onsite events cancelled due to coronavirus.
zoom events below....
Before your first visit, please read our Parking requirements. Also check our WORKSHOPS for writers for even more events! Unless noted, no RSVP required. ALL ARE WELCOME!
Wed July 21, 2 pm: book group, olga tokarczuk
For a genuinely unique literary experience, JoAnn Borri will moderate our discussion of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by this Polish Nobel Prize winner. The novel is almost impossible to categorise. It is, in effect, a murder mystery: in the bleak Polish midwinter, men in an isolated village are being murdered, and it is left to Janina Duszejko, a kind of eastern European Miss Marple, to identify the murderer. But a mere whodunit would hardly satisfy a novelist who said “just writing a book to know who is the killer is wasting paper and time”, and so it is also a primer on the politics of vegetarianism, a dark feminist comedy, an existentialist fable and a paean to William Blake.
As posted, we plan to Zoom. All welcome to participate. To get the Zoom invite, write to Joann Borri, joannborri@gmail.com
As posted, we plan to Zoom. All welcome to participate. To get the Zoom invite, write to Joann Borri, joannborri@gmail.com
wed august 18, 2 pm: book group, mira t. lee novel
We are discussing Everything Here Is Beautiful. The tumult of loving someone with a chronic mental illness can exhaust even the most caring person. Just ask Miranda, elder sister to Lucia, a brash, brilliant journalist whose periodic descent into severe psychosis has taxed their relationship and forced Miranda to confront the limits of family loyalty. Of course, she knows that Lucia can be attentive, charming, and kind, drawing in friends and colleagues—at least until the inevitable delusions take hold. It’s scary stuff. To Lee's credit, Lucia, the more compellingly drawn of the two siblings, never seems like a psychological case study.The book also exposes the helplessness of family members wishing to fix a fraught situation; the class dimension of health care delivery; and the rampant misinformation surrounding the treatment and diagnosis of illnesses like schizoaffective disorder. Lastly, vivid descriptions of the gentrifying Lower East Side of 1990s New York City, the heavily immigrant towns along the Hudson River, and several communities in Ecuador ground the characters in distinct locations.
As posted, we plan to Zoom. All welcome to participate. To get the Zoom invite, write to Joann Borri, joannborri@gmail.com
