Shelfology Book Pairing

A Novel

by Hank Green

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Sparkling with mystery, humor and the uncanny, this is a fun read. But beneath its effervescent tone, more complex themes are at play.” —San Francisco Chronicle In his wildly entertaining debut novel, Hank Green—cocreator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow—spins a sweeping, cinematic tale about a young woman who becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagined. The Carls just appeared. Roaming through New York City at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us. Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring for the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye. The beginning of an exciting fiction career, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a bold and insightful novel of now.

(Annotated Edition)

by John John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the specific story of the Joad family, and thus illustrates the hardships and oppression suffered by migrant laborers during the Great Depression. It is an explicitly political piece of writing, one that champions collective action by the lower classes. In taking this social stance, Steinbeck's novel criticizes shortsighted self-interest and chastises corporate and banking elites for profit-maximizing policies that ultimately forced farmers into destitution and even starvation. The novel begins with a description of the conditions in Dust Bowl Oklahoma that ruined crops and instigated massive foreclosures on farmland. No specific characters emerge initially; this is a technique that Steinbeck will employ several times in the book, posing descriptions of events in a large social context against descriptions of events more particular to the Joad family. Tom Joad, a man not yet thirty, approaches a diner dressed in spotless, somewhat formal clothing. He hitches a ride with a truck driver, who presses Tom for information until Tom finally reveals that he was just released from McAlester prison, where he served four years for murdering a man during a fight. Steinbeck follows this exchange with an interlude describing a turtle crossing the road, which serves as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class.