On Tuesday, August 12, we will discuss Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. The meeting is at 2 pm on the second Tuesday of the month, as always. RSVP appreciated.
To RSVP, please email tonilin@aol.com. The meeting will take place virtually. You will be sent the link upon RSVP.
Below is the schedule for future reading. Comments are welcome.
August 2025 — Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, literary fiction, 2023, 320 pp, Goodreads, 3.76. A deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be ‘good’, from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.
“Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout.” THE GUARDIAN UK
September 2025 — The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli – non-fiction. 2017. Beautifully written by a physicist, which explains quantum physics of time. – Goodreads 4.1, 224 pp, 2017. Fortified with quotations from Proust, pp 224. Anaximander and the Grateful Dead (Rovelli has a hippyish past), the book continues a tradition of jargon-free scientific writing from Galileo to Darwin that disappeared in the academic specialisation of the last century.
October 2025 — The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, Goodreads 4.23, 1923, 127 pp. Gibran is one of the few writers out there who were unproblematic and who mainly kept to himself. The fact that he arrived as an immigrant in America not speaking any English, only for him to flourish in the arts and later write one of the most important books in the last decades. I love that he took pride of his Lebanese heritage and his Arabic language.
November 2025 — Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, 400 pages. Goodreads 4.14, 2017. What an incredible period in Oklahoma history. The author captures an era of lawlessness and greed in frontier life and shares a piece of history that almost remained untold. A cautionary tale demonstrating the level of greed and heartlessness that can sometimes take hold in people’s hearts. A shameful tale of what happened to the Osage Indians, once the richest people in America.
December 2025 — West by Carys Davies, 2018, Goodreads 3.71, 160 pp. Stunning debut novel (The Guardian). One of the most unsettling elements is Davies’s vein of dark, gleaming humour. Her writing manages the odd feat of seeming both timeless and historically specific, and her comedy is no exception.
January 2026 — We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbe [Memoir], 336 pp., 2023. “An unexpected page-turner that may inspire readers to reach out to old friends. This delicate memoir tracks their intermittent friendship, from initiation into one of Yale’s secret societies to thirty-five-year college reunion. Schwalbe overcomes the perspectival limitations of memoir-writing by allowing himself access to his friend’s thoughts, notably in rhapsodic contemplations of the sea surrounding the Bahamian island where Maxey ultimately finds purpose.” —The New Yorker
February 2026 — Horse by Geraldine Brooks, historical fiction, 2022, Goodreads 4.26, 400 pp. “[A] sweeping tale . . . fluid, masterful storytelling … [Brooks] writes about our present in such a way that the tangled roots of history, just beneath the story, are both subtle and undeniable … Horse is a reminder of the simple, primal power an author can summon by creating characters readers care about and telling a story about them—the same power that so terrifies the people so desperately trying to get Toni Morrison banned from their children’s reading lists.”— Maggie Shipstead, The Washington Post
March 2026 — Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester, nonfiction, Goodreads 3.83, 423 pp. 2023. “A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world.” — New York Times
From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is award winning writer Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.
April 2026 — Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, 2014, 297 pages, A literary novel. Alex read this book in one day. The story grabbed her and took her on a sweet, sad journey of one family. Well written from start to finish, it unfolds nicely so you truly understand each person and relationship. The story involves family dynamics, teenager’s angst, relationships, race and makes you realize how hard it is to be different from everyone around you.
Join us for a social get together. Catch up. Check in. We’ll be glad to see you.
BAIN Downtown 