| Gatsby goes to the public domain by the end of the year | |
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| The Thread's Must-Read |
All of my MPR custom travel trips come with a book list that I create months before our departure date. While we’re on the trip, we come together for lively book discussions — sometimes planned, sometimes impromptu — over meals and cocktails or on hikes and sightseeing walks.
I seek out novels that are the kind of classics that would be required reading for students of the country we’re in: Their version of “Gatsby” or “The Color Purple” or “Lord of the Flies.” That will reveal how culture and identity is shaped in the country. And I look for contemporary fiction that gives us insight into political or social change.
I also look for nonfiction — often memoirs — that open a door to a particular kind of experience. When we were in South Africa last January, we all read Trevor Noah’s “Born A Crime” and caught ourselves referring back to it frequently throughout the trip.
In New Zealand, we’ve read Janet Frame’s poetic memoir, “To the Is-land,” the story of growing up in New Zealand in a large family marked by loss and tragedy.
We’ve also read Lloyd Jones’ memoir, “A History of Silence” about the earthquake that devastated Christchurch in February 2011.
And I’ve included some New Zealand crime fiction noir for the fun of it.
When I take a group of women to Bhutan next fall, we’ll be reading Brene Brown, Helen Macdonald’s “H is for Hawk” and poetry by Cleo Wade, along with the memoir of a woman who — in the 19th century — traveled through Bhutan in a disguise of yak extensions for her hair and shapeless clothes to conceal her gender.
The immersion in the literature of the adventure becomes an indelible part of the memory of the experience.
Recently you’ve shared many of your most vivid reading experiences with me. Now I’d like to know about the novel or memoir that ignited within you a burning desire to go there. Maybe you’ve seen this place. Maybe it still shimmers on your horizon.
Tell me about the novel that inspires you to travel, daydream and adventure! Tweet me @KerriMPR and I’ll share it next time.
-Kerri Miller |
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| | | Everyone invited: 'Great Gatsby' copyright to end in 2021 | | Anyone will be allowed to publish the book, adapt it to a movie, make it into an opera or stage a Broadway musical. No longer will you need to get permission to write a sequel, a prequel, a Jay Gatsby detective novel or a Gatsby narrative populated with zombies.
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