“Paranoia” comes from the Greek for “beyond the mind,” but are you really out of your mind if you’re right?

This year we’ll be reading books where characters are reacting to paranoia, whether their own or others’. Most of our readings come from the second half of the 20th century, when the Cold War and all that lead in the groundwater really did a number on people, though we’ll also look at precursors of this oh-so modern emotional state. Expect murder, ghosts, Rome’s last pagan emperor, conspiracies, shut-ins, and the peril of operating a vanity press.

This group will meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month (with one exception) in the Bound at the Athenæum, 5-7pm. Come socialize from 5-5:30, reading discussion begins at 5:30pm.

Tues, September 23
Medea by Euripides (431 BCE)

Tues, October 28
Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1606ish)

Tues, November 25
“The Nose” by Nicolai Gogol (1836) and The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1846)

Tues, December 16 (note date change)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)

Tues, January 27
Julian by Gore Vidal (1964)

Tues, February 24
Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard (1964)

Tues, March 24
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1969)

Tues, April 28
The Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño (1989)

Tues, May 26
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (first half) (1988)

Tues, June 23
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (second half) (1988)

Jonathan Migliori is a Providence native and teacher with a degree in Classics and Medieval Cultures from Brown University. When he isn’t doing this he is running RI’s hardest pub quiz, lecturing for Viking Cruises, or eating.

Bonnie Clayton is a Rhode Island native and Providence resident who graduated with a BA in English from the University of Hawaii. A former literacy instructor, she is currently doing the Devil’s work as a proofreader and copyeditor.