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.

OCTOBER BOOK

October's book will be Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker (https://www.amazon.com/Young-Horn-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590175778), another volume in the excellent series of NYRB Classics.  Join us on the evening of Tuesday, October 1 at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge for an informal evening of drink, dining and discussion, beginning at 7pm.  As always, new members and the idly curious are always welcome.

         

Dorothy Baker's Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry - though not the life - of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Doris Day.

SEPTEMBER BOOK

September's book will be This Side of Paradise, the first novel by noted American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (https://www.amazon.com/This-Paradise-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140189769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=LYRVOAXTBTH8&keywords=this+side+of+paradise+penguin&qid=1566795686&refinements=p_lbr_books_series_browse-bin%3APenguin+Twentieth-Century+Classics&rnid=3275128011&s=gateway&sprefix=this+side+of+paradise+pen%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C254&sr=8-1).  Come and join the fun on Tuesday, September 3 at the Sylvia Hotel Lounge overlooking English Bay, as we hoist a few to toast summer's swan song.  Newcomers and the simply curious are always welcome.  As usual, the festivities commence at 7pm.

         

First published in 1920, This Side of Paradise marks the beginning of the career of one of the greatest writers of the first half of the twentieth century. In this remarkable achievement, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unparalleled wit and keen social insight in his portrayal of college life through the struggles and doubts of Amory Blaine, a self-proclaimed genius with a love of knowledge and a penchant for the romantic.  Clever and wonderfully written, This Side of Paradise is a fascinating novel about the changes of the Jazz Age and their effects on the individual.

AUGUST BOOK

August's book will be Seize the Day (https://www.amazon.com/Seize-Penguin-Classics-Saul-Bellow/dp/0142437611/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3RQUBQY45VYYZ&keywords=seize+the+day+saul+bellow&qid=1563946439&s=gateway&sprefix=seize+th%2Caps%2C434&sr=8-1  ) by the American Nobel laureate Saul Bellow (who was actually born in Lachine, Quebec).  You can join our group of dedicated bibliophiles on the evening of Tuesday, August 6 at the splendiferous Sylvia Hotel Lounge, commencing at 7pm.  Summer evenings at the Sylvia, overlooking English Bay, are a quintessential Vancouver experience.

           

Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from his wife and children; at odds with his vain, successful father; failed in his acting career (a Hollywood agent once cast him as the "type that loses the girl"); and in a financial mess. In the course of one climactic day he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise, until a mysterious philosophizing con man grants him a glorious, illuminating moment of truth and understanding, and offers him one last hope….