2025 Readings 112

 Here's another book that's very indicative of this Year of Reading (or, as I sometimes refer to it as: The Years of Reading Stuff I Never Read): Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. This was one of the selections from our Unofficial Book Club, which has, from the beginning, taken a science fiction slant (which is fine, because I never read science fiction). I had never read any of Butler's works, so this was a new experience. The fact that I read the entire novel in about two days let's you know that I definitely liked it, and strongly recommend it. The work has a very dystopian feel to it, but it's more about a very easy to perceive natural end of the world. The novel was published in 1993, which means it was written during the Bush 1 presidency and clearly in the shadow of the Reagan years. As horrible as things are at this moment during the Trump nightmare, we should never forget that the foundations of this horrific right wing wet dream were set years ago when the Evangelicals made it clear that theirs was the only path to God and the wealthy and corporate America made it clear that we're all on our own. One member of the UBC said that she found it very difficult to read because of the violence and the unrelenting grimness, but I suggested that it was hard to read because we were living it right now. My copy of the Parable of the Sower came with her Parable of the Talents (which is the second book of what she planned to be a five book series, but, sadly, she died before completing any more - so I guess we'll never know her long-term goal for the series). I'll definitely be tearing into Parable of the Talents early next year, although it will be after the Year of Reading comes to an end, which is why I'm recording my plans now.