Y'all like time travel? What about book clubs?
The Sternal Journal
An essential business
Hiya Sternal Journalists!
I want to first thank all the people who fell for my compliment fishery when I said "I know none of you really care when this garbage plerps into your mailbox" or something like that. Many of you reached out and said, "No, I actually look forward to this."
And to them I say gotcha! Tricked ya into complimenting me. But also thank you, genuinely. And then on top of that, sorry. I was late again. We'll see if we get back on track next week, and if I actually send you that Jesse Owens missive I said I would, but rest assured I will send you something that attempts to be entertaining at some point once a week.
This week, I'm sharing with you something kind of special. In my day job, I work for a fantastic organization called 826LA, which organizes free creative writing workshops and tutoring for lil' Angelenos aged 6-18. It's a truly wonderful organization, and it has outposts in cities around the country and sister organizations around the world. See if there's one near you at 826National.
As all educators are having to do right now, the staff at 826 are working diligently to move programming online and keep volunteers and donors excited and engaged.
One of the ways we're doing the latter is by starting a time travel-themed book club (826LA's writing lab and gift shop [where I typically work!] is time travel-themed). And guess who's running it? ME!
So as a way to (a) save myself from having to write two newsletters in one day, and (b) share what I think is a genuinely cool book that you could read along to my very own discussion questions, I'm re-running the first edition of 826LA's Time Scouts book club below.
The book was already chosen, but seriously! Snag a digital or audio copy and read along. It's called This Is How You Lose the Time War, it was one of NPR's best books of 2019, and I copied these words from the website:
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
It's great. Here's the newsletter within the newsletter. Also, you should maybe know that the mythology of this (the newsletter below, not the one you're reading right now) is that everyone involved in this book club is a member of the chrononaut organization, The Time Scouts. But really, it's just some fascinating stuff about a book. .
Hello, Time Scouts!
We're so excited to start The Time Scouts Book Club with This Is How You Lose the Time War.
We hope you've procured a copy of the book, but in case you haven't, you can find physical, digital, or audio copies wherever books are sold! (We recommend using Indiebound and Bookshop, two e-commerce resources dedicated to supporting local bookshops.
Moving on! Your mission, as you've chosen to accept, is to read the first six chapters of this time-tastic book by next Friday, April 24th.
To aid you in this mission, we've included below thought-provoking questions, additional reading, and a CONTEST. But let's start with a fun fact.
THIS IS THE FUN FACT:
In a book full of tiny details that provide glimpses of this future, one of the pervasive and fascinating tidbits is Red and Blue's reference to the past and future as "upthread and downthread."
Little flourishes of creative license about how the future might look are one of the delights of science fiction, but even more delightful is when science fiction illuminates something about the world as it is today.
And speaking of time vertically instead of horizontally (as English speakers do with prepositions like "before" and "after") is, it turns out, already a thing!
This article from The Conversation discusses how Mandarin Chinese uses a vertical time axis, much like the one employed by Red and Blue:
The word xià (down) is used to talk about future events, so when referring to “next week” a Mandarin Chinese speaker would literally say “down week”. The word shàng (up) is used to talk about the past – so “last week” becomes “up one week”.
The article goes on to describe how this difference in language affects differences in thinking, and even spatial reasoning. I recommend the article, but I also recommend considering how Red and Blue's thinking of time on a vertical axis affects their strategies and their relationships with themselves/each other.
Which brings us to the discussion questions!
AND HERE ARE THOSE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!
While these questions are meant as gifts to you to enhance your reading experience, we would love to hear your answers if you're so moved! We will cherish all of them and share some of our favorites in future dispatches.
1. Try thinking on a vertical time axis, with memories above and the future below. Does it change how you think about the past or future? Is it fun, icky? Other?
2. Red and Blue come from very different futures, clues about which we only just start to learn about in these first chapters. Do you see yourself belonging more in The Agency or Garden. Why?
3. Red and Blue find more and more inventive ways to leave each other messages. If you were in the Time War, and sent to this time, what creative way would you find to leave a message for your frenemy so only they found it? Bonus points if you can use an official Floaty Pen from the 826LA Time Travel Mart).
AND FINALLY, THE CONTEST
The Time Scouts Overlords met this week and decided that, for your hard work, in appreciating literature, we need to give you what every scout craves: merit badges!
There will be a different badge for every book, and they look really, really snazzy. The only thing is: we need one of you to design them. So we are now fielding designs for Time Scouts Department of Literature Appreciation, Sector of This Is How You Lose The Time War OFFICIAL Digital Merit Badges.
The finals will be voted on by all of you and the winner will receive a free piece of unique Time Scouts gear.
Please get your submissions in by the end of next week (Sunday 4/26) to be considered!
And that's all for week 1 of The Time Scouts Book Club. Please reply to this e-mail with discussion question answers, contest submissions, or any other wonderful letters you'd like to send!
Everything Relatively,
Troop 826LA
P.S. Since Red and Blue have a fondness for postscripts, here's a little more additional reading. It's just one of the many highfalutin literary references Blue loves to make. Did you spot the others?
And there you have it! Two newsletters for the price of one. Hope you're well, be good, stay sane, wash your hands!
<3
Julian