supporting community, culture, and the arts since 1898
2286 CEDAR STREET | BERKELEY, CA 94709
Office 510 848-3227
BOOK CLUBS
The Hillside Fiction Book Group is composed of approximately ten dedicated readers who participate in a monthly discussion of literary fiction. We are committed to a careful reading of each book, readiness to participate, and regular attendance.
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Discussion is open and informal, with an implicit contract to share the floor and respect and invite the views of others.
Hillside Fiction Book Group
1st Tuesday of every Month
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The Hillside Book Group meets once a month, online via Google Meet, to discuss a work of fiction – usually a novel, usually written within the last 50 years. We expand our literary horizons by reading books that none of us have read before.
Recent selections include: Hiromi Kawakami, Strange Weather in Tokyo (2012); Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977); Gary Indiana, Do Everything in the Dark (2003); Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx (2000); Jenny Erpenbeck, The Visitation (2010). Some of our upcoming selections are: Carlo Emilio Gadda, That Awful Mess in the Via Merulana (1957); Ali Smith, Autumn (2017); Peter Stamm, Seven Years (2011); Lisa Ko, The Leavers (2017).
We meet on the first Tuesday of every month at 5 pm PST. We socialize for a few minutes as people arrive online, then we talk for an hour to an hour and a half about the book and about the experience of reading. Our group began as a conventional face-to-face book club at the Hillside Club, but moved online during the pandemic. Because we meet online, our members are dispersed around the US (hence the early meeting time). Our current membership stands at 7 (1 man, 6 women) – down from a pre-pandemic roster of 10. We are looking to expand our membership, and we would be especially happy to recruit more men. If you are interested in joining us, you can get in touch by sending an email to Katherine Flegal: katherine.flegal@gmail.com.
