January Discussion: City of Saints and Madmen

The January discussion will take place at the Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake Street, at 2 PM on Saturday, January 15*. We'll convene in the second floor book discussion room as usual. Our reading will be City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer.

The Oak Park Public Library is located just two blocks from the Oak Park Green Line stop, and is convenient to parking as well.

City of Saints and Madmen is, at first glance, a book of short stories, but they refer back and forth to one another and so it's best to read them in order. It is a fairly long book, so if you are unable to finish it we'll definitely cover the first four (main) stories.

I'm hoping we'll be able to submit questions to the author, so please get these to me as soon as you can. I'm hoping to be able to send them to Jeff VanderMeer by January 4th.


* corrected date

And what's this calamari thing? Is it a reference to the book -- a reference that I will "get" a couple of weeks from now?

Editing to turn into an announcement and add an RSVP poll.

Wait, there already is a poll? How did I miss that? Well, promoted into an announcement in any event.

I just went to put this in my google calendar and discovered that January 16 is a Sunday. Isn't the group usually on Saturday? Is it Sunday the 16th or Saturday the 15th?

So far I'm free all that weekend, and I'd like to make the effort to read the book.

Good catch. I have every reason to believe we'll be on Saturday. I'll check with Anne at the first chance to make sure it was just an error.

Oops. Thanks for the catch, Kathy. Corrected now to read the Saturday date.

I'll be there. I mean it this time-there should be no pesky schoolwork to get in the way.

Oh yeah!

Anne wrote before now:

Oops. Thanks for the catch, Kathy. Corrected now to read the Saturday date.

OMG, that never happened before, or did it?

By the way, at more or less the same time, we're scheduled to start at 1.30 Pacific Time, our Riverside group will be discussing Stories for Men by Kessell, Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by Tiptree and Cold Equations by Godwin.

We should see about doing a teleconferenced joint discussion with you guys, one of these days.

Jason,

That would be... LEGEN--DARY. Getting everyone to agree on the same book? Additionally, time difference getting everyone to our coffeeshop by 12.00 noon California time on a Saturday might be a challenge.

I would be happy to split the difference with a 3 pm CT start, and I bet others would too. Finding a mechanism for us to agree on the same book might be a bit trickier, but should be within the ingenuity of SF fans.

... It is a fairly long book, so if you are unable to finish it we'll definitely cover the first four (main) stories.

I mistakenly(?) got the 2001 paperback version that contains just four stories:

• Dradin, In Love
• The Hoegbottom Guide to the Early History of Ambergris
• The Transformation of Martin Lake
• The Strange Case of X

Are these the main stories? Or should I hunt down the larger 700+ page version?

I got the digital version. The table of contents lists percisely those fouir stories. The entire second half of the book is technically an appendix to The Strange Case of X. So, although the matter is somewhat ambiguous, I presume those four (elss the appendix) are what Saffi_Anne was referring to.