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As booksellers, we often overhear customers lamenting that they've always meant to read “that other Jane Austen novel,” or Graham Greene, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but just never found the time. We've tried to remedy that with our Classics I Forgot to Read Book Club by providing motivation and a welcoming space to share your thoughts.

In choosing our ‘classics’ over the past few years, we've tried to select titles that had some visibility among readers, but were not necessarily included in the standard high school English class. We've also sampled a range of genres, from mystery (The Long Goodbye) to comedy (Cold Comfort Farm) to stream-of-consciousness (To the Lighthouse). So, whether our picks are already gathering dust on your bookshelves or this is your first encounter with the literary canon, we encourage you to join us on the last Wednesday evening of every month for conversation about the classics.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

May 2009--The House of Mirth

by Edith Wharton

Lily Bart is beautiful, fashionable, refined, and well-mannered--but at twenty-nine, she is slightly long in the tooth for the New York marriage market of the early twentieth century. She can't bring herself to marry just for money, but she can't bring herself to marry just for love either. Despite the help of less conflicted friends--a plain but sweet cousin, an attractive lawyer who's not quite rich enough for Lily, a woman who makes a living guiding the nouveau riche into high society--her refusal to yield to reality draws her deeper and deeper into trouble. What's perhaps most remarkable about the novel is that Wharton makes this narcissistic character deeply sympathetic, and uses her to paint a devastating portrait of a heartless society, as seen from its central point--the intersection between love and money.



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1 comment:

Neha Agarwal said...

Hello, I am keen on joining this book club. Has June's book been decided on yet?

June 1, 2009 at 4:15 PM

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