Circle Book Group

The Circle Book Group reads both fiction and non-fiction, and meets monthly on Sunday mornings for collegial and provocative discussion. Book selections are chosen by participants at least one month in advance of meetings.

The Book Group is hosted in member homes near Inman Sq. in Cambridge. Bagels and coffee are provided (with a suggested $2 donation). Go to the calendar for the current book selection and upcoming meetings, or email Marie [mgariel@redpine.info] to get on the Book Group mailing list.

Next Meetings:

Sunday, May 20 meeting at Marie Ariel’s (617) 492-2765 ~ mgariel@redpine.info ~ 41 Amory St., Cambridge. There’s one cat who is out of the way during the meeting.

BOOK: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute / Grace Paley. There are many copies in the Minuteman Library Network and a few at the BPL.

In this collection of short stories, originally published in 1974, Grace Paley "makes the novel as a form seem virtually redundant" (Angela Carter, "London Review of Books"). Her stories here capture "the itch of the city, love between parents and children" and "the cutting edge of combat" (Lis Harris, "The New York Times Book Review"). In this collection of seventeen stories, she creates a "solid and vital fictional world, cross-referenced and dense with life" (Walter Clemons, "Newsweek"). [Summary from Minuteman Library Network]

Sunday, June 17 meeting at Marie Ariel’s (617) 492-2765 ~ mgariel@redpine.info ~ 41 Amory St., Cambridge. There’s one cat who is out of the way during the meeting.

BOOK: The Coffee Trader : a novel / David Liss.  New York : Random House, c2003. 389 p.

[Minuteman Summary] "In his richly suspenseful second novel, author David Liss once again travels back in time to a crucial moment in cultural and financial history. His destination: Amsterdam, 1659—a mysterious world of trade populated by schemers and rogues, where deception rules the day. On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has lost everything in a sudden shift in the sugar markets. Now, impoverished and humiliated, living on the charity of his petty younger brother, Miguel must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation…"

September, date TBD
BOOK: In the Garden of Beasts / Eric Larson. This is still a very popular book at libraries so we’ve given ourselves ample time to get hold of copies.

Past reading selections have included:

The Cross and the Pear Tree : a Sephardic Journey by Victor Perera
The Sacrifice of Isaac by Noah Gordon
The adventures of Mottel: the cantor’s son by Sholem Aleichem
My father's paradise : a son's search for his Jewish past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar
The end of the Jews : a novel by Adam Mansbach
The story of Yiddish : how a mish-mosh of languages saved the Jews by Neal Karlen
Beyond the Pale : a novel by Elana Dykewomon (also known as Nachman/Dykewomon)
The Merchant of Venice: modern version side-by-side with full original text, edited and rendered into modern English by Alan Durband
Escape to Shanghai: a Jewish Community in China by James R. Ross
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman
Heading South, Looking North by Ariel Dorfman
The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein
He, She and It by Marge Piercy
Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir by Carl Bernstein
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
The Harlot by the Side of the Road by Jonathan Kirsch
Rashi’s Daughters, Book I: Joheved by Maggie Anton
The life of Glückel of Hameln, 1646-1724, written by herself / Translated from the original Yiddish
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer