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!
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!
Hey guys! We’re trying something new today! At 1 pm ET we’re going to our first Tumblr book club chat.
Hopefully all of you have gotten to or close to page 88 in our first book, ‘Gold’ by Chirs Cleave. What do you think so far? Tell us! We’ll start posting your thoughts, questions, etc. at 1 pm ET today. See you, on our Tumblr page, then!
Correction: We’ll be starting at 3 pm ET, but start submitting your thoughts and questions now!
Just on the other side of an unpainted metal door, five thousand men, women, and children were chanting her name.
A lot can be extracted from those 20 words. What do you think of the first sentence?
From the very beginning Cleaves establishes what he does best: filing a report on the texture of the professional sporting experience. An “unpainted” metal door - how fine that adjective is. He goes on to describe the bench Zoe and her coach are sitting on, which has “the blue protective film still on it.” You can practically smell fresh plaster. That’s what the Olympics are like: you spend a lot of time waiting in unglamorous rooms like this.
And then there is the fervent nationalism, the hero-worship, the crowds and power. All of this was turned into a symbol of Zoe’s inner state.
I thought Cleaves explored these two themes very well in the opening scene.
What’s your favorite part so far?
Just on the other side of an unpainted metal door, five thousand men, women, and children were chanting her name.
A lot can be extracted from those 20 words. What do you think of the first sentence?
And the winner is…. Gold by Chris Cleave!
The book comes out this Tuesday, so pre-order it now. Let’s read the first quarter of the book, stopping at page 88, by Friday, July 13th. That Friday at 1 pm ET we’ll host a live chat and discuss the book so far.
For more info on the book, here’s a video of Chris Cleave explaining his novel. Also, did we mention Chris is on Tumblr!? And speaking of Tumblrs, make sure you’re following this one!
Thank you to everyone who voted! Happy reading!
