Forum

1. Did you read Marco Polo’s Travels? Do you think it was necessary to have read this to appreciate the dynamic between Marco Polo and Kublai Kahn? Which aspects of the dynamic between these two were conserved? What is made up (aside from the cities)? 2. What is meant by “invisible”? 3. Were there any cities that you would like to visit? 4. What are all of the cities supposed to represent? Is it just Calvino having fun coming up with random cities or is there something more to it? 5. Why is this story told through a conversation? 6. There’s a difference between enjoying a book, and thinking that it is a good book. Did you enjoy it? Did you think it was a good book? What aspects did you appreciate or not appreciate about it? 7. When Kublai Kahn asks Marco Polo why he never talks about Venice, MP says that in everything he talks about Venice since he will always compare every city to the first city. Do you think we can only perceive things against a frame of reference? How does this hold up to your experiences of travel?

Below is a list of themes for the upcoming months through March. Please comment with specific book suggestions, general ideas to start a conversation or links to good lists relating to the topic! I've already put some lists under each category for your inspiration. Feel free to suggest something from one of the lists, or come up with your own. I will use the suggestions when creating the book polls for each month. Additionally, feel free to post any questions here. Now lets find some good reads! October - Autumnal Read A book that takes place in Autumn. Some inspo from Goodreads, Some more inspo from Goodreads November - Novella A book that is under 200 pages. Goodreads inspo December - January - 2021 Fiction A book that was published last year 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner and Finalists | 2021 International Man Booker Prize | 2021 Man Booker Prize | 2021 National Book Award | 2021 NYT Bestsellers February - NYC A book that takes place in NYC. Goodreads inspo March - Memoir Style The book needs to either be an actual memoir (can also be an auto-biography), a semi-fictional memoir, or a fiction novel that is told in the style of a memoir (first person narrative). BTW this obviously does not include fake memoirs which are literary forgery. There are a lot of trauma books like this. Keep in mind that a memoir is actually a much more broad genre than auto-biography, since auto-biographies are usually written by a famous person about their entire life. A memoir can just be a person's memories from a specific time period or event.

Below, in the comments are the discussion questions for Emma. Feel free to answer any that you want to discuss! (order doesn't matter, but question 1 is at the bottom). For now, this thread is limited to the book. We can also do a Zoom discussion, next week and talk about Clueless, and the new Emma movie as well.