JANUARY BOOK

 And so another new year will soon be upon us, and we'll ring it in with our January selection of After the Quake (link), a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.  Join the post-holiday frivolity on Tuesday evening of January 14 at our regular Zawa Restaurant location (at Commercial & Venables; Zawa).  It's a 7pm start time and all are welcome as always.  In the meantime, Ritual Solstice Greetings to everyone and best wishes this festive season.

The six stories in Haruki Murakami's mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami's characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.  As haunting as dreams, as potent as oracles, the stories in" After the Quake are further proof that Murakami is one of the most visionary writers at work today.

DECEMBER BOOK

Our book for December is The Yiddish Policemen's Union (link) by American author Michael Chabon.  This complex alternate history novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.  The second Tuesday of the month lands on December 10th this time around. The status remains quo for our location, Zawa Restaurant at Commercial & Venables (Zawa), as well as our start time (7pm).  As usual, all are welcome to join in for some pre-holiday book banter accompanied by feasting and libations.

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.