PalmCaster · The Books of the Hand

A reading guide

Ten questions for a book club, a classroom, or a kitchen table. Read a passage aloud before you start. The sentences were built for the voice and they behave differently in the air.

1. OBOBO never asks who owns a broken thing. He asks what was taken from it. What changes when the second question is asked first?
2. The canon holds that a thing can be repaired and still not be whole. Where have you seen that difference yourself?
3. The Immortals were sent to keep the world. At what point does keeping become owning, and how would anyone inside it be able to tell?
4. The accounts disagree with one another. Which did you trust, and what earned it?
5. Some silences are kept on purpose. Find one. What is it protecting?
6. The preface says that what became of OBOBO's father "is told three ways". Why would a canon keep three tellings and decline to choose among them?
7. OBOBO's mother was afraid to name him, and he named himself. What does a name do in this book?
8. The Risers complete the eyes of a figure only when the rising is real. What would it cost to finish something too early?
9. The book has no dark lord. Its adversaries are three lies. Which of the three is told most often where you live?
10. Which passage would you read aloud to someone who has not opened the book?

A plan for eight meetings

The parts of the volume are not the same length, so a group that takes one Book a meeting will stall in the last two. This plan keeps each meeting to about an hour of silent reading, or two hours read aloud.

Meeting	Read
1	The Preface and Books One, Two and Three
2	Book Four
3	Book Five and Of the Return
4	Book Six
5	Book Seven, first half
6	Book Seven, second half
7	Book Eight, first half
8	Book Eight, second half, with the Appendix and the Colophon

Divide Books Seven and Eight at the break between movements nearest the middle. Begin each meeting by reading one page aloud.

Reading group kit

For teachers and librarians: Class sets and library orders are welcome. Institutional and library inquiries

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