This month the Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading Deep Down Dark:  The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Hector Tobar.  The entire world watched what transpired above-ground during the grueling and long rescue of the Chilean miners in 2010, but the story of the miners' experiences below the Earth's surface--and the lives that led them there--was shared exclusively with Tobar.  According to Amazon this book is a "masterwork of narrative journalism--a riveting, at times shocking, emotionally textured account of a singular human event".

The prologue to Deep Down Dark describes the incredibly long commutes made by employees to reach the remote San Jose Mine.  No local jobs paid as well, so the pay was an incentive for miners.  What risks and personal sacrifices would you be willing to endure for a high wage?

What new information did you gain about those sixty-nine days of survival?  What details did Deep Down Dark provide that were absent from the 2010 media blitz?

Think about the many types of hunger described in the book, starting of course with hunger for food.  What other cravings did the miners face, deprived of power, their families, and a way out?  What would your coping strategies have been?

How did the miners retain their individuality while they were trapped?  Which of their personal stories resonated with you the most?

From the millionaire Leonardo Farkas's fund to the miners' decision to form Propiedad Intelectual Minera, S.A. (Miner Intellectual Property, Inc.), how has the miners' financial well-being been dealt with?  Did it surprise you that not all of the miners accepted pensions?

Let us know what you think of Deep Down Dark.

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler for the July book selection.  From the author of The Jane Austen Book Club, the story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one.  But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel. 


Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle.  She has her reasons.  "I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact:  that I was raised with a chimpanzee," she tells us.  "It's never going to be the first thing I share with someone.  I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren't thinking of her as my sister.  But until Fern's expulsion, I'd scarcely known a moment alone.  She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister."


The Miami Herald says "this brave, bold, shattering novel reminds us what it means to be human, in the best and worst sense."


Rosemary recounts many memories of the chimpanzee Fern and their brief life together.  How were she and Fern, in the language of the novel, "Same" and "NotSame"?  What does their relationship suggest about the compatibility of humans and primates?  How are humans different from other animals?


How did being co-raised with a chimpanzee impact Rosemary's development?  In what ways was she different from other, "normal" children?  How does she still differ from them to this day?


Consider Rosemary's father and mother.  Are they good parents?  Should they have handled Fern's leaving any differently?  If so, how?


What is your opinion of Rosemary's brother, Lowell Cooke?  Are his extreme views and actions at all justified?  Does he truly have Fern's well-being at heart?


Think about the significance of memory and storytelling in the novel.  How is Rosemary's memory--and consequently, her narrative--affected by the emotional trauma she has experienced?


Do you think that Rosemary comes to find peace with her family history by the end of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves?


Is animal experimentation ever justified?  If so, under what circumstances?


 Let us know what you think of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.