A Book Club, Downtown (ABCD)

ABCD Reads "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"This wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent." (from Goodreads)

"The opening sentence of Zadie Smith's glorious new novel announces the book's provenance: "One may as well begin with Jerome's e-mails to his father" -- an echo, of course, of the opening sentence of E.M. Forster's 1910 novel, "Howards End," which began, "One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister."
Although the plot of "On Beauty" hews remarkably closely to "Howards End," Ms. Smith has managed the difficult feat of taking a famous and beloved classic and thoroughly reinventing it to make the story her own. She has taken a novel about Edwardian England -- about class and the competing claims of idealism and money, about a country on the brink of the social upheavals of World War I -- and used it as a launching pad for a thoroughly original tale about families and generational change, about race and multiculturalism in millennial America, about love and identity and the ways they are affected by the passage of time." (from The New York Times)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.

ABCD Reads "Heart the Lover" by Lily King.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"For its first half...a wry, witty, exquisitely evocative campus tale, a fevered fiction of a youthful love triangle, and a reflection,...on the growth and development of a writer. By the end, it stands as one of the most emotionally devastating and soulfully wise novels I have ever read ... Literary without pretension, emotional without maudlin sentimentality. It must be said, however, that King skirts perilously close to the latter in Part 3, and it is a tribute to the power of her moral vision, the precision of her prose, and her animating empathy that the novel avoids bathos and pulls off these wild swerves convincingly ... Heartrending, swoonily romantic, rigorously clear-sighted." (from The Boston Globe)

"Our narrator understands good love stories—their secrets and subtext, their highs and their free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.
In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off-campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.
Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.
Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today." (from Goodreads)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

ABCD Reads AND Watches "Bullet Train", a novel by Kōtarō Isaka, and a movie adaptation starring Brad Pitt.

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"A dark, satirical thriller by the bestselling Japanese author, following the perilous train ride of five highly motivated assassins.
A massive bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with an incredible energy and surprising humor as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwind. Award-winning author Kotaro Isaka takes readers on a tension packed journey as the bullet train hurtles toward its final destination. Who will make it off the train alive—and what awaits them at the last stop?" (from Goodreads)

:: ABOUT THE MOVIE ::
"In Bullet Train, Brad Pitt stars as Ladybug, an unlucky assassin determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs gone off the rails. Fate, however, may have other plans, as Ladybug's latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe -- all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives -- on the world's fastest train. From the director of Deadpool 2, David Leitch, the end of the line is only the beginning in a wild, non-stop thrill ride through modern-day Japan." (from Rotten Tomatoes)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
Instead of just reading the book as usual, this time we're asking that you also watch the movie adaptation. During our discussion, we'll explore the strengths of both the book and the movie, evaluate the adaptation's effectiveness, and touch on any other topics that arise.

You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book and watched the movie before attending (though finishing either is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT READ&WATCH ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next Read & Watch (date TBA). If you have a good pairing in mind, please ensure that the book is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules), and that the movie or TV-series is readily available. When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.