After reading Ray Bradbury for our 19th book club, Mandy was inspired to choose another old school sci-fi book for our 20th meeting. She selected The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971).
It seems that sci-fi is a good genre for our reading group, as the book received a pretty warm reception overall. The story follows a man named George Orr who realizes that his dreams are literally coming true. If he dreams about a horse running in a field, he wakes up to see a painting change from a mountain to a horse; if he dreams there was a plague that wiped out half of the population, when he wakes up, reality confirms that it's true. When Orr visits a psychiatrist, Dr. Haber, he is hoping to put an end to his "effective" dreams, but the doctor tries to wield Orr's powers and use them for his own good by giving Orr things to dream about.
While reading the book, I kept thinking to myself "I've heard this story before" in some form or another (e.g., Inception anyone?) but when I reminded myself that this story came first -- in 1971-- I was blown away with the genius of it all.
This is the type of book that all of the Eat, Drink, and Literarians wanted to read again after discussing it so we could re-discover the symbolism, foreshadowing, and brilliance of Le Guin.
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