RSVP to Toni at tonilin@aol.com

July 5, 2016, 2 p, Libros del Pasaje, Thames 1762

See date and book for September below.

August 5, 2016 — Emma – Jane Austin, 459 pages, more than 200 years old

One of England’s most beloved authors, Jane Austen wrote such classic novels as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Northanger Abbey. Published anonymously during her life, Austen’s work was renowned for its realism, humor, and commentary on English social rites and society at the time. Austen s writing was supported by her family, particularly by her brother, Henry, and sister, Cassandra, who is believed to have destroyed, at Austen s request, her personal correspondence after Austen’s death in 1817. Austen’s authorship was revealed by her nephew in A Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1869, and the literary value of her work has since been recognized by scholars around the world.

September 13, 2016 – Discrete Hero – Mario Vargas Llosa, 337 pages, 2015

[A] singular all-star performance . . . that proves that the Peruvian master is still at the top of his narrative game . . .  The Discreet Hero is an exquisite concoction, a delicious melodrama of sex and betrayal, love and revenge. But what technique is needed! While real television soap operas are shaggy and plodding, Vargas Llosa’s novel is swift, seamless and as structurally symmetrical as a diamond. (Marcela Valdes The Washington Post)

The Discreet Hero, [is] an energetic book with a more straightforward narrative method than almost any other Vargas Llosa . . . [the book] is most memorable for its optimism . . . and for the way in which Don Rigoberto is forced away from his etchings and phonograph records and into the ‘sordid warp and woof’ of the world he has scorned. (Thomas Mallon The New Yorker)

The book is often funny; you turn the pages with relish; it offers plenty to think about and admire . . . it immerses you in the way you hope any novel will immerse you. (Francisco Goldman, The New York Times Book Review.

We will meet in August at Libros del Pasaje, 2 pm, on Friday, August 5.

Pease join us, whether you have read the book or not.

Happy reading.