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BOOK  DISCUSSION  GROUPS
All book groups meet in the Board Room on the 4th floor.

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SEPTEMBER 2008 - MAY 2009:  CALIFORNIA INTERPRETED  4th series
Book discussions with local historians and writers.


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MYSTERY READERS' BOOK CLUB
Meetings on SECOND MONDAY of each month, at 12:00 noon.
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MONDAY, JAN 12
 
 

Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone
MONDAY, FEB 9

Sheldon Siegel
Special Circumstances
MONDAY, MARCH 9

John Burdett

Bangkok 8


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THE PROUST SOCIETY OF AMERICA
San Francisco Chapter at the Mechanics' Institute Library
     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 last meeting of the Proust Society will be on Wednesday, July 23. The Proust reading group will resume on Wednesday, September 10., 2008.

     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
Meets third Tuesday of the month @ 12:00 NOON
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Tuesday, January 20
The Smile of the Lamb,  David Grossman
A much-acclaimed Israeli writer offers a tour de force about Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, that is a wrenching but ennobling experience for the reader. The book tells the story of Uri, an idealistic young Israeli soldier serving in an army unit in the small Palestinian village of Andal, in the occupied territories, and his relationship with Khilmi, a nearly blind old Palestinian storyteller. Gradually as the violent reality of the occupation that infects both the occupier and the occupied alike merges with the old man's stories, Uri, captivated by Khilmi's wisdom, tries to solve the riddles and deceits that make up his life. Originally published in Hebrew in 1983, "The Smile of the Lamb" is a novel of disillusionment and a piercing examination of injustice and dishonesty.



Tuesday, February 17
The Gravedigger's Daughter,  Joyce Carol Oates
This novel follows the life of steely survivor Rebecca Schwart, born on a boat in New York Harbor as her Jewish family fled Nazi Germany. Her father was a popular schoolteacher in Munich, but the only work he can find in a small town in upstate New York is demeaningly being a gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. Undone by their inability to assimilate and haunted by their past, Rebecca's parents drive her away, assured that the new country will not harm her since she was born here. Rebecca strikes out on her own, reinventing herself several times as necessary. She marries an abusive charmer, and bears a son who becomes a musical prodigy, and dodges the pitfalls that American life throws in her path.


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FORGOTTEN CLASSICS
Meets quarterly on Thursdays @ 6:00 PM
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Thursday, February 5
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
(discussion led by Charles Fracchia)
Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, was first published in 1847-48, and satirizes society in early 19th-century England. The subtitle is apt because the characters are all flawed to some degree. The human weaknesses Thackeray illustrates are mostly to do with greed, idleness, and snobbery, and the scheming, deceit and hypocrisy which mask them. His tendency to highlight faults in all his characters displays his desire for a greater level of realism in his fiction. The novel is a satire of society as a whole, but it is not a reforming novel. There is no suggestion that social or political changes, or moral reform could improve the nature of society. It thus paints a fairly bleak view of the human condition.This bleak portrait is continued with Thackeray's own role as an omniscient narrator, one of the writers best known for using the technique.

Revised: January 5, 2009