Due to extreme heat, the library will close at 5 pm on Tuesday, July 29 and close at 2 pm on Wednesday, July 30

BROWSE

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PROGRAMS / READING GROUPS / What Can a Novel Do?

Why do you choose to read the books you choose to read?

To learn? To escape? To be entertained? To better understand the life you’re living…or lives you’ll never live? And how do books accomplish each of these objectives?

OVERVIEW

Rather than cohering a list of books around a particular theme, we will be exploring the novel-as-tool. To that end, the books on this list showcase a wide range of styles, textures, tones, and structures. In some cases, they introduce questions about what it even means to read – or write – a story. The line of inquiry is directed toward the utility and possibility of fiction. How far can a novel push us to understand another life, another world, a writer’s imagination?

How can you frame a story to communicate the truth of it? If you’ve translated something into a written story, does that already mean a certain amount of truth is lost? Or does fiction provide truth that real life cannot? And is truth even the point?

Let’s discuss!

MEETING AND READING SCHEDULE

This group will meet on the 2nd Wednesday of the month in the Bound at the Athenæum, 5:30-7pm.

Wed, September 10
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)

Wed, October 8
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (2025)

Wed, November 12
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1963)

Wed, December 10
if on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino (1979)

Wed, January 14
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009)

Wed, February 11
The Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (2023)

Wed, March 11
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (2013)

Wed, April 8
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz (1995)

Wed, May 13
My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman (2024)

GROUP FACILITATOR

Carolyn Fagan (she/her/hers) has been a member of the Athenaeum and its reading groups since 2022. She has a BA in Creative Writing and English from New York University. Her favorite author is Helen Oyeyemi, but she thinks it is good to regularly interrogate what you believe to be your favorites.

Sydney Healey (she/her/hers) loves to ask fellow readers if they prefer something that is beautiful at the sentence level or plot-forward (though she acknowledges it is possible to have both). She has been a member of the Athenaeum and its reading groups since 2019.

This group has reached capacity. To be added to a waitlist, please email readinggroups@provath.org with NOVEL as the subject line.

The Athenæum is deeply grateful to our wonderful volunteer leaders. Please note library reading groups are not classes or courses, but rather a way for individuals to discuss readings together, guided by both expert and amateur enthusiasts. Participants should expect discussion-based, not lecture-style meetings.