Gibson's Book Club

Gibson's Book Club reads Henry James, and The Master

Monday, March 5, 2012, at 7 PM

Like Michael Cunningham in The Hours, Colm Toibin captures the extraordinary mind and heart of a great writer in a beautiful and profoundly moving novel. A fictionalized study based on many biographical materials and family accounts of Henry James's life, The Master tells the story of a man born into one of America's first intellectual families who leaves his country in the late nineteenth century to live in Paris, Rome, Venice, and London among privileged artists and writers. In stunningly resonant prose, Toibin captures the loneliness and the hope of a master of psychological subtlety whose forays into intimacy inevitably failed those he tried to love. As background to our discussion of this novel, we're asking book club members to read either of these two shorter works by Henry James--Daisy Miller, or The Turn of the Screw. Ambitious readers are encouraged to tackle both!

Gibson's Book Club reads Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

Monday, May 7, 2012, at 7 PM

One of the most important novels of 2010, Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Walter and Patty Berglund as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time. Packed with details, full of story. We're reading Freedom in May and Visit from the Goon Squad in June. Yes, we're re-fighting the epic battles that shook the literary world last year. Which novel is better? Which one deserved the highest honors? Come prepared. Freedom is out in paperback as of October 2011. The hardcover will also be discounted 25% if you'd like a sturdier version.

Gibson's Book Club reads True History of the Kelly Gang

Monday, July 2, 2012, at 7 PM

Here's a wild card, a Booker winner from 10 years ago, but certainly one of those classics I never got around to: The True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey. In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist.