DECEMBER BOOK

Our book for December is The Yiddish Policemen's Union (link) by American author Michael Chabon.  This complex alternate history novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.  The second Tuesday of the month lands on December 10th this time around. The status remains quo for our location, Zawa Restaurant at Commercial & Venables (Zawa), as well as our start time (7pm).  As usual, all are welcome to join in for some pre-holiday book banter accompanied by feasting and libations.

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.

NOVEMBER BOOK

November's selection is the extraordinary memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (link).  The second Tuesday of the month falls on November 12th and we hope to see one and all at our usual Zawa's location (Zawa) at the regular 7pm start time.  Plus ones welcome.

Twelve Years a Slave is a landmark work, not just for its historical significance but for its enduring relevance. Northup's eloquent prose and vivid descriptions offer a stark portrayal of a dark chapter in American history, challenging readers to confront the painful truths of the past while inspiring a commitment to justice and equality. This memoir stands as a poignant and unforgettable exploration of the resilience of the human spirit in the pursuit of freedom.

OCTOBER BOOK

Our book for October is The Lover by French author Marguerite Duras (link).  We're back to our regular second Tuesday of the month schedule, which means we'll be meeting at 7pm on the evening of October 8th at our usual Zawa's home (Zawa) but it looks like patio season is over.  All carbon-based bipeds welcome.

A sensational international bestseller, and winner of France's coveted Prix Goncourt, 'The Lover' is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl's family apart. Saigon,1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society. A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly. Here is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between the lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl's family apart.

SEPTEMBER BOOK

Our September selection is The Children of Men (link) by noted English mystery writer P.D. James.  This dystopian vision of the near future is a departure from her regular oeuvre and in 2006 was adapted brilliantly for the screen by noted Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron.  We're back to our regular second Tuesday of the month schedule, so come and join the jocular japing on Tuesday, September 10 at our usual haunt, Zawa restaurant on Commercial Drive off Venables (link).  Festivities commence at 7pm and everyone is welcome.  Check the patio first if the late summer weather is co-operating.

Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future, spends most of his time reminiscing. Then he is approached by Julian, a bright, attractive woman who wants him to help get her an audience with his cousin, the powerful Warden of England. She and her band of unlikely revolutionaries may just awaken his desire to live . . . and they may also hold the key to survival for the human race.

AUGUST BOOK

Our book for August is the short story collection Little Black Book of Stories by the English Booker Prize winning author A.S. Byatt (link).  Please note:  due to scheduling conflicts we have moved the date to the second Thursday of the month, August 15th.  We should be back to our second Tuesday schedule in September.  Join the literary festivities at our usual Zawa location (Zawa) on Commercial Drive, beginning at 7pm.  We'll be on the patio if the glorious summer weather continues.  Everyone welcome as always.

Little Black Book of Stories offers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood:two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by chance, venture into a dark forest where once, many years before, they saw–or thought they saw–something unspeakable. Another woman, recently bereaved, finds herself slowly but surely turning into stone. A coolly rational ob-gyn has his world pushed off-axis by a waiflike art student with her own ideas about the uses of the body. Spellbinding, witty, lovely, terrifying, the Little Black Book of Stories is Byatt at the height of her craft.

 

JULY BOOK

It's back to fiction for July as we have selected The Bad Girl by Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (link).  The second Tuesday of the month falls on July 9, so join the garrulous gang at Zawa's on Commercial Drive (link) at our usual start time of 7pm, probably outside on the patio.  Everyone welcome.

Ricardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as "Lily" in Lima in 1950, when she flits into his life one summer and disappears again without explanation. He loves her still when she reappears as a revolutionary in 1960s Paris, then later as Mrs. Richardson, the wife of a wealthy Englishman, and again as the mistress of a sinister Japanese businessman in Tokyo. However poorly she treats him, he is doomed to worship her. Charting Ricardo's expatriate life through his romances with this shape-shifting woman, Vargas Llosa has created a beguiling, epic romance about the life-altering power of obsession.

JUNE BOOK

Our book for June is very topical, Reset:  Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (link), a CBC Massey Lectures offering by Ronald J. Diebert, founder of Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital tech and security group.  Join the gang at our usual Zawa's location (link) on Tuesday, June 11 as we delve into the pros and cons of our brave new digital world.  It's the regular 7pm kickoff and all are welcome.  With a modicum of luck we'll have a sun drenched evening on the patio.

Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.