Join us at Manhattan Club Grand Cafe to discuss The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.   Even if you haven’t managed to read the book, we welcome you to join us for coffee and more.  

You might want to buy a copy of Picaflor (August book) at the July meeting — AR$80 or AR$120.

Date: July 7

Time: 3:30 pm

Location: Manhattan Club Grand Cafe, Ave Cabildo 1792 (corner with La Pampa)

RSVP:  tonilin@aol.com

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In   The Sixth Extinction  , two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and   New Yorker   writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind’s most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Future Book Choices

Please note that we are working with the author of Picaflor to see if she will attend our book club.  She is offering the book for AR$80 or 120.  If you would like to buy a copy, please contact tonilin@aol.com and we will arrange.

Next Meetings:

Tuesday, August 4

Picaflor: Finding Home in South America by Jessica Talbot

In Picaflor, a true story, Jessica Talbot invites the reader to travel beside her as she searches for love and meaning, while traversing the fascinating countries of South America. Along the way she lets go of grief, grasps hold of the present and finds herself occupying her own weather beaten shoes.

When unexpected signs appear on her path she asks, ‘Is this serendipity or fate?’ As the journey unfolds she realises that you don’t need to know, it can be magical either way.

The story starts with Jessica getting a tattoo of a hummingbird, a reminder of new beginnings. Then a kiss at sunrise in the snow-dusted Andes of Peru sends her on a restless, risky journey that ends in Argentina. As she travels through unknown terrain, new friends give her important insights into the meaning of friendship, and old ties strengthen as she frees herself from the past. It’s in the exhilarating but complicated city of Buenos Aires that she finally understands what it means to feel ‘home’.

September

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…..

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released (suffering from psychosis?) 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.  Through these characters, among others, the story shows the plight of the peasantry leading up to the French Revolution and then the subsequent brutality of the revolutionaries in the early years of the revolution.  The story also tries to highlight the parellels between French and British society.

Please forward any suggestions you have for future reads to jendan@gmail.com.