NOVEMBER BOOK

Our tome of choice for November is Anecdotes of Destiny (link) by Isak Dinesen (nom de plume of Danish author Karen Blixen, whose works include Out of Africa, one of our previous selections).  We'll continue meeting on the second Tuesday of the month until further notice.  That means Tuesday, November 10 is your chance to enjoy some pilsner and palaver at Zawa Restaurant on Commercial Drive (link).  All are welcome to join our merry band of bookateers at the usual 7pm start time.

These five rich, witty and magical stories from the author of Out of Africa include one of her most well known tales, 'Babette's Feast', which was made into the classic film. It tells the story of a French cook working in a puritanical Norwegian community, who treats her employers to the decadent feast of a lifetime. There is also a real-life Prospero and his Ariel in 'Tempests', a mysterious pearl-fisher in 'The Diver' and a brief, tragic encounter in 'The Ring'. All the stories have a mystic, fairy-tale quality, linked by themes of angels, the sea, dreams and fate. They were among the last to be written by Isak Dinesen, and show her as a master of short fiction.

OCTOBER BOOK

Our book for October is  Middlemarch by noted 19th century English novelist Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the name George Eliot (link).  Hope everyone got an early start on this behemoth.  We'll be meeting on the second Tuesday of the month (to avoid conflict with the Vancouver International Film Festival).  So that's Tuesday, October 10 at Zawa's on Commercial Drive (link).  As usual, all are welcome to join the festivities which commence at 7pm.

George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel—the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town's equilibrium—Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea's husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the town's elite. Middlemarch displays George Eliot's clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.