Several of those readers also identified with the novel’s vision of a woman having to fight against the male assumptions about the value of a drug that extends women’s reproductive lives, as embodied in Dr. Swenson as a scary teacher, or even a scary mother, the members of the Mount Vernon Library book group, who tended to be older, were more sympathetic to her emotional pain at the end of the novel, seeing her as a woman who had made profound sacrifices for what she saw as important science and a life-saving advance in the malaria vaccine. She’s trying to find a malaria vaccine that could save the lives of 800,000 children a year!” I was interested that while the high school students tended to see Dr. Swenson, I’d get some quick responses along the lines of “She’s a monster!,” followed by people saying, “Now, wait a minute.

I got everything from “Let’s go! Right now!” to “Aaagh, giant spiders!” When I asked them their response to Dr. I’m interested in what assumptions and associations about the Amazon readers bring to the book, so I started by asking them what responses the idea of a trip to the Amazon inspired in them. Marveling at “the way the book solicits such a wide variety of responses to its central characters and the ethical questions it raises,” Professor Lobanov-Rostovsky gives some of the highlights of the public conversations he led: McAdams, KR Editor David Lynn, and KR Associate Editors Natalie Shapero and Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky spent October posting their thoughts about State of Wonder each week as part of an online book discussion on the KR blog, and then took this discussion off-line to local classrooms and reading groups. Hubbard Professor of Poetry at Kenyon College, kicked off these discussions by leading a brown bag chat at the Mount Vernon Public Library. Patchett’s novel, many members of the Knox County community then made their way to our book discussions in Mount Vernon over the following weeks. At this first event of Knox Reads!, local shoppers and vendors picked up their copy to tuck in their baskets between the seasonal gourds and fresh fruit. This year’s annual celebration of literature began in September, when dozens of free copies of Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder were given away at the Mount Vernon Farmers’ Market.

It might have been the magazine’s birthday, but the Review was the one giving out gifts: book giveaways in Knox County, poetry and prose readings by award-winning writers, and a keynote lecture by this year’s recipient of the Award for Literary Achievement, Ann Patchett.

Readers joined the celebration of The Kenyon Review’s 75th anniversary as the annual Kenyon Review Literary Festival took place in Gambier from October 23rd to the 25th.

Ann patchett state of wonder review