The first book we will be reading in the Hogwarts Professor Book Club is Patrick Ness’ Monsters of Men, which will be published on 28 September. The thing is that Monsters is not a stand alone work; it’s the final novel in Mr. Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy. If you haven’t read the first two Chaos books, The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and The Answer, then you have a bunch of great reading to do in the next five days. No joke, get to it! In terms of the “parable fiction” I described earlier this week as the fruit of the Harry Potter tree, Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking is an allegorical challenge while being a great read.

Last week I wrote out five “reading ideas” for Knife of Never Letting Go. My job today is to provide the same sort of  questions and thoughts for your reflection on your first or second trip through the second book, The Ask and the Answer, ideas that will simultaneously encourage you to make return trips to the book while not spoiling firsttimers’ experience of the story. In the next few days before Monsters of Men‘s publication, I’ll put up some speculative notes about the last book that will assume you’ve read Knife and The Ask.

Here are my first five ideas to spur your thinking: [Read more…]