Our long-running group is looking for new members to join our quarterly online book discussion group!
We enjoy reading all types of books, but mostly fiction written in English. We hope you can join us!
PLEASE NOTE: Our group currently meets online quarterly on the first Saturday of March, June, September, and December, but we are very open to choosing a new time and day of the week for future meetings.
Online via Zoom. Link will be provided with a 2-notice notice to interested participants.
RSVP and Questions? Please contact Jennifer S. at northerncalifornia@brynmawr.edu
Our next book is 1984 by George Orwell, optionally paired with Julia by Sandra Newman
“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece “1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.