August 2012
13 posts
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Thanks Everyone
Thanks for reading along with us. We’ll be in touch about our next book!
So, who won Gold?
Did Kate fulfill her dream? What do you think?
What's your favorite Olympic moment so far?
Schmaltz :-/
Sophie’s illness just seems to crop up at the most convenient plot points, right? I’m a firm believer that you can write about terrible things (terminally ill children, the Holocaust, war, death) without being too sentimental. Things cross that line and get schmaltzy when the sickness itself trumps the agency of the sick character. Sophie exists solely for her sickness to create...
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So, what did you think of 'Gold'?
jimmyso:
nwkbookclub:
Did you like any of the characters? Kate, Jack, Zoe, Sophie, Tom?
What did you think of the topic of sacrifice vs. fleeing responsibilities?
Did you think the backdrop of cycling in the Olympics was well crafted?
Was it exciting to follow the story?
What did you think of the ending?
By the end, I even hated Kate’s goody-two-shoes holier-than-thou existence.
I think...
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“Caring for sick children is the Olympics of parenting.”
– This sentiment is expressed both at the end of the novel and, as quoted above, in the Author’s Note. Do you agree with it? Is this an apt metaphor? The summation of ‘Gold’ for you?
Smells Like Team Spirit
Track cycling starts tomorrow! Fitting that the competitions begin with qualifying for the women’s team sprint. Will you be watching? And do you think Gold added to your understanding of the sport?
I rather think that Gold’s choice to focus on the individual sprint takes away a huge part of cycling and sports in general: teamwork. I find it hard to believe that Zoe would go ahead with...
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"Luke, I am your father"
Facing the prospect of never cycling competitively again, Zoe takes a long, hot shower and emerges determined to take back what Kate “stole” from her: her daughter. The most immediate problem with this plan is that, unbeknownst to Zoe, Sophie happens to be in the middle of very serious surgery in the hospital. Thus Zoe hightails it to the hospital to tell Sophie the news.
Call me...
welcometotreegap asked: Please clear something up, does Zoe have twins and one dies....?? Or is Tom mistaken as what he thinks should be a baby when they actually took the baby away 15 earlier??
So, what did you think of 'Gold'?
Did you like any of the characters? Kate, Jack, Zoe, Sophie, Tom?
What did you think of the topic of sacrifice vs. fleeing responsibilities?
Did you think the backdrop of cycling in the Olympics was well crafted?
Was it exciting to follow the story?
What did you think of the ending?
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Emotional Ending (Spoiler Alert!)
Phew, what an ending! Did you see the Sophie-is-Zoe’s-daughter twist coming? Did you bet on Kate to win the single spot in the Games? In the end, does Kate “have it all”? Let us know what you think. And more from us in a few minutes.
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Chat at 2 pm ET!
Alright guys. For real this time— our last Tumbly chat for ‘Gold,’ coming to you at 2 pm ET today. As always, you can start submitting thoughts, questions, etc. now.
July 2012
44 posts
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Update: Chat tomorrow!
Sorry y’all we got a little side-tracked today. The good news is that you get a one-day extension to finish our book, ‘Gold’!
We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.
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Today's the Day
Hope you all have finished ‘Gold.’ What a finale! If you haven’t turned the last page I’d recommend staying away from this Tumblr today, because we’ll have plenty of spoilers up during our chat.
For those of you who have finished, see you this afternoon. Although don’t hesitate to submit any awesome thoughts/questions/discussion points ahead of time.
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Next Assignment: Finish the Book!
Thanks for your input on the chat today!
For our next assignment, we’ll be finishing the book by this Tuesday, the 31st. Who do you think will make it to the games!?
5 Questions to Ask
Why chose Star Wars to be Sophie’s favorite movie?
Why open every scene with a time and location card, as if it’s Law and Order?
What’s the most important attribute of a successful world-class athlete?
Does raising a family really interfere with sporting victory?
Do you find it strange that people gather only every four years to root for their country in sports games they barely know the rules...
Dear Herbackboneisaplum, I agree completely with the Lisbeth Salander comparison.
writing about powerful women
This photo of marathon runner Katherine Switzer attempting to run the Boston Marathon while being assaulted by men in 1967 http://somethingynothing.blogspot.com/2012/05/kathrine-switzer.html is one more reason folks should read Gold. Could Chris talk a little about the significance of writing about women athletes/women who are driven and physically strong and complex characters?
To follow up on the post labeled Really?
This is exactly why I have a fundamental problem with the book. It is well written, but these types of scenes didn’t work at all.
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simonbooks:
Reading Olympics hit novel #GOLD by...
Rule Change
On that rule change: Cleave clearly thought out the scene at “Headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne, Switzerland” very thoroughly. He paints a portrait of soulless bureaucrats making choices that will affect folks like ultrahuman athletic talents like Zoe, Kate and Jack. He even takes a timely dig at Wall Street: “The clients were squeezed because the...
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Olympians and Booze
Zoe raised her coffee cup. “Drink to it?”
Kate smiled at Zoe’s bedraggled hair and her hopeful expression. For the first time, she realized that Zoe might be okay.
“Not with coffee,” she said. “Let’s have a glass of wine.”
Zoe looked panicked. “Wine?”
Kate nodded. “French people make it from grapes. It comes in red or...
Plot Recap
I realize that we probably should give a little primer on the plot thus far. This is a book about Zoe and Kate, who are both world-class track cyclists. Zoe has won gold in the Olympics; Kate has not. Zoe is impulsive and single; Kate married the man they fought over, Jack (also a gold-medal-winning cycllist), and has a cancer-stricken daughter, Sophie. Now comes the 2012 London Olympics. Zoe,...
Why Choose Track Cycling as Subject for the Book?
Because, and I did not know this until now, Great Britain (Chris Cleave is British) dominates the sport, grabbing seven of the 10 medals in track cycling. As I said before, Gold’s believability is not low. You can imagine talking like coach Tom, and anticipate the feelings of Kate and Zoe. But good fiction surprises us as it swings us from verisimilitude to artifice—what the great...
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Olympics Begin Friday!
The men’s road race on Saturday will commence cycling competition at the 2012 London Olympics, but track cycling doesn’t begin until Aug. 2, next Thursday.
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Watch“An epic sporting rivalry”: Here’s our interview with Chris Cleave about our book from a week or two again.
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This is Sophie’s favorite song (see page...
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Reminder! We're chatting about 'Gold' in a few...
Stay tuned to this tumblr for our thoughts on the last batch of ‘Gold,’ nwkbookclub’s book.
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Chat Today!
Hope everyone’s been enjoying our book. Drama! Personal histories! Conflict!
Anyway, we’ll get to all that later today during our chat. Stay tuned for the specific chat time, but just like our last chat, you can start submitting your thoughts on pages 88 to 200 now. Even if you didn’t make it to 200 (or read further!), let us know what you’re thinking so far.
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Coach Tom
As Brian said, he seems like a great coach. (“Holy shit. He’s good.”) But his predictability also feels like a character straight out of A League of Their Own. You’ve probably had a coach like him, who says things like “You know what you should be scared of? The day they aren’t shouting your name. Then you’ll be like me.” Or, when his knees locks...
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Next Assignment
Great chat today everyone! Hope everyone’s excited to push on.
For our next installment, we’re going to read to page 200 by Wednesday, July 25th.
Note: We’ve added a handy drop-down menu to the front-end of our Tumblr, where you can select which of our posts you want to see based on what page you’re on in the book. Check it out!
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“While employers shouldn’t privilege parents over other workers, too often they...”
– Above is a quote from Anne-Marie Slaughter’s long essay about women in the working world entitled “Why Women Can’t Have It All.” It’s an interesting read in its own right, but I selected this passage because it reminded me of the stark differences between Kate and...
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Really??!?
When Zoe was trying to beat Kate in a friendly race home, she decided to run a red light. “She was thinking about Adam. Here, at her physical limit, she felt her dead brother wathcing her with the same curious, unabashed gaze that Sophie had shown her earlier that day.”
Really?!? At that moment, when the brain is doing a gazillion calculations on whether this fragile body on a bike...
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One more thing:
Does Zoe remind anyone else of Lisbeth Salander from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy? Even just a little bit. Because that’s how I keep imagining her. - herbackboneisaplum
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Dear herbackboneisaplum: we admire your self-restraint (however fleeting)!
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I picked up the book right after it got released. I was walking through the grocery store and there it was. I remembered seeing that it was the chosen book for the book club so I bought it and started reading when I got home. Within a couple of days of reading here and there I made it to page 88 and still had a week and a half to wait for today. I set it down and picked up a different book for a...
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Couldn't Put this Down
My intention was to read the first 25%, but I stayed up all night and finished the book. I have mixed feelings, which I can’t discuss yet, but it is a gripping read. Thanks, NWK book club! I had no interest in this book until you selected it for the book club.
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NWK Book Club: That Door →
jimmyso:
nwkbookclub:
I don’t know about you guys but I was pretty enthralled with that scene in the basement of the stadium, where Zoe is nervously waiting for the big steel door to open before she can enter the stadium and compete. Heart was racing. Fingers sweating (they do sweat!). So naturally (and, uh, spoiler…
Brian, I completely agree about the thrill of that scene and the complete...
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So far so good for me. I really like that it gives you the context of place and time in the headings which is somewhat unique.
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Why Read 'Gold'?
It is valuable to read a book like Gold once in a while. As E.M. Forster said, a reader must sit down alone and struggle with the writer—and, worst luck, for it takes a long time to read a book. We often choose books we will love for sure, according to our tastes. (“I adore baseball, so I’m guaranteed to love The Art of Fielding.”) Or we rely on award-winners and books already sufficiently...
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That Door
I don’t know about you guys but I was pretty enthralled with that scene in the basement of the stadium, where Zoe is nervously waiting for the big steel door to open before she can enter the stadium and compete. Heart was racing. Fingers sweating (they do sweat!). So naturally (and, uh, spoiler alert) I gasped fairly loud on the subway ride into the city last week when her coach told her THE...
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NWK Book Club: Going For The 'Gold' →
jimmyso:
nwkbookclub:
OK guys. So it’s 3pm. Our plan on this here tumblr is for some of the nwk/beast editors involved in the book club to share their thoughts via submitted messages. You’ll see them coming through, published here on nwkbookclub. If you have a thought, or a question, that you’d like to add, just …
Hi, this is Jimmy So, the deputy book beast editor. You can also send...
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Going For The 'Gold'
OK guys. So it’s 3pm. Our plan on this here tumblr is for some of the nwk/beast editors involved in the book club to share their thoughts via submitted messages. You’ll see them coming through, published here on nwkbookclub. If you have a thought, or a question, that you’d like to add, just send us a message, reblog with a note, or submit your own post. If you don’t use...
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Our Chat Starts in 15 minutes!
All of us editors are submitting our thoughts and general questions to this Tumblr. We’ll start publishing them at 3 pm, but it’s not a chat unless you guys contribute as well. Feel free to start submitting now!
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Relevant!
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Who’s your favorite character so far? Zoe, Kate, Jack, Sophie, Tom? The Millennium Falcon that gets vomited on?
