january 2018 book

Continuing at the scenic Sylvia Hotel for the New Year!
PLEASE NOTE: We will be meeting on the SECOND Tuesday of the month for January

January's book will be Cat and Mouse, by Gunter Grass
Join us on Tuesday, January 9th - for food, drink and discussion.

The setting is Danzig during World War II. The narrator recalls a boyhood scene in which a black cat pounces on his friend Mahlke's 'mouse'-his prominent Adam's apple. This incident sets off a wild series of events that ultimately leads to Mahlke's becoming a national hero.

december book

Back to the scenic Sylvia Hotel for December!

December's book will be The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, by Hilary Mantel
Join us on Tuesday, December 5th - for food, drink and discussion.

In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display with stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher will brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way.

november book

New venue for November:
Mahoney and Sons, at the Convention Cetre, downtown.

http://mahonyandsons.com/burrard-location.html

November's book will be  Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies
Join us on Tuesday, November 7th - for food, drink and discussion.

Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.

october book

Still at the Railway for October, it's a newer, lighter, airier space, but a little noisy for discussion.
The food is excellent and well priced.
October's book will be  The Silence of Animals, by John Gray
Join us on Tuesday, October 3rd - for food, drink and discussion.

A searching, captivating look at the persistence of myth in our modern world

"By nature volatile and discordant, the human animal looks to silence for relief from being itself while other creatures enjoy silence as their birthright."

In a book by turns chilling and beautiful, John Gray continues the thinking that made his Straw Dogs such a cult classic.
Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs, poems, fiction, and philosophy to re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard, Borges, Conrad, and Freud have been mesmerized by forms of human extremity―experiences that are on the outer edge of the possible or that tip into fantasy and myth. What happens to us when we starve, when we fight, when we are imprisoned? And how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experiences?
The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating, filled with unforgettable images and a delight in the conundrum of human existence―an existence that we decorate with countless myths and ideas, where we twist and turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals, separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves, it is the silence of animals that both reproaches and bewitches us

september book - back at the Railway!

Yup, we're skipping August - too many people away.
September's book will be A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Join us on Tuesday, September 5th at 7:00 pm for discussion and beverages at The Railway Stage and Beer Cafe. 

http://donnellygroup.ca/railway-stage-and-beer-cafe/




After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

july book

Next month's book will be A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright.
Join us on Tuesday, July 4th at 7:00 pm for discussion and beverages at The Sylvia Hotel Lounge. 




It is 1999, and David Lambert, jilted lover and museum curator, is about to discover the startling news of the return of H. G. Wells's time machine to London. Motivated by a host of unanswered questions and innate curiosity, he propels himself deep into the next millenium. As he sets foot in the luxuriant but menacing new landscape, he soon begins to explore the ruins of his life, a labyrinth of erotic obsession and remorse involving his old friend Bird, and Anita -- the beautiful, eccentric Egyptologist they both loved, mysteriously dead at thirty-two.

A Scientific Romance is a book of surpassing creativity and intelligence, as evocative as it is cautionary.

june book

Next month's book will be Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Join us on Tuesday, June 6that 7:00 pm for discussion and beverages at The Sylvia Hotel Lounge. 

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In the novel that introduced James Bond to the world, Ian Fleming’s agent 007 is dispatched to a French casino in Royale-les-Eaux. His mission? Bankrupt a ruthless Russian agent who’s been on a bad luck streak at the baccarat table.

One of SMERSH’s most deadly operatives, the man known only as “Le Chiffre,” has been a prime target of the British Secret Service for years. If Bond can wipe out his bankroll, Le Chiffre will likely be “retired” by his paymasters in Moscow. But what if the cards won’t cooperate? After a brutal night at the gaming tables, Bond soon finds himself dodging would-be assassins, fighting off brutal torturers, and going all-in to save the life of his beautiful female counterpart, Vesper Lynd.

Taut, tense, and effortlessly stylish, Ian Fleming’s inaugural James Bond adventure has all the hallmarks that made the series a touchstone for a generation of readers.