Join The 'Morning Edition' Book Club As We Read 'A God In Ruins'
Welcome to the second session of the Morning Edition book club! Here's how it works: A well-known writer will pick a book he or she loved. We'll all read it. Then, you'll send us your questions about the book. About a month later, we'll reconvene to talk about the book with the author and the writer who picked it.
The Morning Edition book club launched in December with Hector Tobar's Deep Down Dark. We're now reconvening to begin our second book, and we have asked Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn to do the honors. For our next read, Flynn has chosen Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins.
"This book is particularly lovely and melancholy," she tells NPR's David Greene; Atkinson is "one of those writers that really can make you weep on one page and laugh on the next."
A God in Ruins follows a man named Teddy who served as a bomber pilot during World War II. (For those of you who read Atkinson's Life After Life, you'll recognize Teddy as Ursula Todd's younger brother). A God in Ruins is about returning home after war. The book is told through Teddy's eyes, and also through the perspective of his daughter and his grandchildren.
While you're reading the book over the next few weeks, here are some ways to interact with the book club:
- Update at 12:16 p.m. ET, May 6: We're changing the time and venue of our weekly check-ins. We'll be posting a discussion question every Tuesday on reddit, instead of every Friday on Facebook.
- Tweet us your favorite quotes using #morningeditionbookclub.
- If your book club is reading along, share a photo of one of your meetings on Instagram using #morningeditionbookclub.
And you can send us your questions about the book through any of those platforms using #morningeditionbookclub. When our club meets next month, your question might be read on air.
Below, you can read more about why Flynn selected A God in Ruins.
Interview Highlights
On Atkinson's characters
She just has such a vast humanity for her characters, this incredible empathy that — even the characters that are sort of designed to drive you slightly insane — you get to burrow underneath the skin and find out what's really driving them and the insecurities and the secrets. ...
I don't think I could ever write like Kate. I'd like to try, but my unlikable characters are just fairly unlikeable. ... I'm not always as interested in redeeming them. ... She does this wonderful thing where she makes it very hard for you to solely dislike a character, even when they're doing very, very bad things.
On what makes a good book club conversation
For me, a good book club is [about] selecting the right book, a book that makes people interested in talking about it, interested in discussing why characters made certain choices or whether you sympathize or didn't sympathize with a certain character. I just think it's that sort of sensation that these are almost real people. Whenever I'm in a book club that I think is going well, it's [when] people take them very personally. And I love that. I think this lovely book by Kate, A God in Ruins, is a very nice book club book. It has a multitude of characters that I think people are going to have certain, very different opinions on and .... [also the] aspect of the large family, all different generations. I think people are going to find them very interesting to dissect.
9(MDE1MTIxMDg0MDE0MDQ3NTY3MzkzMzY1NA001))
Transcript
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
There's a little extra excitement around here this morning because we are announcing our next selection for the MORNING EDITION book club.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Just a reminder how this works - we ask a well-known writer to pick a book he or she loved. Everybody reads it. You send us questions, and then we bring the author on the air to discuss that book.
GREENE: OK, so for this round, we asked novelist Gillian Flynn to make our selection. She's the author of the acclaimed best-seller "Gone Girl." Flynn's selection is a new novel by one of her favorite authors.
GILLIAN FLYNN: I picked Kate Atkinson's "A God In Ruins." It's just a story about life and how do we - particularly for those in World War II, how do you put yourself together? How does society put itself together after something like that?
GREENE: "A God In Ruins" spans World War II and the period after. It is set in Great Britain, and the main character is Teddy, a fighter pilot in Britain's Royal Air Force, the RAF.
FLYNN: And it's set in different stages of his life. And some pieces of it are told through his daughter's story, as she is on a commune in the '70s with her - not particularly taking good care of her children. And then some are told through the grandchildren's eyesight. And it's the story of a life.
GREENE: A life very affected by war.
FLYNN: Life very affected by war, yes. And I just love any book by Kate Atkinson. I think she's one of our great writers writing in English today. She just has such a vast humanity for her characters -this incredible empathy that - even the characters that are sort of designed to drive you slightly insane - you get to burrow underneath the skin and find out what's really driving them and the insecurities and the secrets. And she's one of those writers who really can make you weep on one page and laugh on the next.
GREENE: Is that an important part of her writing and writing in general?
FLYNN: I think it's an important part of her writing. It's certainly something that I've always noticed about her writing from, you know, when I started reading her when she was writing mysteries. And I don't think I could ever write like Kate. (Laughter) I'd like to try, but my unlikable characters are just fairly unlikable.
(LAUGHTER)
GREENE: You're saying you don't capture the nuance that she does?
FLYNN: I'm not always as interested in redeeming them as she does. She does this wonderful thing where she makes it very hard for you to solely dislike a character, even when they're doing very, very bad things.
GREENE: This is the second book we're reading in our new book club. What do you think makes a good book club and a good book club conversation?
FLYNN: Oh, for me, you know, a good book club is selecting the right book that makes people interested in talking about it. You know, I think this lovely book by Kate - "A God In Ruins" - is a very nice book-club book. It has a multitude of characters that I think people are going to have certain very different opinions on. And that sort of aspect of the large family, all different generations - I think people are going to find them very interesting to dissect.
GREENE: Well, I'm excited to dig into this book. I hope many of our listeners are, as well. It's called "A God In Ruins" by Kate Atkinson, and the recommendation for it comes from Gillian Flynn. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it, Gillian.
FLYNN: Thank you. My pleasure.
GREENE: All right, get to it. We all have our assignment. Gillian Flynn's pick for this round of the MORNING EDITION book club is "A God In Ruins" by Kate Atkinson. It is just out today. Now at npr.org, you can find a printable reading guide, and you can learn how to share your thoughts and questions with our virtual book group. We'll put a few of your questions to Kate Atkinson when she talks to MORNING EDITION about her book "A God In Ruins" in mid-June. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad