet Phil Snyder: new father, nursing assistant at a cutting-edge biotech facility on Staten Island, and all-around decent guy. Trouble is, his life is falling apart. His wife has betrayed him, his job involves experimental surgeries with strange side effects, and his father is hiding early-onset dementia. Phil also has a special talent he doesn’t want to publicize―he’s a mind reader and moonlights as Brainstorm, a costumed superhero. But when Phil wakes up from a blackout drunk and is confronted with photos that seem to show him assaulting an unknown woman, even superpowers won’t help him. Try as he might, Phil can’t remember that night, and so, haunted by the need to know, he mind-reads his way through the lab techs at work, adoring fans at Toy Polloi, and anyone else who gets in his way, in an attempt to determine whether he’s capable of such violence. A Little More Human, rife with layers of paranoia and conspiracy, questions how well we really know ourselves, showcasing Fiona Maazel at her tragicomic, freewheeling best.

The House of God by Samuel Shem

By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country. Young Dr. Basch and his irreverent confident, known only as the Fat Man, will learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings. Samuel Shem has done what few in American medicine have dared to do—create an unvarnished, unglorified, and amazingly forthright portrait revealing the depth of caring, pain, pathos, and tragedy felt by all who spend their lives treating patients and stand at the crossroads between science and humanity.

With over two million copies sold worldwide, The House of God has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels of the 20th century and compared to Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith for its poignant portrayal of the education of American doctors.

Black Buck, by Mateo Askaripour 

There’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.

An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.

After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.

Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America’s workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for joining us on Reading With Libraries! 

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Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday!