The Tutor.com Blog

We are excited to announce the launch of the Tutor.com Better Together Contest! Tutor.com has worked with libraries for more than ten years to create lifelong opportunities for patrons. During that time we’ve seen an increase in library innovation as they sought partnerships with schools, businesses, and local government agencies. We believe everyone benefits when these community partnerships are nurtured. That’s why we’ve created the Better Together Contest to recognize and reward your efforts.

The Tutor.com Better Together Contest is now accepting submissions from libraries to share their idea for a program that will help build a stronger community. The winning library will receive a prize of $1,000 to fund the submitted idea.  Just head to www.tutor.com/bettertogether for details and the entry form.

Like cookies and milk, Ron and Hermione, Holmes and Watson, some things are just better together. Share with us how your library can make your community a better place, today!

It’s a Tutor.com Reads first! We loved Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow so much that we decided our next pick should be its sequel, Children of God. We just finished up discussing both of the novels after getting hooked on tales of Rakhat for two months and with debates on religion vs. atheism, good vs. evil, there was a lot to talk about.

Kicking off in 2019, The Sparrow follows the journey of seven friends to Rakhat, a nearby planet that has evidence of life. Emilio Sandoz, the main character, is a member of the Society of Jesuits. This religious group sends the first mission to Rakhat and hand picks the seven friends to be on board. What follows is both joyous and horrific.

The sequel, Children of God, picks up right where The Sparrow left off. After their mission failed, the Society of Jesuits is driven to send another team back to Rakhat to try and alleviate the situation. Meanwhile, the effects of the humans’ presence on the planet are continuing to unfold. New complex relationships are introduced as are the perspectives of the aliens.

It’s hard for sequels to live up to their predecessor and our book club found this to be the case for Russell’s two works. Even though both are worth reading, The Sparrow stood out much more than Children of God. But comparing the two gave us even more to talk about. Here are the major themes we discussed:

• Character Driven vs. Plot Driven: In The Sparrow we were gradually introduced to each major character. We heard their inner dialogue, understood how they fit into the puzzle and loved it. Yet while Children of God incorporated a similar structure there were far too many characters to feel connected to any one. You were privy to the mind of everyone during a revolution that was impacting an entire planet. In The Sparrow you were following seven friends on an extraordinary journey.
• The Endings: You can love a book, movie or TV show for years, but if you hate the ending it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Our book club often debates what makes a good ending and we all agreed that Russell nailed it in The Sparrow. Our questions asking “What happened?” were answered, but the “Why did it happen?” was left up for discussion and interpretation. Alternatively, Children of God tied it all up nicely with a bow. It did little to leave you wondering and thinking about what you just read.
• Science-Fiction? We have some science-fiction enthusiasts within our book club. And as avid readers, they know the difference between a science-fiction book and a novel that simply incorporates elements of space and alien life. We all agreed that the journey to Rakhat and its results could have happened anywhere and it was reminiscent of past journeys humans have taken to foreign lands. While both books touched on themes of A.I. and traveling at the speed of light, the main focus was on interactions between different culturally minded beings. And you don’t have to travel at the speed of light for four months to find that.

Have you read The Sparrow or Children of God? Let us know in the comments section below! And join us for our next book club read, The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller.

Note: While we highly recommend Mary Doria Russell’s two books for fellow readers, please keep in mind that certain storylines are of a sensitive nature and may not be appropriate for all.

Would you LARP? Participate in a live action role-playing game, that is. That question took center stage during our latest book club meeting. This month we read The Folk of the Air by Peter S. Beagle, author of the acclaimed book, The Last Unicorn. The Folk of the Air follows the return home of Joe Farrell as he reconnects with his oldest buddy and gets wrapped up in a mystical circle of new friends.

Our group concluded that the book was a “beautiful failure.” Our main complaint was the length.  The introduction to the plot was hard to get through. Unnecessary scenes added to the length, but didn’t contribute to the plot. And while there seemed to be a lot of unneeded pages, there certainly wasn’t a much acknowledgement of all the crazy stuff that was going on. We were onboard to enter into this fantastical world; however it was tough to stay on the same page as the characters when their reactions to magical events were often glossed over. But, while the progression of the book was flawed, it paid off for the adventure it eventually takes you on.

Written in 1988, we also found it interesting to compare The Folk of the Air to more modern fantasy books. The adventure and its characters were similar to more recent fantasy novels we’ve read, but overall it felt like there was a lot less at risk. The stakes were lower in Beagle’s story and it didn’t feel as dark. Even though certain characters seemed like they had the potential to be evil, they never really were.

But more importantly, back to our first question: would you LARP? The group was split. Some of us wondered if dressing up and acting as if you were from the 1920’s or 1960’s would count, or if medieval times, dragons, and knights were essential to LARPing. There was the potential that we would feel too self conscious to really take part in such an event, but, if our friend’s were involved and it was a nice day out…sure, why not LARP.

Join us as we read our next book club pick The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell!

What if, suddenly, millions of people disappeared from the world? They didn’t die, they were just gone. How would you cope? How would society cope? That is the premise of our latest book club pick.

The Leftovers, written by Tom Perrotta, takes a look at how ordinary people react to extraordinary events. While “the Departure” sets the book in motion, the story is really about how people deal with unexplainable events. Should you try to chase down answers and obsess over what you might never know? Or should you try to return to normal, acknowledge something happened, but move on?

The book follows a cast of characters all from the small suburban town, Mapleton, and how each one reacts to an unprecedented tragedy. The main focus is on the Garvey family, made up of the parents Kevin and Laurie along with their daughter in high school, Jill, and college aged son, Tom, all of whom survived the Departure. A completely different perspective is added to the mix with Nora, also a Mapleton native, whose entire family (her husband, daughter, and son) disappeared. Between these five characters there were the extreme reactions: devoting your life to a cult that claims to have the answers. And the less extreme reactions: becoming friends with the wrong crowd or obsessing over SpongeBob Squarepants.

We dove right into the big question:  who was disappointed that we never found out what caused the departure?  Was it aliens, religion, science?!  Our conclusion was that not knowing was integral to the storyline and how we related to the characters and how they managed to live after an extraordinary event. Many of us found hidden meanings within the book. Perhaps the Departure was symbolic of death, and the book was focusing on how we deal with being the ones left behind after our loved ones depart. Or perhaps it is discussing the boredom of the middle class and the need to liven up your too perfect world.

In the end, we agreed that The Leftovers is a great read, but the ending left a little to be desired. With so many emotions running wild, and so many different personalities at play, the book concluded with a surprisingly pleasant ending for most of the characters. It all felt just a little too easy. Plus, it could have used some more sci-fi elements, because really, what book can’t use more sci-fi.

Join us as we read our next book club pick the fantasy novel, The Folk of the Air, by Peter S. Beagle, the author of The Last Unicorn!

Tutor.com Sales Director, Tom Squillace, works remotely at his home office in Michigan. While he isn’t able to participate in the Tutor.com Reads Book Club, he did have his own summer book club meeting with his two daughters after surprisingly enjoying an unexpected book. Find out more below!

It isn’t every day that my job at Tutor.com gets to impress my two girls, but at ALA’s Annual Conference this past June I was able to do just that. In between catching up with old friends and meeting new faces, I made my way to a few of the events that ALA hosts during the conference. After pleasing the intellectual side of my brain at the John Irving presentation, I moved onto something a bit lighter and something my two daughters, Jacqueline, 11, and Colleen, 14, would totally “gleek” out over.

Chris Colfer, the Golden Globe winning actor who plays Kurt on the television show Glee, was at ALA 2012 to discuss his own book, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell. The book itself was basically an afterthought to my decision to attend. Since my two daughters are huge Glee fans, I figured that I could use my video phone to connect with them back in Michigan so they could watch a portion of the event.

As I was sitting there, feeling a bit sheepish, holding up my phone so my girls could get a virtual glimpse of an actual TV star, I looked at a copy of the book in question and was a bit skeptical. It didn’t look like the type of book that my girls would like, but I brought a couple of copies home with me anyway, hoping that at least it would keep their noses away from their electronic devices for a few minutes. When I got home, what ensued was an affirmation of the power of the written word, as well as a realization that perhaps I underestimated my girls just a bit.  The book turned out to be an absolute hit, especially with Jacqueline, who has read and reread the book a few times.

A few weeks later, as I was selecting some reading material for our family vacation, I came upon The Land of Stories and decided that I would bring it along as a 4th string substitute. As it happened, our trip had a bit more rain than usual, and one rainy morning I picked up Mr. Colfer’s book. I was sure that I would get through a few pages, become bored, and go in search of a more substantial piece of writing. But the strangest thing happened. The book actually turned out to be a pretty ripping sort of yarn – a kind of reinvented fairy tale, with some pretty solid characterization (Goldilocks as a wanted fugitive!), a plot that hummed along at a favorable pace, and some surprises thrown in at the end.

While my enjoyment of the book was a surprise, the best part of it all was that I got to share my reactions with both of my girls. We kind of had our own little book club meeting while waiting for the sun to come out. It was a great part of our vacation, but now that I think about it, does this mean I have to start watching Glee?

Rather than picking just one book for our June book club, Matt O’Connor, our Technical Support Engineer, decided instead to shake things up and select various short stories from some of his favorite authors. The compilation included stories by Roberto Bolaño, Peter Carey, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Jeffrey Eugenides, Joshua Ferris, Nicole Krauss and David Foster Wallace. Each story was chosen specifically for their adherence to one common theme, but Matt wasn’t about to disclose that prior to the meeting. Instead it was up to each of the readers to try and figure it out.

When we sat down to discuss we started by throwing out guesses of what that one theme was. Could it have been the postmodern writing style of each of the stories? The focus on relationships or strong reactions? Did all of the stories center on crises? Or of feelings of alienation? Perhaps each of the stories had moments where the boundaries between reality and imagination were blurred.

As it turned out,each of the theories was spot on. And after agreeing upon many of the common themes, our discussion strongly centered around postmodernism in other art forms and its impact on their accessibility. Our conversation then veered into how some proponents of postmodernism opt to involve the audience, and that many then appear to antagonize the public.

If you are still wondering what motif Matt initially had in mind, it was “fear of the unknown and its ability to provoke anti-social behavior.” Not exactly the stuff of summer reading material, but it most certainly got the conversation going.

Curious about what titles Matt chose? Here is the list!

• Labyrinth by Roberto Bolaño
• Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
• Do You Love Me? by Peter Carey
• Videotape by Don DeLillo
• Williams Burns by Robert Bolaño
• The Great Experiment by Jeffrey Eugerides
• Midnight in Dostoevsky by Don DiLillo
• An Interval by David Foster Wallace
• The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
• Measuring the Jump by Dave Eggers
• The Last Words on Earth by Nicole Krauss

Follow along with us this month as we read The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. What if all the sudden some of your neighbors, coworkers and even friends just vanished—what would happen? The Leftovers follows one particular city to find out how it would turn out.

This past month Tutor.com Reads blended together something old and something new. We picked a classic book to read for the month of May, Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, and decided to try something we’ve never done before: live tweet the meeting. So last Tuesday, with a larger group than usual, we headed into the discussion unsure of exactly what to expect.

We kicked off our luncheon with our go to question: What did you think of the book? While some members had read and reread Catch 22 multiple times since first cracking it open in high school, others were brand new to it. There were vigorous debates over whether or not to think of the protagonist, Yossarian, as a hero or just a self-serving nut. We spent much of the discussion going back and forth on his motives for turning down the general’s offer at the end of the book and why he made that particular decision.  He may have been admirable for not wanting to support the killing of other men, yet if the world was made up entirely of Yossarian’s, wouldn’t it be anarchy?

Unsurprisingly, with such a classic book a large part of our discussion was the legacy of the book itself. Did you know the term catch 22 was made up during the promotion of its first release? And that while the book was popular and in high demand when it first came out in 1953, it wasn’t very well liked in the U.S. where WWII recently helped to revamp the country’s economic situation.

Overall the book proved to be on Tutor.com Read’s must-read list. It had been a long-time favorite for many in the group and the discussion even inspired some of the slackers to pick it back up and finish.

Check out below some of the great quotes and questions we were able to keep track of by live tweeting:

• “Heller does a great job at painting a ridiculous environment that’s based in reality but has tendencies towards the insane” #TDCReads
• “Was it more that he (Yossarian) was opposed to war or that he himself didn’t want to be in those situations?” #TDCReads
• “The world of Catch 22 is not meant to be taken entirely literally. It is a heightened reality.” #TDCReads
• “I think that Milo is a parody of business in general.” #TDCReads
• What does it mean to follow the “rules” in business, war, society? #TDCReads

Did you miss our #TDCReads event? Stay connected with us via Facebook and Twitter to keep track of the next event!

And don’t forget to follow along this month as we read a collection of short stories from Harpers Magazine. Including gems like ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’ and ‘The Great Experiment’.

For this month’s Tutor.com Reads post, book club newcomer Cardine Caffery, Graphic Designer and Australian native, reviews her first book club pick and tries to confuse us with talk of Utes and shouts.

After being part of the book club for one short month I was taken by surprise when asked to pick our next book.  I chose The Slap: A Novel by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas.  I had heard it was a controversial book, which presents the reader with uncomfortable situations and confrontations.  Being Australian myself, I thought I would heat up book club this month and at the same time confuse everyone with a lot of Australian slang.

The book starts with a barbeque amongst friends and family. The day looks like it could be pleasant until one of the children begins to act out. The boy is eventually slapped across the face, not by his parents but by another adult.  Although you believe the boy should have been punished for his behavior you also believe the man should be able to control himself, especially around a 3-year-old boy.

What follows is a chain reaction where we are shown the aftermath through eight different characters’ stories that were either directly or indirectly affected by the slap.

The book touches on various themes such as the difference between generations, differences in the way children are raised and adultery. Just a side note, on behalf of Australians I would like to make a disclaimer that although The Slap makes it seem as though we commit acts of adultery like it’s a rite of passage, there are  (I would like to believe) a majority of us that do not.  One of the more prominent themes throughout the book is multiculturalism seen through the various ethnic backgrounds of the characters, which is a huge part of Australian culture.

Don’t be deterred by how infuriated some (actually, most) of the characters make you. The book really does force you to think honestly about how you would act in certain situations. For me, the book pointed out that not every situation is black and white and I believe Tsiolkas accomplished this by taking us on an emotional tour within each character’s mind.

Did you enjoy The Slap? Then check out the trailer for the Australian T.V. show version:

Join us next month as we shift to a classic! We are reading Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Read along with us & join in on the discussion as we live tweet our next book club meeting on June 5^th at 12PM EDT! #TDCReads

Are you active on GoodReads? Then join in on Tutor.com’s GoodReads group here!

One of the reasons the Tutor.com Book Club loves reading so much, is that you get to experience different worlds that you might of otherwise never have had access to. Our latest read, The Privileges by Jonathan Dee, did just that by allowing us to peer inside the lives of the wealthy New York elite.

Through four lengthy chapters you are transported to various points in time of the main characters marriage and family life. Kicking off at the wedding of Adam and Cynthia, the second chapter has the reader meet their two young children, April and Jonas. The 3^rd and 4^th chapters continue to show the family’s growth, in both age and wealth. The Readers Guide in the back of the book, notes that Dee wanted to “write a straight-up family saga told from the inside out,” and that is precisely what he did. This was not a story that relied on twists and turns to keep the readers interested, instead it focused on the characters and their relationships with the other members of their immediate family.

There were a few points of debate during this book club luncheon. The first was the book as a whole. Most in the group enjoyed the book and the tale of the seemingly inconsequential lives the characters led. The fact that the family seemed like their own island, with little connections to the outside world, was a novel take and became increasingly interesting the more and more wealth they obtained. However, a few others in our group found the book less captivating. With so much of the chapters sharing small character traits with the reader, it would start to feel as though facts were being stated rather than a story being developed.

Our main source of conversation came from our new member Steve, who played devil’s advocate. At the beginning we all agreed that this lifestyle was unhealthy; the shielding and spoiling of their children lead to their unstable lives in young adulthood. They were living in excess and that was wrong. But Steve asked why. Why was it so wrong to only have them circulate with the über rich? Why shouldn’t they shuffle their children around from penthouse to town car, to private plane to private island? If that’s what was driving Adam and Cynthia to succeed, then why shouldn’t they pursue that lifestyle?

Ending our Tuesday luncheon session, we may not have been completely convinced that wealth wasn’t a major factor in the character’s unstable personalities. But debating it made for a very dynamic conversation.

Join us next month when we read The Slap: A Novel by Christos Tsiolkas.  We hope to see you there!

Are you active on GoodReads? Then join in on Tutor.com’s GoodReads group here!

For this month’s Tutor.com Reads post, book club newcomer Steve Schrage, Marketing Coordinator for Military & Federal programs, reviews what he thought of our February pick and what it was like to join in on the discussion for the very first time.

For the past year or so I have sat on the outside of the Tutor.com book club meetings like a newcomer on the playground watching the older kids play a game of baseball.

Despite being asked to join, I knew I didn’t want to be humiliated by my lack of experience so I stayed on the sideline practicing. I went to the batting cages armed with books as my bats. I read some of my own choices – ones I knew I could handle – and then began to challenge myself with some recommendations from friends. I even read one of the previous book club books from the sidelines to see if I had what it takes.

It wasn’t until this past month that I felt I had garnered enough literary prowess to step up to the plate and take on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer (pitched to us by Lily Scholz, Marketing Manager). I approached the book with the usual rookie swagger – thinking I could knock it out of the park and show the rest of the club that I belonged.

It took me about 30 pages to realize that I was extremely lost and incredibly confused.

The book consisted of two major plotlines that were (for most of the novel) inexplicably intertwined along with a myriad of quirky characters seemingly thrown in for eccentricity’s sake. The backdrop of two cities, New York and Dresden, following traumatic events excused some of oddities, but still left me with no real concept to hold on to. I was looking for something to discuss but was left standing at the plate watching the balls go by.

It was then that I realized I wasn’t meant to. I felt like a rookie batsman accepting that the veteran pitcher was just going to throw me garbage.  The author was tossing me characters that I wasn’t meant to understand.  At that point I decided to stop searching for a meaning and just read the book. After that it became much more enjoyable.

When book club finally sat down to discuss, I was happy to find that others had similar feelings towards the book. While it was well received by some, a few found it untethered from reality. We went back and forth over whether the book was full of quirks for quirks sake or instead if it was an honest depiction of how people deal with loss—by digging up graves, walking around with a tambourine, writing their life history or refusing to speak.

All in all, this was a book that made it easy for a rookie to become a part of the book club team. I think I’ll stick around and see how I match up against next month’s book: Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. Hope you do too!

Have you ever come across a story and thought to yourself, “How did I not know about this already?” Our latest book club read, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, was exactly that type of story. Written by Rebecca Skloot, this work of nonfiction blends human interest and science to share with readers the life of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cancer cells (HeLa).

While Henrietta or HeLa might not sound familiar, you probably have heard of at least one of them before. Most likely you learned about the cells, and not the woman they came from, in an introductory biology class. Taken from Henrietta just months before she would pass away from cervical cancer, her cells were some of the first to survive in culture. Due to that, they were used in research for cancer, AIDS, polio, and countless other scientific studies.

Reading about the contributions that HeLa made to science is fascinating. But one of the most surprising facts is that the family Henrietta left behind had no idea these cells existed. Skloot’s book uncovers the life story of Henrietta, the scientific importance of her cells, and the path her family’s lives took after her passing.

With so many elements to the story there was plenty for our book club to discuss. Ranging from distrust of doctors and racial issues in medicine during the 50’s, to questions on how a town can just disappear, we tried to cover it all. Our lunch kicked off with the fact that overall the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family is very sad. After her death, her children were forced into an abusive situation that affected the path of their lives. The sharp contrast between their situation and the benefits science was experiencing due to HeLa, was striking and spurred strong discussion on whether individuals should be paid for donating cells or not.

We all agreed that one of the more disheartening aspects of the story was when Skloot recapped the timeline of how the Lacks’ family became aware of HeLa cells. With so many reporters and scientists showing up at their house asking questions and requesting samples, it was troubling to find that very few attempted to thoroughly explain what it meant that Henrietta’s cells were still alive. After reading an article about scientists in London cloning HeLa, Henrietta’s youngest daughter Deborah, imagined identical copies of her mother walking around on the street.

The overall structure of the book also caught our attention. Taking breaks from the life story of Henrietta and her family, Skloot would dive into details on court cases and scientific conferences that related to HeLa. The group agreed she did a great job of intertwining the two, yet some of us would have preferred if she had kept herself out of it. The third part of the book, “Immortal”, where Skloot focuses on the Lacks’ ended up being more of a summary of her relationship with Deborah than it did on the state of the Lacks family as a whole.

In the end, while there may have been parts that were sad and sections that felt a little long (did there really need to be a chapter about Skloot reading from the Bible?), we all enjoyed the book. As said above, it’s one of those stories that once you hear it, you feel you should of known it all along. The life of Henrietta Lacks was immensely important for both science and society; it’s only fair that her story gets told along with the story of her cells’.

Join us this month as we read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Yes, it did just make its big screen debut with Tom Hanks, but don’t let that stop you! Check out the book with us before you catch it in theaters.

The not so distant future is one of our Book Club’s favorite time frames. Just far away enough to incite images of a futuristic world, but not so far that it’s completely foreign to the culture we live in now. Our latest book club read, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, was smack dab in the middle of such a place. Right from the start of our discussion, we all agreed that it seems entirely possible that we could wind up in Cline’s world where an online utopia dominates people’s lives who use it to escape the harsh state the world has come to.

Filled with 80’s nostalgia and trivia, our book club might have just been the perfect audience for this read. Some of us grew up playing the exact videos games mentioned and could recall our own experiences discovering hidden easter eggs. Others are simply huge fans of the movies and pop culture of that time–Blade Runner anyone?

Going back and forth between reality and the virtual world in the game called OASIS, the tone of the story goes back and forth from disturbing and gloomy to exciting and imaginative. Parzival, or Wade as he’s known outside of the OASIS, recounts the story of the Hunt–the OASIS-wide search for its creator’s, James Halliday’s, fortune. Boiling over into the real world, the Hunt begins to become a classic war between good and evil. While many of us loved the standard roles, others felt the evil corporation, the Sixers, were just a little too easy to hate.

What our conversation strayed to for some time was, unsurprisingly, the education system that was set up in the book. It was interesting to see the virtual schools that were created inside in the OASIS and how typical school day blunders were dealt with–muting students who called out, rendering students unable to get out of their seats. With the outside world in shambles, it was intriguing as to how much discussion was put into how the school system was handled. With Parzival being just a teenager and experiencing it first hand, the education system got more attention than one might expect in a book about video games. From educational videos that Parzival grew up with, to learning that Halliday mandated the OASIS education system be available free to any student, it was quite thought out.

However, stemming from the virtual schools, we did end up questioning the likelihood of Parzival’s confidence after turning off the OASIS. For over a year he spent little time, if any, with another human being. Locked away in his apartment he didn’t even need to answer the door, computers handled it all. Having adjusted to a lifestyle such as thing, many of us found his interactions with his friends at the end unlikely. Confidence in the OASIS is one thing, but confidence standing right in front of the girl of your dreams? Now that takes a bit more guts.

One major point that sparked conversation was the ending of the book. A few of us felt that the final words of Halliday contradicted the entire story and that the advice he leaves Parzival with is against the whole spirit of the hunt. Would Halliday really set into action a worldwide virtual easter egg hunt if his final thoughts in life were realizing it’s truly real world interactions that are important?

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

And don’t forget to read along this month! For our next pick, we took a turn down the non-fiction isle and will be reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. While her name was Henrietta Lacks, scientists mainly know her as HeLa. Doctors took her cells without asking which then launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry.