Okay, it's chat day. It's also Book Group Meeting Day! So anyone who's planning on coming and hasn't Rsvp'd yet, please drop me a line. Don't assume that I know you're coming because you said you'd love to a month ago! Do you want there to be enough brownies to go around, or don't you???

If you'd like to take part in the chatting but just don't know what to say, here are some things we'd all love to hear:

How are you liking the book? More than you expected at the outset? Less? Is it a different experience than you'd expected?

Does this story feel close enough to issues we consider modern -- a child's coming of age and coming into his own in the absence of his father; a voyage home that is an emotional as well as a physical journey -- that you feel close to the characters and their struggles? Or does it feel as ancient and far away as it really is?

Do the characters feel like real people to you? Someone once said that it's impossible to imagine having a conversation with a character from a Dickens novel; as entertaining as they are, there's really nothing behind the "tells" and gestures that make them so memorable. Can you imagine sitting down to a long talk with Penelope or Odysseus?

Is your translation prose or poetry? If you had it to read over again, would you choose a different text? Do you see yourself reading this book again?

And one more big question -- so big that I'm going to make it a separate topic!

Talk to you soon!

--Deborah

P.S. Don't forget to vote for which book you'd like to read next!