FEBRUARY BOOK

Our book for February is the latest novel from contemporary English author Zadie Smith, The Fraud (link).  We'll meet on Tuesday, February 13 at our usual Zawa's location on Commercial Drive (link) with the usual 7pm start time.  All lifeforms welcome.

  

     It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

     Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

     Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

 

JANUARY BOOK

Happy New Year to one and all!  We'll start off the new year with a collection of Kurt Vonnegut short stories Welcome to the Monkey House (link).  We're sticking with our second Tuesday of the month schedule, so that means Tuesday, January 9 this time around.  And we're back at Zawa's on the Drive (link) at our usual 7pm start time.  Come and join the gang for some literary chatter and chow.  All residents of the Milky Way welcome.

A MASTERFUL COLLECTION OF TWENTY-FIVE SHORT STORIES FROM THE INIMITABLE AUTHOR OF SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, KURT VONNEGUT

'Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer...a zany but moral mad scientist' Time

A diabolical government asserts control by eliminating orgasms. A scientist discovers the secret to unlocking instant happiness, with unexpected consequences. In an America where everyone is equal every which way, a teenage boy plans to overthrow the system.

Welcome to the Monkey House gathers together twenty-five of Kurt Vonnegut's short stories from the 1950s and 1960s. Shot through with Vonnegut's singular humor, wit and bewilderment at humanity, this is a collection that celebrates a true master of short-form fiction.

 

DECEMBER BOOK

Ritual winter solstice greetings to one and all!  Our selection for December is Born in Blackness (link) by Howard W. French, a Columbia University Professor of Journalism and long time New York Times foreign correspondent and bureau chief.  Since we've shifted to the second Tuesday of the month, that means it's December 12 this time around.  And we're continuing at Zawa Restaurant on Commercial Drive (link) with the usual 7pm start time.  So take a break from the holiday hoopla and drop by this Tuesday evening for some tasty bites, beer and book banter.  All sentient life forms welcome.

Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the "New World." Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?   In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent.

NOVEMBER BOOK

Our tome of choice for November is Anecdotes of Destiny (link) by Isak Dinesen (nom de plume of Danish author Karen Blixen, whose works include Out of Africa, one of our previous selections).  We'll continue meeting on the second Tuesday of the month until further notice.  That means Tuesday, November 10 is your chance to enjoy some pilsner and palaver at Zawa Restaurant on Commercial Drive (link).  All are welcome to join our merry band of bookateers at the usual 7pm start time.

These five rich, witty and magical stories from the author of Out of Africa include one of her most well known tales, 'Babette's Feast', which was made into the classic film. It tells the story of a French cook working in a puritanical Norwegian community, who treats her employers to the decadent feast of a lifetime. There is also a real-life Prospero and his Ariel in 'Tempests', a mysterious pearl-fisher in 'The Diver' and a brief, tragic encounter in 'The Ring'. All the stories have a mystic, fairy-tale quality, linked by themes of angels, the sea, dreams and fate. They were among the last to be written by Isak Dinesen, and show her as a master of short fiction.

OCTOBER BOOK

Our book for October is  Middlemarch by noted 19th century English novelist Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the name George Eliot (link).  Hope everyone got an early start on this behemoth.  We'll be meeting on the second Tuesday of the month (to avoid conflict with the Vancouver International Film Festival).  So that's Tuesday, October 10 at Zawa's on Commercial Drive (link).  As usual, all are welcome to join the festivities which commence at 7pm.

George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel—the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town's equilibrium—Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea's husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the town's elite. Middlemarch displays George Eliot's clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.

SEPTEMBER BOOK

Our September selection isThe Caretaker (link), a play by Nobel Prize winning British dramatist Harold Pinter.  Once again we'll be at Zawa's on Commercial Drive (link) for our last meeting of the summer.  Please note:  we'll be off our usual schedule again as we'll meet on the second Tuesday of the month, September 12, at our regular time of 7pm.  Come one, come all!

The Caretaker is a drama in three acts. Although it was the sixth of Pinter's major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers and a tramp, became his first significant commercial success.  A 1963 filmed version of the play starred Alan Bates, Donald Pleasence and Robert Shaw.

AUGUST BOOK

For August, we've selected a classic of French literature :  Candide (link) by Voltaire (pseudonym of Francois-Marie Arouet).  Please note:  due to scheduling conflicts we've moved the August meeting to Thursday, August 10.  We can decide on our September date then.  We'll continue to enjoy these fine summer evenings on the patio at Zawa Restaurant & Bar (link).  As usual, it's a 7pm start and the more, the merrier.

Voltaire's masterpiece belongs in the hands of every reader pondering our assumptions about human behavior and our place in the world. Candide tells of the hilarious adventures of the naïve Candide, who doggedly believes that "all is for the best" even when faced with injustice, suffering, and despair. Controversial and entertaining, Candide is a book that is vitally relevant today in our world pervaded by—as Candide would say—"the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well."