Book Groups |
February 2012
ELLIOTT BAY BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 7th at 6:30 p.m.
(First Tuesday of each month)
Each month, the Elliott Bay Book Club reads and discusses the best in contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for good measure. Our February book selection is The New Life by Orhan Pamuk. Through the simple act of reading a book, a young student is uprooted from his old life and identity. Within days he has fallen in love with the luminous and elusive Janan; witnessed the attempted assassination of a rival suitor; and forsaken his family to travel aimlessly through a nocturnal landscape of travelers' cafes and apocalyptic bus wrecks. As imagined by Pamuk, the result is a wondrous marriage of the intellectual thriller and high romance. The Nation said, "We are fortunate that Pamuk is alive, and that his The New Life is out there."
GLOBAL ISSUES & ETHICS BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 14th at 6:30 p.m.
(second Tuesday of each month)
Our Global Issues & Ethics Book Group is devoted to discussing books that cover the most relevant topics of our everyday lives. Our February selection is The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis. Every Culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? Anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis leads us on a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world's indigenous cultures.
In Polynesia we set sail with navigators whose ancestors settled the Pacific ten centuries before Christ. In the Amazon we meet the descendants of a true lost civilization, the peoples of the Anaconda. In the Andes we discover that the earth really is alive, while in Australia we experience Dreamtime, the all-embracing philosophy of the first humans to walk out of Africa. We then travel to Nepal, where we encounter a wisdom hero, a Bodhisattva, who emerges from forty-five years of Buddhist retreat and solitude. And finally we settle in Borneo, where the last rainforest nomads struggle to survive.
Understanding the lessons of this journey will be our mission for the next century. For at risk is the human legacy—a vast archive of knowledge and expertise, a catalogue of the imagination. Re-discovering a new appreciation for the diversity of the human spirit, as expressed by culture, is among the central challenges of our times. This book comprises the 2009 Massey Lectures, "The Wayfinders," broadcast in November 2009 as part of CBC Radio's Ideas series.
SPECULATIONS-SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 21st at 6:30 p.m.
(third Tuesday of each month)
As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Our selection for February is He, She and It by Marge Piercy. In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill....
From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.
STAGES - ELLIOTT BAY DRAMA BOOK CLUB
Tuesday, February 28th at 6:30 p.m.
(fourth Tuesday of each month)
Elliott Bay's Drama Book Group, Stages, meets once a month to read, enjoy and discuss great plays and dramatic works, contemporary and classic, from the U.S. and around the world. Our selection for February is the 2011 Pulitzer Finalist A Free Man of Color by John Guare. This panoramic, raucous, and astonishing play is set in boisterous New Orleans prior to the historic Lousiana Purchase. Before law and order took hold and class, political, and racial lines were drawn, New Orleans was a carnival of beautiful women, flowing wine, and pleasure for the taking. At the center of this Dionysian world is the mulatto Jacques Cornet, who commands men, seduces women, and preens like a peacock. But the map of the city is about to be redrawn as American rule brings racial segregation to Cornet's colorful and chaotic world and all he represents ... turning the tables on freedom and liberty. Please join us for a rousing discussion of this new dramatic masterpiece.
