To RSVP, please email tonilin@aol.com. The meeting will take place on Zoom or Google Meet. You will be sent the link upon RSVP.

The books we plan to read in future months are listed below. Suggestions are encouraged.

Future reads:

January

What Could be Saved by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz. 2021.  pp 448.  A richly imagined page-turner that delivers twists alongside thought-provoking commentary. The novel is grounded in its deeply realized characters and the relationships among them, but the author layers in a consideration of power dynamics, racism, and privilege in a way that adds an undercurrent of realism and ugliness, particularly regarding the way the featured family lived in the ’70s. At the same time, the book is a gripping mystery that subtly ratchets up the tension with each chapter.

February

James by Percival Everett – 4.57 Goodreads rating – Historical fiction – pp 303, 2024.  A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.  Everett is a preeminent American author, and “James” is his sly response to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The title immediately suggests what he is up to with this subversive revision. In these pages, the enslaved man known as Jim can finally declare: “I will not let this condition define me. … My name became my own.” While Everett flashes his own brand of humor, the novel gathers speed and terror like a swelling storm. Its conclusion is equally shocking and exhilarating.

March

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck.  Fiction, translated from German, 336 pages. 2023
“Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fueled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night he cannot forgive her and a dangerous crack forms between them, opening up a space for cruelty, punishment and the exertion of power. And the world around them is changing too: as the GDR begins to crumble, so too do all the old certainties and the old loyalties, ushering in a new era whose great gains also involve profound loss.

From a prize-winning German writer, this is the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history”

April

The Wager:  A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann.   Non-fiction, 263 pages.  2023.  #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.