Gig Harbor Literary Society

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Join us on the first Tuesday of each month to read historical fiction, contemporary fiction or nonfiction set in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim.

We're sorry we can't meet with you in person, but we're excited to talk about books with you virtually! This month we'll be discussing Exhalation by Ted Chiang. The book is available to place on hold from the Pierce County Library in physical, ebook and eaudio formats. 

Exhalation is a collection of short stories by science fiction and speculative fiction writer Ted Chiang. Chiang is the winner of four Hugo awards, four Nebula awards and six Locus Awards

Tackling some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine, these stories will change the way you think, feel, and see the world. They are Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic, revelatory.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
THE WASHINGTON POST • TIME MAGAZINE • NPR • ESQUIRE • VOX • THE A.V. CLUB • THE GUARDIAN • FINANCIAL TIMES • THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS • POLYGON • KIRKUS REVIEWS • THRILLIST • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

“Lean, relentless, and incandescent.”
—Colson Whitehead

“Illuminating, thrilling. . . . Like such eclectic predecessors as Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree, Jr., Jorge Luis Borges, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, China Miéville, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Chiang has explored conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways. . . . Individual sentences possess the windowpane transparency that George Orwell advocated as a prose ideal. . . . It is both a surprise and a relief to encounter fiction that explores counterfactual worlds like these with . . . ardor and earnestness. . . . Human curiosity, for Chiang, is a nearly divine engine of progress.”
—Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker
 
“Masterful and striking. . . . A fusion of pure intellect and molten emotion. . . . Represents the ideal definition and practice of all science fiction. . . . [Chiang’s] career thus deservedly joins those of only a handful of past masters who likewise did their best work in miniature: Edgar Allan Poe, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon. . . . His challenging and rewarding fiction proves that a sizable and appreciative audience exists for the kind of speculative fiction that doesn’t merely offer cosmic explosions, but instead plucks both heartstrings and gray matter in equal measure.”
—Paul Di Filippo, The Washington Post

 
How do Zoom programs work?

1. Register for the program. Take care entering your email address properly.
2. You will immediately receive an email including the Zoom link from donotreply@mylocallibrary.info.  If you do not receive this link within an hour, contact us at VirtualPCLS@pcls.us   
3. When the Zoom program is scheduled to begin, log in and enjoy the program. If you have any problems logging in, contact us at VirtualPCLS@pcls.us   

Other Zoom Info

• The Pierce County Library recommends using the latest version of Zoom, with all current updates. Check for the latest version by clicking here.
• The Library System expects that all participants in Library virtual events and classes follow the Library Rules of Conduct. If an individual does not follow the Rules of Conduct, the library has the right to ask that individual to leave the virtual program.
• If you have registered for the event and are having trouble accessing the event, please email VirtualPCLS@pcls.us   

Public Notice & Disclaimer

During this program, you may be using a third-party platform, Zoom, for the purpose of communication, collaboration, projects, etc. This service may collect some personally identifying information about you, such as name, username, email address, and password. This service will treat the information it collects about you pursuant to its own privacy policy, which can be found here:  Zoom Privacy Policy.

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