Kate Mascarenhas’s The Psychology of Time Travel
Four women will invent time travel. Three will make their mark on history. Two will do anything to be remembered. One will not survive. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME TRAVEL Summer is here and we are cracking open a new book together. We’d love for you to join us in reading The Psychology of Time Travel […]
Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist
I’m excited to announce our summer book club read! Most of you know I choose a book that I think you will enjoy AND that I haven’t read. This season is no different. Intuition is a concept I’ve been thinking through for a while in various forms and occasionally comes up in our conversations as […]
Mark Z. Danielewski on Craving the Familiar
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. ~W.H. Auden I just spent two weeks in Northern California – a place that is incredibly familiar and that I am lucky […]
Announcing Fall Book Club
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino It is the first day of Fall and I am so excited to start a new book with you this season. Now remember I pick books I think you might enjoy AND that I haven’t read. That means there is always risk involved on my part. I meditate on the […]
Amor Towles on Parallax at the Metropol Hotel in A Gentleman in Moscow
Many of you are catching up to where we are in A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles for our summer book club. Last week we finished Book Two in the same spot we concluded Book One: we watch the Count’s feet essentially dangling over the edge of the Metropol Hotel. What brought him to this […]
Amor Towles on Mastering Your Circumstances in A Gentleman in Moscow
The American novelist, Amor Towles, wrote A Gentleman in Moscow, a remarkable story that centers on the Count, an aristocrat confined to a luxurious hotel during the tumultuous political climate in Russia in 1922.
Announcing Summer Book Club
A Gentleman in Moscow – Summer Book Club We have some exciting news for summer book club, but first – Happy Summer! Now I realize a lot of you are all over the world, so it may or may not be your summer. Nonetheless, I hope you will continue to devour good books with us, […]
Miasma in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
Miasma in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History “To many men… the miasma of peace seems more suffocating than the bracing air of war.” ~George Steiner By Jessica S. Manuel A little while back, we began thinking about the fatal flaw, that showy dark crack running down the middle of life. Richard, our protagonist in Donna Tartt’s […]
In Search of Lost Time Reading Group
Have you always wanted to read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust? Myself and a handful of other ambitious, literary enthusiasts are setting out on what a friend termed, “A Reader’s Everest.” Over the next two and a half years, we are reading this seven volume, 4,215 page tome and using a reading […]
The Fatal Flaw in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
The Fatal Flaw in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History Aristotle coined the term Hamartia which literally translates “to miss the mark” or “to err”. We’ve come to understand this term as the fatal flaw and find it in most tragedies, especially Greek tragedies. Basically, there is a reversal of fortunes that needs to take place in the plot. It’s […]
Announcing Spring Book Club
Spring is in the air! Hopefully the sunshine will grace you with its presence and you’ll be able to sneak outside with our Spring Book Club pick – at least for a few pages. As you know, we pick books we think you’ll enjoy AND that we’ve never read. We’re not always sure what we’re in […]
How to Talk About the Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Winter Book Club is almost over! As you probably know, this online version of book club mirrors the in-person get together we have every season. Real friends in real life get together to talk about a book. It’s incredible and I look forward to this night for months. Earlier this season was our in-person book […]
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting | Go Beyond Laughter
Beyond Laughter in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Today we explore what it means to “go beyond laughter” as Kundera writes in the last section of the book. Warning: we ask more questions than we answer. The narrative called Border might be the most intriguing part of the book, which might be […]
Reclaim Conversation With Books in Your 21st Century Friendships
A few years ago, I read a book called Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle. I teach an excerpt from this book in my English Composition course during our visual rhetoric unit. Students tend to identify with the truths Turkle articulates in this text. Some […]
Winter Book Club 2017 Announced
Winter Book Club is here! We are excited to read our next book club pick with you that is sure to keep us warm over the next few months. As you probably know, we choose books we think you’ll enjoy AND that we’ve never read. Last year I wandered the streets of Prague and thought […]