MAY BOOK

Our book for May is The White Castle (link) by the Turkish Nobelist Orhan Pamuk.  We'll meet at the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) by Waterfront Station, back on the patio as the rumors of spring seem to be true.  (If the patio is full, look for us inside.)   So that's Tuesday, May 2 with the usual 7pm start time.  Come one, come all!  No one will be turned away.

From a Turkish writer who has been compared with Borges, Nabokov, and DeLillo comes a dazzling novel that is at once a captivating work of historical fiction and a sinuous treatise on the enigma of identity and the relations between East and West. In the 17th century, a young Italian scholar sailing from Venice to Naples is taken prisoner and delivered to Constantinople There he falls into the custody of a scholar known as Hoja--"master"--a man who is his exact double. In the years that follow, the slave instructs his master in Western science and technology, from medicine to pyrotechnics. But Hoja wants to know more: why he and his captive are the persons they are and whether, given knowledge of each other's most intimate secrets, they could actually exchange identities. Set in a world of magnificent scholarship and terrifying savagery, The White Castle is a colorful and intricately patterned triumph of the imagination.

APRIL BOOK

Our selection for April is The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (link) by acclaimed Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.  We'll continue at the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) by Waterfront Station, perhaps finally reclaiming the patio as spring seems to be in the air.  Join the usual cast of suspects for some noshing and lively debate on Tuesday, April 4, kicking off at 7pm.  All are welcome including the merely curious.

In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city's placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami's most acclaimed and beloved novels.

 

MARCH BOOK

This month we celebrate the Ides of March (and the march of time) with The Order of Time (link ) by Italian physicist and popular science writer Carlo Rovelli.  We're back at the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) next to Waterfront Station; on the heated patio if it's open or inside if not.  (It was a bit noisy last time so we may consider other options for future meetings.)  Join the fun on the evening of Tuesday, March 7 with the usual 7pm start time.  All are welcome, always.  And a special welcome to our two newest members.

For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe.

FEBRUARY BOOK

Our book for February is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (link), the German/Swiss Nobelist. It's the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) next to Waterfront Station once again; on the heated patio if it's open or inside if not.  We'll be meeting at 7pm on the evening of Tuesday, February 6.  Friends, Romans, countrymen and everyone else are welcome to join our merry troupe.

Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book's debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hermann Hesse's time, synthesizing disparate philosophies–Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism–into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for meaning.

JANUARY BOOK

Our December book will be Mister Pip (link) by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones. (The film version stars Hugh Laurie).  We're still at the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) next to Waterfront Station, on the heated patio if it's open or inside if not.  Ring in the New Year with some book lore and brews on Tuesday, January 3 starting at 7pm.  All are welcome always.

  

On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations.

     DECEMBER BOOK

Our December book will be Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (a pen name of Danish writer Karen Blixen).  The  (somewhat saccharine) film adaptation of 1985 won seven Academy Awards.  We'll be back at the Steamworks Brew Pub (Steamworks) next to Waterfront Station but moving inside, as the patio is closed for the winter.  Join the crew on the evening of Tuesday December 6 for some lively noshing and nattering, starting at 7pm.  New members always welcome.

From Wikipedia:  Out of Africa is a memoir by the Danish author Karen Blixen. The book, first published in 1937, recounts events of the seventeen years when Blixen made her home in Kenya, then called British East Africa. The book is a lyrical meditation on Blixen's life on her coffee plantation, as well as a tribute to some of the people who touched her life there. It provides a vivid snapshot of African colonial life in the last decades of the British Empire. Blixen wrote the book in English and then rewrote it in Danish.

NOVEMBER BOOK

Our book for November is Burma Chronicles, a graphic novel by Canadian Guy Delisle (link).  We'll continue at the Steamworks Brew Pub covered patio (Steamworks) next to Waterfront Station (with plenty of propane heaters).  Kick off November in style by enjoying some libations and literary palaver with your friendly neighborhood bibliophiles;  7pm this Tuesday (Nov 1) evening.  All are welcome as always.

From Wikipedia:  The book recounts Guy Delisle's trip to the southeast Asian country which is officially recognized by the United Nations as Myanmar but that is referred to as Burma by countries that do not recognize the military junta that controls it. Delisle went with his infant son, Louis, and his wife, Nadège, an administrator for Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). At the beginning of the trip, the family must stay in an MSF guest house while they search for more permanent housing. Guy stays home and takes care of Louis while Nadège is frequently absent on MSF business. Guy takes Louis on frequent walks around the neighborhood in his stroller and interacts with local people in Burma.