Study Guide for Book Clubs: Lincoln in the Bardo: Study Guides for Book Clubs, #29
By Kathryn Cope
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About this ebook
Whether you are a member of a book club, or simply reading Lincoln in the Bardo for pleasure, this clear and concise guide, written by a specialist in literature, will greatly enhance your reading experience. A comprehensive guide to George Saunders' acclaimed novel Lincoln in the Bardo, this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary and historical context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a multi-layered text.
Kathryn Cope
Kathryn Cope graduated in English Literature from Manchester University and obtained her master’s degree in contemporary fiction from the University of York. She is the author of Study Guides for Book Clubs and the HarperCollins Offical Book Club Guide series. She lives in the Staffordshire Moorlands with her husband, son and dog.
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Reviews for Study Guide for Book Clubs
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This guide is an excellent well-organized review which fairly balances good points of the novel with the reservations that many critics might hold about its merits.
I especially liked the observation on Saunders' creation of "fake news sources," and euphemisms about unpleasant depictions of death.
I felt the discussion questions were obvious if a reader invested the time to read the guide. However, they served as a helpful (go here first) guide for those rushing to get to a book club discussion meeting and suddenly realizing they hadn't read the book.
Book preview
Study Guide for Book Clubs - Kathryn Cope
Introduction
There are few things more rewarding than getting together with a group of like-minded people and discussing a good book. Book club meetings, at their best, are vibrant, passionate affairs. Each member will bring along a different perspective and ideally there will be heated debate.
A surprising number of book club members, however, report that their meetings have been a disappointment. Even though their group loved the particular book they were discussing, they could think of astonishingly little to say about it. Failing to find interesting discussion angles for a book is the single most common reason for book group discussions to fall flat. Most book groups only meet once a month and a lackluster meeting is frustrating for everyone.
Study Guides for Book Clubs were born out of a passion for reading groups. Packed with information, they take the hard work out of preparing for a meeting and ensure that your book group discussions never run dry. How you choose to use the guides is entirely up to you. The author biography, historical, and style sections provide useful background information which may be interesting to share with your group at the beginning of your meeting. The all-important list of discussion questions, which will probably form the core of your meeting, can be found towards the end of this guide. To support your responses to the discussion questions, you may find it helpful to refer to the ‘Themes’ and ‘Character’ sections.
A detailed plot synopsis is provided as an aide-memoire if you need to recap on the finer points of the plot. There is also a quick quiz - a fun way to test your knowledge and bring your discussion to a close. Finally, if this was a book that you particularly enjoyed, the guide concludes with a list of books similar in style or subject matter.
Be warned, this guide contains spoilers. Please do not be tempted to read it before you have read the original novel as plot surprises will be well and truly ruined.
Kathryn Cope, 2017
George Saunders
Prior to the publication of Lincoln in the Bardo, readers who favor novels over short story collections could be forgiven for being unfamiliar with the work of George Saunders. Among short story fans and literary critics, however, the author has long been hailed as a genius. A ‘writer’s writer’, he is celebrated as an innovative master of the short-fiction form. Saunders’ talent has been reflected in his accolades. In 2001, he was named as one of the 100 most creative people in entertainment by ‘Entertainment Weekly’ and in 2006 he was awarded a genius grant
from the MacArthur Foundation.
As a child, George Saunders never dreamed that he would become a professional author. Born in Amarillo, Texas in 1958, he grew up in Chicago and went on to take a degree in geophysics. It was when working as a field geophysicist in a Sumatran jungle camp, however, that Saunders experienced a literary awakening. With few other leisure opportunities available, he read his way through several suitcases of fiction. When his time in Indonesia came to an end (thanks to an illness contracted from swimming in a polluted river), he returned to the US with literary aspirations.
Saunders worked in a succession of jobs (doorman, roofer, store clerk, slaughterhouse worker, and groundsman) before gaining a place on an MFA program at Syracuse in 1986. Here he met fellow student, Paula Redick, who was shortly to become his wife. The couple were engaged within three weeks of meeting, promptly married and had two daughters. In the early years of their marriage, Saunders supported his family by working as a technical writer for pharmaceutical and engineering companies.
In 1996 Saunders became a tutor on the Syracuse MFA in creative writing. In the same year, he published CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: an innovative short story collection that became a New York Times Notable Book and a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Other short story collections followed: Pastoralia, In Persuasion Nation and, most recently, Tenth of December (2013). More accessible than his previous collections, Tenth of December brought Saunders’ work to the attention of a wider audience. In addition to his short fiction he also produced an illustrated novella, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil; a book for children - The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip; and a collection of essays, The Braindead Megaphone.
George Saunders’ writing influences range from Tolstoy to Mark Twain, Monty Python to Ernest Hemingway, and the diversity of his inspiration is evident in his unique voice. The author’s short stories are often tragicomic and introduce surreal elements into an otherwise recognizable reality. Usually set in small-town America (in theme parks, shopping malls, office blocks etc.), his stories frequently critique the effects of corporate culture and overt consumerism. Within these worlds, candy bars talk, teenagers speak in a new language consisting of advertising slogans, and women from Eastern Europe are strung up as garden decorations. Underlying all of these bizarre scenarios is Saunders’ dark humor and compassion for the human condition.
Saunders’ virtuosity within the short story format caused readers and critics to clamor for a full-length novel from the author. His first inspiration for Lincoln in the Bardo came in the late 1990s when he was visiting Washington. On hearing that President Lincoln was said to have visited the tomb of his son,