JUNE BOOK

Our selection for June is Wool (link) by American writer Hugh Howey.  A topical choice, the book is the first of a trilogy, with this initial volume being the basis for the first two seasons of the Apple TV series Silo.  Look for the usual suspects on the patio (weather co-operating) on Tuesday, June 9 at our usual time (7pm) and place (Zawa Restaurant ).  All interested parties always welcome.

 

The first book in the acclaimed, New York Times best-selling trilogy, Wool is the story of mankind clawing for survival. The world outside has grown toxic, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. The remnants of humanity live underground in a single silo.

But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they want: They are allowed to go outside.

MAY BOOK

After A.C.  Grayling's effusive praise of William Hazlitt in our April book, we decided to give the latter a try for May.  Our May book is The Fight and Other Writings (link) by the aforementioned Hazlitt, an English essayist, critic, painter, social commentator and philosopher.  This edition is out of print and it may be difficult to track down a hard copy.  However, a Kindle version is available, as well as an online copy at the Internet Archive (IA).  (You have to create a free account to access the entire book.)  We're back to our usual second Tuesday schedule, so it's a 7pm start time on May 12 at our regular Zawa Restaurant (zawa) watering hole.  Look for us on the patio if the weather is favorable.  All are welcome, always.

Hazlitt is one of the greatest masters of English prose style and this new selection demonstrates the variety and richness of his writing. The volume includes classic pieces of drama and literary criticism, such as his essays on Shakespeare and Coleridge, as well as less well-known material from his social and political journalism. This collection encourages the reader to reconsider the nature of critical writing, which Hazlitt transforms into an art form.

APRIL BOOK

Our April selection is The Reason of Things (link), an interesting potpourri of philosophical essays on everyday life by the noted British philosopher, author and activist A.C. Grayling (wikilink).  Note: We're off our regular schedule in April.  Due to scheduling conflicts, our meeting will be on April 21 (the 3rd Tuesday of the month).  The usual time (7pm) and location (Zawa) still apply.  All are welcome to join our animated gatherings.  (With any weather luck, we may even be back outdoors on the patio.)

"A distinctive voice somewhere between Mark Twain and Michel Montaigne" is how Psychology Today described A.C. Grayling.  A civilized society, says Grayling, is one which never ceases having a discussion with itself about what human life should best be. In this book, Grayling adds to this discussion a series of short informal essays about ethics, ideas, and culture. A recurring theme is religion, of which he writes "there is no greater social evil." He argues, for instance, that liberal education is better than religion for inculcating moral values. "Education in literature, history, and appreciation of the arts," he says, "opens the possibility for us to live more reflectively and knowledgeably, especially about the nature and variety of human experience. That in turn increases our capacity for understanding others better, so that we can treat them with respect and sympathy, however different their outlook on life." Thought provoking rather than definitive, these essays don't tell readers what to think, but only note what has been thought about how it is best to live. A person who does not think about life, the author reminds us, is like a stranger mapless in a foreign land. These brief and suggestive essays offer us the outlines of a map, with avenues of thought that are a pleasure to wander down.

MARCH BOOK

And so we've reached the final installment of our triptych of classics with our March selection from one of the godfathers of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude (link).  The festivities begin at 7pm at our usual hangout, Zawa Restaurant (ZAWA) this coming Tuesday, March 10.  Anyone is welcome to join our small band of bantering, bibulous bibliophiles.

From Wikipedia:

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the fictitious town of Macondo. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.  The magical realist style and thematic substance of the book established it as an important representative novel of the literary Latin American literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which was stylistically influenced by modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement.  Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, the book has been translated into 46 languages and sold more than 50 million copies.  The novel, considered García Márquez's magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works both in the Hispanic literary canon and in world literature.

FEBRUARY BOOK

Our February book will be Absalom, Absalom by American Nobel laureate William Faulkner (link).  Note that we flipped Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude to March for the time being.  The usual suspects will be meeting on Tuesday evening, Feb. 10 at our regular Zawa Restaurant location (ZAWA) at 7pm.  As always, newcomers are more than welcome.

From Wikipedia:   Absalom, Absalom! is a Southern Gothic novel by the American author Wiliam Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during and after the American Civil War, it focuses on the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a plantation owner in the American South, as told by several unreliable narrators many years later.

JANUARY BOOK

A new year will soon be upon us and we'll be ringing it in with a series of classics, beginning with our January choice Dead Souls (link ) by Nikolai Gogol.  The current lineup is Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude for February, followed by Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner in March.  (February and March meeting dates will be confirmed later.)  Our second Tuesday of the month slot falls on the lucky 13th of January (2026!) this time around, so hope to see the gang congregate for a post holiday therapy session at our regular Zawa Restaurant location (ZAWA) at 7pm.  Newcomers and the merely curious always welcome.  Happy holidays to one and all.

Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero Chichikov combs the back country, wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition.

DECEMBER BOOK

For December, we've selected Motherless Brooklyn (link) by contemporary American author Jonathan Franzen.  Edward Norton wrote and directed the entertaining 2019 film version of the novel.  We're back to our regular second Tuesday of the month schedule (Tuesday, December 9).  All interested parties are welcome to join the gang at 7pm at Zawa Restaurant (ZAWA) on Commercial Drive.  And hearty ritual winter solstice greetings to everyone.  May a boon filled holiday season continue into the new year for one and all.

Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal.