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BOOK DISCUSSION
GROUPS
All
book groups meet in the Board Room on the 4th floor.
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SEPTEMBER
2007 - MAY 2008: CALIFORNIA
INTERPRETED 3RD SERIES
Book
discussions with local historians and writers |
>
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| MYSTERY
READERS' BOOK CLUB |
MONDAY,
APRIL 14
H. R. F. Keating
Doing Wrong |
MONDAY,
MAY 12
Stephen
Booth
Black Dog
| MONDAY,
JUNE 9
Colin Dexter
The Wench Is Dead |
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Meetings are held on
SECOND MONDAY of each month, at 12:00 noon
Members FREE ; Non-members $10.00
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| THE
PROUST SOCIETY
OF AMERICA
San Francisco
Chapter at the
Mechanics' Institute Library |
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The Mechanics' Institute Library proudly offers the Proust reading
group, presented in affiliation with The Proust Society of
America. The Proust Society of America was established
in 1997 by the Mercantile Library of New York and its Center for World
Literature.
The group is open to both beginning
and veteran readers of "À la recherche du temps perdu"
(known in English as "In Search of Lost Time" or "Remembrance
of Things Past"). The novel is read and discussed in English;
any available translation of the novel is acceptable.
The group meets on the second and fourth
Wednesday of each month from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. Our reading
schedule can be downloaded according to edition (.pdf file): Viking/Penguin,
Penguin/Allen
Lane (UK), Modern
Library, or Vintage.
The group is facilitated by Dr. Mark
Calkins, who holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and is currently
a lecturer at San Francisco State University, as well as webmaster
and editor-in-chief of TempsPerdu.com.
The group is open to members of the Mechanics'
Institute and to the public.
Fees for the book group are $65 for members and $90 for the public
per semester (ten meetings).
Participants in the group are also eligible
to attend meetings and events held at the New York and Boston chapters
of the Proust Society of America.
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FICTION
YOU WISH YOU HAD READ
Third
Tuesday of the month @ 3:00 pm
Open to members of Mechanics' Institute and
Osher Lifelong Living Institute.
If
you would like to join this group,
please call the Library Director, Inez Cohen, at 393-0103
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Tuesday,
May 20 at 3:00 pm
The
Trial by Franz Kafka |
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This work is a terrifying psychological trip into the life of
Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself
accused of a crime he did not commit, and details of which are
never revealed to him. After his arrest, and subsequent release,
he must report to court on a regular basis. This event proves
maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain
of his fate, his personal life, including work at a bank and
his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives
next door, becomes increasingly unpredictable. As Joseph K.
tries to gain control, he accelerates his own excruciating downward
spiral. What starts out feeling like a cautionary tale about
misplaced and abused power quickly morphs into a story of a
deeper and more personal trial.
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Tuesday,
June 17 at 3:00 pm
Three
Junes by Julia Glass |
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debut novel draws the reader deeply into the lives of several
central characters during three separate Junes spanning ten
years. At the story's onset, Scotsman Paul McLeod, the father
of three grown sons, is newly widowed, and on a tour of the
Greek islands as he reminisces about how he met and married
his deceased wife and their family. |
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Next,
we see the world through the eyes of Paul's eldest son, Fenno,
a gay man transplanted to Manhattan and owner of a small bookstore.
He learns lessons about love and loss that allow him to grow
in unexpected ways. Finally, we meet Fern Olitksy, an artist
and book designer whom Paul had met on his trip to Greece. Now
a young widow, pregnant and living in New York City, she is
trying to move forward in her life. This narrative is rich with
implications about the bonds and stresses of kin and friendship,
and the cautious tendrils of renewal blossoming in unexpected
ways.
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