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.

NOVEMBER BOOK

Our November selection is Dusklands (link) by South African author J.M. Coetzee, who has collected a Nobel Prize and two Bookers  amongst his roomful of awards.  Note:  as the second Tuesday of November falls on the 11th (Remembrance Day), we've pushed next month's meeting to Tuesday, November 18th.  No changes otherwise:  our usual 7pm start time at the cozy Zawa Restaurant (link) at Commercial Drive & Venables.  All and sundry welcome to join the usual suspects.

A shattering pair of novellas, Dusklands probes the links between the powerful and the powerless.  'Vietnam Project' is narrated by a researcher investigating the effectiveness of United States propaganda and psychological warfare in Vietnam.

The question of power is also explored in 'The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee', the story of an eighteenth-century Boer frontiersman who vows revenge on the Hottentot natives because they have failed to treat him with the respect that he thinks a white man deserves.

OCTOBER BOOK

Our October book is Barchester Towers (link) by the prolific Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope.  It's back to indoor dining as autumn is upon us, so come and enjoy some fine food and drink, and literary palaver (as well as the comforts of central heating) this Tuesday, October 14 at our usual spot, Zawa Restaurant (link) on Commercial Drive.  Start time is 7pm and all are welcome.

After the death of old Dr. Grantly, a bitter struggle begins over who will succeed him as Bishop of Barchester. And when the decision is finally made to appoint the evangelical Dr. Proudie, rather than the son of the old bishop, Archdeacon Grantly, resentment and suspicion threaten to cause deep divisions within the diocese. Trollope's masterly depiction of the plotting and back-stabbing that ensues lies at the heart of one of the most vivid and comic of his Barsetshire novels, peopled by such very different figures as the saintly Warden of Hiram's Hospital, Septimus Harding, the ineffectual but well-meaning new bishop and his terrifying wife, and the oily chaplain Mr Slope who has designs on Mr Harding's daughter.

SEPTEMBER BOOK

For September we've chosen the International Booker Prize winner The Vegetarian (link) by Korean author Han Kang (winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize).  You can find the gang at our usual haunt  Zawa Restaurant (link) on Commercial Drive on Tuesday, September 9th at the regular 7pm start time.  All and sundry are welcome to join us for literary logorrhea and libations as we usher out the summer (on the patio one last time with any luck).

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman's struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.