From September 2023 to May 2024, the Train Dreams reading group will meet once each month to discuss a deeply varied set of fictions from the late 19th century to the present day. We will read broadly and comparatively, drawing from American, English, French, and German literature, exploring the train as image, symbol, and technology in modern life. Organizing our reading around this global theme, we will assess “classic” literature in forms ranging from naturalistic to lyrical to surreal, with stops along the way for genre reading in mysteries and thrillers. We will take a break in January of our reading year for group members to engage independently in listening to a broad selection of popular songs and other music invoking trains. Each month, group members will have a voluntary opportunity to write a short essay on the assignment.

Our reading schedule will be chronological by publication date. All meetings except one will be devoted to discussing a single work; we will discuss one longer work over two meetings.

The Athenæum is hosting two identical sections of the Train Dreams group from 5:30 to 7:00pm, September 2023 to May 2024, on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of each month, with exceptions in November and May as noted.

The Tuesday section will meet in person in the Reading Room (lower level) of the library. The Wednesday section will meet virtually via Zoom. The meeting days will always be back-to-back. Participants will be asked to select their preferred meeting session during registration.

Please note that there is a long reading assignment for the first meeting. Monthly reading assignments will vary from under 200 pages to under 400 pages. A typical assignment will be 250-300 pages in length. Readers are free to use the editions of their choice. Recommended print editions are provided below.

Tues, September 12 & Wed, September 13
Émile Zola, La bête humaine (1890). Oxford World’s Classics. 372 pages. Translation by Roger Pearson.

Tues, October 10 & Wed, October 11
Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express (1934). William Morrow Paperbacks. 288 pages.

Tues, November 7* & Wed, November 8 [first Tuesday and second Wednesday] Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train (1950). W. W. Norton & Company. 288 pages.

Tues, December 12 & Wed, December 13
W. G. Sebald, Vertigo (1990). New Directions. 272 pages. Translation by Michael Hulse.

January 2024
No meetings. Independent listening. Details to follow for registered group members.

Tues, February 13 & Wed, February 14 (The Tues session will meet on Zoom due to snow)
Mathias Énard, Zone (2008). Open Letter. 517 pages. Translation by Charlotte Mandell.
Reading assignment is Chapters I-XI, to page 277 in the recommended edition.

Tues, March 12 & Wed, March 13
Mathias Énard, Zone (2008). Open Letter. 517 pages. Translation by Charlotte Mandell.
Reading assignment is Chapters XII-XXIV, from page 278 to the end.

Tues, April 9 & Wed, April 10
Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (2011). Picador. 116 pages.

Tues, May 7* & Wed, May 8 [first Tuesday and second Wednesday] Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (2016). Anchor. 336 pages.

Hrabal Bohumil, Closely Watched Trains (1965). Czech.
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, The Passenger (2018). Written 1938. German.
Agatha Christie, 4:50 from Paddington (1957). British.
Meg Waite Clayton, The Last Train to London (2019). American.
Michael Crichton, The Great Train Robbery (1975). American.
Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985). American.
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013). Australian.
Graham Greene, Stamboul Train (1932). Also published as Orient Express.British.
Kotaro Isaka, Bullet Train (2021). Originally published as Maria Beetle (2010). Japanese.
Seichi Matsumoto, Tokyo Express (1958). Originally published as Points and Lines. Japanese.
Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1905). British. A children’s story that adults will enjoy.
Frank Norris, The Octopus: A Story of California (1901). American.
Georges Simenon, The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (1938). Belgian.
Georges Simenon, The Train (1961). Belgian.
Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). Non-fiction. American.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1878). Russian.
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days (2001). American.

Selected biographies
Emile Zola. Zola: A Life, by Frederick Brown (1995)
Agatha Christie. Agatha Christie, by Laura Thompson (2018).
Patricia Highsmith. The Talented Miss Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (2009).
W. G. Sebald. Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald, by Carole Angier (2021).

Athenæum member Steve Coon leads the reading group as facilitator. Steve earned a Ph.D. from Brown University in Comparative Literature in 1976. Since 2012, he has led reading groups every year at the Athenæum, including groups on Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Balzac & Baudelaire in Paris, Roberto Bolaño, W. G. Sebald, and Melville and Conrad. He led a three-year excursion into the theme of love: “French Kisses” and “More French Kisses” on French fiction from the 17th century to the present, and “Love Actually” on modern British fiction. Most recently, he led a reading group on the theme of “Outsiders,” from antiquity to the present. Steve also leads the Athenaeum Film Club. He emphasizes that the reading group is not a “class,” but rather an opportunity for interested readers of all backgrounds to explore and engage with interesting and important works in modern world literature.