Our book club meets monthly and is open to anyone who'd like to join. There is no need to reserve a spot or even buy the book from us, simply show up prepared to discuss the book on the night of the meeting. We do ask that participants please order a drink and/or snack from the bar!
____
JULY
BOTH BOOK CLUBS WILL BE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 29th
Fiction will meet at 7pm
Nonfiction will meet at 8pm
BOTH BOOK CLUBS WILL BE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 29th
Fiction will meet at 7pm
Nonfiction will meet at 8pm
7pm FICTION BOOK CLUB: AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS by Kathryn Bromwich
[buy it here]
Haunting, gorgeously descriptive, and spellbinding, At the Edge of the Woods is a magnificent and assured debut novel that delivers all the resonance and significance of an instant classic.
Laura lives alone in a cabin deep within the Italian Alps, making her living translating medical documents and tutoring the children of affluent locals. She spends her days climbing the mountains outside her door and exploring the woods, and when she must venture into the small, conservative town for supplies, she's met with curious stares and wariness. Laura begins seeing a bartender, who alerts her to the villagers' uncertainties. Then late one night there is a knock on the door, and on the other side stands someone from her past who has finally found her. In beguiling, lyrical prose, the mystery surrounding why Laura has absconded to this remote corner of the Alps comes into focus, while the villagers grow leery of the woman in the cabin and of her increasingly odd behavior. A few decide to take matters into their own hands, to free themselves from the malevolent forces of the strega who lives amongst them.
With its dexterity and appreciation for the natural world, its slow-burn tension and thematic considerations of illness, femininity and alienation, At the Edge of the Woods calls to mind the work of Richard Powers, Claire-Louise Bennett and Shirley Jackson, while revealing Kathryn Bromwich as a spectacular and singular talent.
8pm NON-FICTION BOOK CLUB: HELL IN A HANDBAG, by Jibz Cameron
The debut memoir from the unhinged queer genius known as Dynasty Handbag.
A freak's freak, iconoclast performance artist Jibz Cameron is best known for her multimedia act Dynasty Handbag, an alter ego lampooning the tragic absurdity of heterosexuality, queerness, the female body, capitalism, depression, art making, and life itself. With her debut memoir Hell in a Handbag, Cameron traces her warped and inspired perspective from a childhood spent with hippie clowns on the broken-down commune scene of Northern California, to making morbid zines as a teen in the East Bay punk scene, to in-your-face experiences of misogyny in New York City's avant-garde theater scene, to the grisly birth of Dynasty Handbag and her droll evisceration of contemporary life. An engrossing and swiftly paced story as candid as it is wise, Hell in a Handbag is an immersion in unhinged queer genius.
______
AUGUST
BOTH BOOK CLUBS WILL BE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26th
Fiction will meet at 7pm
Nonfiction will meet at 8pm
7pm FICTION BOOK CLUB: A LEOPARD-SKIN HAT by Anne Serre
[buy it here]
A Leopard-Skin Hat may be the French writer Anne Serre's most moving novel yet. Hailed in Le Point as a "masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance," it is the story of an intense friendship between "the Narrator" and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders. A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the narrator's loving and anguished attachment to her. Anne Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the aftermath of the death of the author's little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell, written in Anne Serre's signature style.
8pm NON-FICTION BOOK CLUB: THE EVOLUTION OF FIRE - ESSAYS ON CRISIS AND BECOMING, by Angela Pelster
"The Evolution of Fire is stunningly written--vivid in imagery, in the braiding together of language, and in the honoring of every person it shines a light on."--Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year
From the celebrated author of Limber, a luminous collection of essays about crisis, hope, and the decision to resist or embrace evolution--a book about time, for our time.
Crisis is an agent of evolution, and Angela Pelster knows what it means to evolve. As a child, she burned grass to keep weeds at bay and watched tadpoles transform. She basked in the warmth of her father's love but was burned by his rage, and she witnessed a sudden, unnamable change occur in her older sister after an encounter with a stranger in a white van. In adulthood, she survived the explosion of her marriage, the destruction of her burning home, and a year spent as the single mother of a toddler without a home of their own. And like us all, she has weathered the upheaval of our current atmosphere--political instability, climate change, mass extinction.
But in spite of the world's violence, Pelster manages to remain open to its beauty, deciding not to resist change, but to give herself over to it and let evolution make her into a new animal. She plumbs the depths of ancestral knowledge to uncover the scale of our ancient capacity for adaptation, from humankind's early harnessing of fire to the grandmothers responsible for our continued existence.
Meditative and curious, pulsing with fascination, fear, and the untamable human spirit, The Evolution of Fire contemplates who we are now and what we still might become.