The Daily News

LFCA Latest Issue: Friday, September 25, 2009.

Latest Post on BlogHer: Parenting after Infertility.

My Status: Fed Josh's almonds to the squirrels. They needed them very badly.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Marching with the Barren Bitches Book Brigade--Tour Sixteen

Here is the master list for the sixteenth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. What is the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? It's a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. We read both fiction and non-fiction.

Anyone can jump aboard--it's a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
Author: Elizabeth McCracken
Start Date: December 4
Question Due: January 14
Question List Sent Out: January 16
Post Dates: January 20
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours as well as information about future tours.)
Something New: the participants on this tour will vote for the next book we read.

About An Exact Replica...: From Bookmarks:
In Elizabeth McCracken’s heartrending memoir—a love letter to the child she lost and the devoted husband who suffered alongside her—McCracken displays her many talents. Her warmth, candor, crystalline prose, lovely imagery, and attention to detail bring her painful story to life. McCracken’s dark sense of humor ensnares unwitting readers, belying the sadness with which she writes, and she shows very little patience for self-pity and sentimentality. Critics praised her clear-eyed account in a genre replete with syrupy, self-aggrandizing books, though some expressed doubts that its subject matter would have wide appeal. “I’m not ready for my first child to fade into history,” explains McCracken. With this heartbreaking account of his life, there’s little chance of that.
The author was recently interviewed by Tash at Glow in the Woods.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. On January 20th, you'll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on An Exact Replica... I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on January 14. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters
The Fertile Infertile
The Road Less Travelled
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever...
I'm a Smart One
I Won't Fear Love
An Unwanted Path
Awful But Functioning
So It Goes
Aurelia Ann
TandCookies
Raspberry Chip
Destined to be an Old Woman with No Regrets
Clio
Once
Baby Smiling in Back Seat
Life From Here
Life and Love in the Petri Dish
A Little Sweetness
Northern Grin
Excavator

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on January 14.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you're interested in participating. I need your blog name, blog url, and email address.

(2) read An Exact Replica... by January 14 (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a "yes" or "no" answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on January 14 (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(4) on January 16, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry.

(5) on January 20, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a linked list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour--by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

3 comments:

Baby Smiling In Back Seat said...

I'm in again.

Baby Smiling In Back Seat
http://babysmiling.wordpress.com
babysmilinginbackseat AT gmail

luna said...

I'm in this time. questions mulling about it my head since I read it...

life from here
http://lifefromhere.wordpress.com
asc339@gmail.com

Meghan said...

I'm in...and this time I'll get the right book, I promise