On Saturday, September 23, 2023 the Larkes hosted our discussion of The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel, which was proposed by Dick Malmquist. Carolyn recalls that we questioned the motives of the author in developing a “friendship” with the hermit. Was the author gathering information for a book all along? We talked of…
Bill Levin suggested this book of poetry by Seamus Heaney. It’s rare that we read poetry as a book club and Bill had the insight and knowledge of the author to pull it off. Each of us nine members selected one poem from this collection to read aloud and discuss. We gathered around the outdoor…
In this consummate portrait of the Italian people, bestselling author, publisher, journalist, and politician Luigi Barzini delves deeply into the Italian national character, discovering both its great qualities and its imperfections. Author Luigi Barzini was an Italian journalist, writer and politician most famous for his 1964 book The Italians, delving deeply into the Italian national…
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. Author Atul Gawande is author of three bestselling books: Complications, a…
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
An unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human. Author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, OBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist of Japanese origin and Nobel Laureate in Literature (2017). His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the University…
Scholar A. Roger Ekirch illuminates the aspects of life most often overlooked by other historiansthose that unfold at night. Author A. Roger Ekirch (1950) is University Distinguished Professor of history at Virginia Tech in the United States. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1998. He is internationally known for his pioneering research into pre-industrial sleeping…
Begins in 1910 and traces God’s relation to four generations of American seekers: Clarence Wilmot, a clergyman in Paterson, NJ who loses his faith. Son, Teddy, becomes a mailman who retreats from American exceptionalism into a life of ordinariness. Teddy’s daughter, Esther, becomes a movie star, an All-American goddess. Her son, Clark, is possessed of…
ORDINARY LOVEAt a reunion with her grown children, a woman recalls the long-ago affair that ended her relationship with their father–and changed all their lives irrevoccably.GOOD WILLDespite the carefully self-sufficient life he has designed for his small family, a man discovers that even the right choices have unexpected consequences–sometimes heart-breaking ones. Discussed September 10, 2016…
The book An old man lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth. A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend…
