Dolly’s is honored to host a monthly classics bookclub–typically held Monday nights, near the end of the month, 7:00 PM right here at Dolly’s!
Here are our summer reads!
May: Toni Morrison’s Sula
Monday, May 27, 2013, 7:00 PM.
Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal–or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, “Sula” is a work that overflows with life.
June & July: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook
Monday, June 24, 2013, 7:00 PM & Monday, July 22, 2013, 7:00 PM.
Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
Doris Lessing’s best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.
Also, due to the length of this work–June’s bookclub will focus only on the first half, and July’s meeting [Monday, July 22] will finish the remainder of the discussion. Thanks everyone!
August: Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi
Monday, August 26, 2013, 7:00 PM
In 1882 Mark Twain returned to the river of his childhood, determined to write the definitive travel book on the Mississippi. “Life on the Mississippi “is no ordinary guided tour, for every page is expressive of the structure, style and high humour that is the very essence of Twain the writer. Spiced with Twain’s pungent observations and commentaries on the culture and society of the great river valley, the book is a wonderful collection of lively anecdotes, tall tales and character sketches; historical facts and information; and reminiscences of the author’s boyhood and experiences as a steamboat pilot. “Life on the Mississippi,” in its composition and substance, is intricately related to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In his introduction, James M. Cox suggests that in writing this travelogue Twain discovered the truths that form the heart of the odyssey depicted in his masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn.