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Gibson's Book Club 2007 - 2008 All are welcome, please join us. |
Our book club is open to all. We've chosen an eclectic, ambitious list of books for the coming year: join us for every meeting, or deal yourself in as the spirit moves you. ...All of these titles are in paperback, or should be by the time we'll read them, and they will all be discounted 25% from the publisher's price for the following year, whether you join us for meetings or not.All meetings begin at 7:00, to give you time to have dinner and relax a bit first. |
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Monday, Sept. 17, 2007
The Sea,
by John Banville Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman, returns to the seaside town where he
spent his summer holidays as a child--a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without his recently deceased wife. It is also
a return to the place where he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time...
The Sea was the winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize.
"Remarkable. . . . The power and strangeness and piercing beauty of "The
Sea" is a wonder."
-- Washington Post Book World
"With his fastidious wit and exquisite style, John Banville is the heir to Nabokov. . . . "The Sea" is his best novel so far." -The Sunday Telegraph
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Monday, Oct. 8, 2007
Nickel and Dimed,
by Barbara Ehrenreich What is it like to try to make ends meet as a low-income worker? Most people
who know the answer to that question don't have the time or the energy to write about it. Barbara Ehrenreich, an award-winning journalist and
author, decided to go undercover and find out for herself.
Nickel and Dimed is the 2007 choice
for Concord Reads, the arm of the Concord Public Library Foundation which chooses one text per
year for discussion and celebration. For more details on Concord Reads, and on the programs focusing on this wonderful book--including a chance to
meet the author!-- call the Library at 225-8670, or visit the Concord Reads webpage. |
Monday, Nov. 12, 2007
What is the What,
by Dave Eggers The surprise hit of the 2006 Christmas season, and now finally in paperback (on 10/9), What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with
thousands of other children--the so-called Lost Boys--was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by
foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is
resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and new challenges.
If you haven't yet been exposed to Eggers's high-wire
act, mixing biography, fiction, and fantasy, now is your chance.
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Monday, Dec. 10, 2007
Swann's Way,
by Marcel Proust Many of us read Proust too early in life, or, worse, only know him
through Monty Python's "All-England Summarise Proust
Competition." (Click on episode 31, if you must.) It's time, finally, to rectify the situation. Swann's Way is the first volume of
Proust's immortal masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, but can also be read as a stand-alone novel, and that's what we will do.
Swann's Way is one of the preeminent novels of childhood—a sensitive boy's impressions of his family and neighbors, all brought dazzlingly back to life years later by the famous taste of a madeleine. It also enfolds the short novel Swann's Love, an incomparable study of sexual jealousy, which becomes a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. And, finally, it is a rich, detailed portrait of French culture at a most interesting time.
We will be reading the new translation by Lydia Davis, which captures the lightness of the original French in a way that Scott Moncrieff's classic version did not. |
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008
Eat, Pray, Love,
by Elizabeth Gilbert This very popular memoir --for fans of food, faith, and love--is hilarious,
revealing, inspiring, and engaging.
Gilbert tells the story
of her life at a difficult time, when she's questioning her marriage, her career, her future, and the meaning of life. She hits the
road--to Italy, India, and Indonesia, in turn--to try to answer all her questions.
Men and women can have
a different response to this book: where women may want Gilbert as a friend, men may instinctively shy away from such a high-maintenance
character.
Gilbert knows all this
and has fun with it, as she searches the world for love, meaning, and culinary bliss.
"Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible"--Jennifer Egan, NY Times |
Monday, Feb. 11, 2008
The Merry Wives of Windsor,
by Shakespeare
Every year we undertake, in the dead of winter, a play by the immortal Bard,
striving for both a close reading of the text and the pleasures of a spirited dramatic reading. This year's entry is just for fun.
There's a story that Queen Elizabeth herself asked Shakespeare to write a play showing Falstaff in love, having enjoyed the
ribald knight so much in Henry IV, Part 1. Whether this story is true or not, the Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor finds
himself in a decidedly different world from that portrayed in Henry IV. He's no longer a drunken bad influence on future kings, but the
unscrupulous suitor of respectable, married women with their own ambitions and desires. Outfoxed at every turn, Falstaff finds that the course
of true love is never smooth.
We are reading the Folger edition, for continuity's sake, but feel free to bring
your own edition from home. |
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Monday, March 10, 2008 March,
From Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, and has added adult resonance to portray the moral complexity of war and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism.
"Brilliant...Geraldine Brooks' new novel, March, is a very great book....Brooks has magnificently wielded the novelist's license."—Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune "A beautifully wrought story. ....Gripping....A taut plot, vivid characters and provocative issues." Heller McAlpin, L.A. Times BookReview "Honorable, elegant and true."—John Freeman, The Wall Street Journal"Harrowing and moving...In her previous book, Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks proved herself to be a wonderful novelist. March has all the same virtues...casting a spell that lasts much longer than the reading of it."—Karen Joy Fowler, The Washington Post |
Monday, April 14, 2008
Beowulf,
as translated by Seamus Heaney Who could have predicted that after 1000 years of treading water, this epic of sword and sorcery would spring once again to the top of the
best-seller list ? It's poetry month, and it was a poet, Seamus Heaney, who rescued the English language's oldest epic from the cloistered dons
and bored high schoolers who had held it hostage for centuries.
Heaney was awarded his second Whitbread Prize for this translation in 2000 (he edged J.K. Rowling for the honor). Heaney, a Nobel Laureate, is also of course one of our finest poets, and we will discuss some of his poems along with the Beowulf translation.
These poems will be available as a handout in March. |
Monday, May 12, 2008 Suite Francaise,
Many book clubs in town have already read this book, but we had to add it to our schedule. We didn't want to miss it, as we missed Kite Runner.
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Monday, June 9, 2008 The Inheritance of Loss,
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Monday, July 14, 2008 Echo Maker, On a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his
truck in a near-fatal accident. His older sister Karin returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. When he
emerges from a protracted coma, Mark believes that this woman--who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister--is really an identical impostor. The
mysterious nature of Mark's neurological disorder, combined with the strange circumstances surrounding his accident, threatens to change all of
their lives beyond recognition. |
Monday, Aug. 11, 2008 Next Year's Choices
Remember, everyone is welcome at our book club meetings. Be here for each book or just come when a book has special appeal for you. And if you think these are interesting choices but don't want to come to meetings, take
advantage of our book club discounts anyway. All of these titles will be 25% off
between now and the date of their respective meetings.
Thank you for reading our book club newsletter, and please forward it to anyone you think might like to discuss books now and again...
Our best to you,
Michael Herrmann and all
your friends at Gibson's Bookstore
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