I’ve read two previous Octavia Butler books, and I didn’t like either of them, so I wasn’t too excited about starting the next #CannonBookClub book. But oh, happy day! Now I get it. I thought Kindred was gripping and intense and thoughtful and layered and wicked good. For the first layer, it’s a time travel story. Dana is randomly pulled back in time to save a young boy who turns out to be her ancestor. She never knows when she’ll be called, or how she’ll get home. […]
Discussion Topics: Kindred
Book Club Discussion is Today, June 8-9! Visit our Discussion Post and speak your mind! Our second #CannonBookClub of 2018 on June 8 and 9 is Kindred by Octavia Butler as our first of two Anniversary Reads. Kindred is an historically highly rated and reviewed book for Cannonballers: in the ten years of Cannonball Read we’ve had eleven reviews of Kindred with a Cannonballer average rating of 4.64, which is only 0.16 away from our highest rated book of all-time. It’s time to get thinking about […]
The things we take for granted
I first learned about Octavia Butler a few years ago when searching online for innovative novels and Kindred showed up on just about every list I came across. When I went to the bookstore, I had become so enthusiastic about her that I decided to buy not only this book but also Fledgling, and then I read the latter first after a coin toss. That was probably a mistake, because I disliked it so much that I put off reading Kindred indefinitely. I’d finally put […]
Books Announcement: #CannonBookClub Anniversary Reads
Hello Lovely Cannonballers, did you read A Wrinkle in Time? Did you comment on our Book Club post? Did you see the movie? (I didn’t read the book, did see the movie, and I have *thoughts*). Most importantly, are you ready for two more book clubs this year? As we celebrate our tenth anniversary we asked you to vote in two categories, a well-reviewed Cannonball book (10 or more reviews and an average Cannonballer rating higher than 4.6) and something that AlabamaPink read during the first Cannonball […]
I am trying to figure out the audience here.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
I need to say straight away that I love the novel Kindred, which I read for a Black Women’s Writers class in college. It was an inspired choice to put on the syllabus that also included Song of Solomon, Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell, Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams among others. I think that that novel is a tremendous combination of sci fi, 1970s Black writing, political fire, angst, and a few other things all tied into one great novel. It shares some really important themes […]
Save humanity and destroy humans
Dawn is the first book in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy, and like much of Butler’s work I’m going to go through them very slowly, both to savor them and let them filter through my head. Butler does not write easy science fiction, the contents of her novels challenge the reader and the ideas in them linger long after the last page is turned. Dawn starts with the awakening of Lilith Iyapo. Earth has just gone through a nuclear war and Lilith remembers the small, pitiful struggles […]
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