Thursday Feb 8 – For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

The Veterans Book Club will meet in the library 3rd floor conference room and on Zoom to discuss Hemingway’s classic, For Whom the Bell Tolls.  The novel follows the story of a conflicted young American idealist fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.  Hemingway drew on his own experiences in Spain working as a reporter during the war.  His novel writing style was strongly influenced by the constraints of newspaper journalism.

The Veterans Book Club is a wonderful, welcoming group of students, faculty, staff and members of the community.  You do not need to be a veteran to participate.  Please consider joining us for a stimulating discussion!

Contact Rhonda Culbertson, rculbert@iusb.edu, for questions, the Zoom link, or a free copy of the book.

Yellow Birds is Dec. 2020’s read

Join us on Dec 3, 2020 at 05:30 PM Indiana (East) for a lively discussion of The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, a writer, poet and Iraq War veteran. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, this powerful debut novel centers on a soldier fighting in the Iraqi War and what awaits him when he returns to civilian life in Virginia. 

John Burnside, the reviewer for The Guardian called this book “essential reading.” He adds: “while few will have expected the war in Iraq to bring forth a novel that can stand beside All Quiet on the Western Front or The Red Badge of Courage, The Yellow Birds does just that, for our time, as those books did for theirs.”

This meeting will be held virtually via Zoom. Please sign up here. To receive a copy of the book, contact Rhonda Culbertson at: rculbert@iusb.edu

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Discussion questions – Slaughterhouse Five

Discussion Questions

1. After reading the book, why do you think that Vonnegut dedicated his novel to Mary O’Hare and Gerhard Muller?

2. Why does Vonnegut choose to write a “jumbled and jangled” war book?

3. What is the significance of the phrase “so it goes”?

4. What is the significance of the bird cry “poo-tee-weet”?

5. Explain the subtitle, “The Children’s Crusade or a Duty Dance With Death.”

6. Discuss the major themes of Slaughterhouse-Five?

7. How does Vonnegut use time to communicate his themes?

8. Discuss the use of irony in the novel.

9. Are we intended to believe Billy’s tales of Tralfamadore or are we, like Barbara, supposed to assume that Tralfamadore is a figment of Billy’s post-brain-damaged imagination?

Slaughterhouse Five

The next meeting of the Veterans Book Club will be Thursday March 26, 5:30 in Room 301 of the Schurz Library to discuss Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

We hope you can join us to discuss this classic novel by Indiana author Kurt Vonnegut.  It’s a chance to read, (or re-read) “one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time”.  Incorporating satire, science fiction and historical events, it centers on the infamous firebombing of Dresden during WWII, which Mr. Vonnegut experienced as a prisoner of war.  ​Published in 1969, (50 years ago!) it still speaks to the horrors of war, and the toll it takes on those who experience it.

Mr. Max Goller​, veteran, educator and  Director of  Education at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library of Indianapolis, will be leading the conversation.