APRIL MEETING CANCELLED

Well it's pretty clear the Covid-19 restrictions are going to be in force for a while longer, so consider tomorrow evening's meeting officially cancelled.  Let's try again for Tuesday, May 5 (although that looks rather optimistic at this point).  Feel free to suggest another tome as I'm sure we all have a lot more time for reading these days.  Hope everyone is keeping healthy and getting a chance to enjoy the suddenly improved weather.

APRIL BOOK

April's book will be the Booker Prize winning The Remains of the Day (https://www.amazon.com/Remains-Day-Kazuo-Ishiguro/dp/0679731725/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZT6S9UMXA6TD&keywords=remains+of+the+day+book&qid=1584338471&sprefix=remains%2Caps%2C240&sr=8-1) by Kazuo Ishiguro (also a Nobel laureate).  The film adaptation (starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson) is well worth seeing.  Join us on the evening of Tuesday, April 7 for a relaxing evening of good food, book talk and a beverage or two, starting at 7pm at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge overlooking English Bay.  Note:  with the COVID-19 situation so fluid, check back here in case we need to move, postpone or cancel April's planned meeting.

         

     This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

MARCH BOOK

Our March book will be Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Netflix-Takeshi-Kovacs/dp/1524798819/ref=tmm_pap_title_1?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1581298405&sr=8-1 ).  For all you Netflixers, the book has been serialized and was produced in Vancouver and environs, with many recognizable local landmarks.  (Beware:  there are significant alterations from the book.)  Join the gang at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge on the evening of Tuesday, March 3 for comfort food and beverages and a lively literary discussion, beginning at 7pm.  Newcomers always welcome.

         

In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.

Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold.

FEBRUARY BOOK

Our book for February will be Dear Life by Alice Munro (https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Life-Stories-Vintage-International/dp/0307743721/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=dear+life+alice+munro&qid=1579503730&sr=8-1).  Join the gang at the Sylvia Hotel lounge on the evening of Tuesday February 4 for some choice morsels and beverages and a lively discussion of 2013 Canadian Nobelist Ms. Munro's short story collection.  As usual, kick-off is at 7 pm and all and sundry are welcome to join us.

         

In story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro's unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro's own childhood. Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

JANUARY BOOK

Ritual winter solstice greetings to all!  January's book will be The Blue Flower (https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Flower-Novel-Penelope-Fitzgerald/dp/B01L9EEYQQ/ref=tmm_pap_title_13?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) by Booker Prize winning British author Penelope Fitzgerald.  Join us on the evening of Tuesday, January 7 as we cure our New Year's hangovers with some hair of the dog and lively literary discussion at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge.  The fun begins at 7pm and newcomers and the idly curious are more than welcome.  As that famous philosopher Groucho Marx said, "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

         

The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe, in the small towns and great universities of late eighteenth-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father's permission to wed his "heart's heart," his "spirit's guide"—a plain, simple child named Sophie von Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends.

DECEMBER BOOK

December's book will be To Have and Have Not (https://www.amazon.com/Have-Not-Scribner-Classics/dp/0684859238/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1574664524&sr=8-1) by Ernest Hemingway.  Come and join our merry band of bibulous bibliophiles at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge on the evening of Tuesday, December 4.  As usual, it's a 7pm start time and newcomers and the idly curious are always welcome.

         

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the "haves" and the "have nots" and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre. In turn funny and tragic, lively and poetic, remarkable in its emotional impact, To Have and Have Not takes literary high adventure to a new level. As the Times Literary Supplement observed, "Hemingway's gift for dialogue, for effective understatement, and for communicating such emotions the tough allow themselves, has never been more conspicuous."

NOVEMBER BOOK

November's book will be Night Train (https://www.amazon.com/Night-Train-Martin-Amis/dp/0375701141) by English writer Martin Amis (the son of writer Kingsley Amis).  Join the fun at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge on the evening of Tuesday, November 5.  The night kicks off at 7pm and newcomers are always welcome.

         

Not since his celebrated novel Money has Martin Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect. Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of a classic whodunit, Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our humanity.