A Book Club, Downtown (ABCD)

In an incredible turn of events, the author for our June bookclub pick is giving a live interview on Wed May 14 at 7 pm at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema!

Join fellow ABCD booklovers as Katie Kitamura speaks about her latest novel, Audition, to writer, translator and bookseller Claire Foster.

In addition to signing up for the event here on the Meetup website, please also purchase your own ticket (for $15+HST) on the Hot Docs website here:

https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/katie-kitamura

Michael and I are sitting on the main floor in Row H, seats 101 and 102, and there are several seats available at time of posting beside us and near-by in neighbouring rows.

We'll be outside the front doors of the cinema to say hi for 5 mins or so at 6:40pm before heading into the theatre to grab our seats. We'll enjoy the talk, and then meet outside the front doors of the cinema again immediately afterwards so we can head as a group to the nearby Victory Cafe for a drink and a gab!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"The girls and women in Enriquez’s stories worry about their friendships, their figures, their spacious apartments in dangerous neighborhoods, their waning attraction to their boyfriends and husbands, only to confront the horror that courses underneath it all: noises only they can hear, children only they can see, neighbors with grisly secrets [...] I will be haunted for some time by the indelible images in this book: a woman disfigured by burns, her neck “a maroon mask crisscrossed by spider webs”; bodies buried in cement. The most frightening atrocities are those that touch on Argentina’s actual present and past, as if to remind us that the true source of evil is not supernatural but man-made." (from The New York Times)

"In these wildly imaginative, devilishly daring tales of the macabre, internationally bestselling author Mariana Enriquez brings contemporary Argentina to vibrant life as a place where shocking inequality, violence, and corruption are the law of the land, while military dictatorship and legions of desaparecidos loom large in the collective memory. In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortázar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire." (from Goodreads)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.

[RELATED: ABCD goes out: Katie Kitamura live at the Hot Docs Cinema!]

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? Two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately." (from BookMarks.reviews)

"This is comfortable terrain for Kitamura, who over five novels has perfected the maneuver of burrowing into such gaps between our innermost selves and the roles we perform for others. Her characters are often passive, but can hardly be called inert. She traces the transfer of power between men and women with horse-race precision, suggesting that in every dynamic, we are constantly being fitted for new costumes and vying for a starring part.
Audition realizes Kitamura’s longstanding interests in the form of a woman who inhabits roles for a living. It’s her most thrilling examination yet of the deceit inherent in human connection." (from New York Times Book Review)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

ABCD Reads "Mickey7", a novel by Edward Ashton, AND Watches "Mickey 17", a film by Bong Joon-ho.

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, now on his seventh iteration, living – and dying – among his fellow colonists on the near-uninhabitable ice world of Niflheim. Some consider him immortal. Others believe he’s a soulless monstrosity. For the past nine years, he has been deployed for hazardous assignments and subjected to experiments that test the limits of human endurance, his humanity sacrificed for the greater good." (from Goodreads)

:: ABOUT THE MOVIE ::
"Mickey 17 finds Bong Joon Ho returning to his forte of daffy sci-fi with a withering social critique at its core, proving along the way that you can never have too many Robert Pattisons." (from Rotten Tomatoes)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
Instead of just reading the book as usual, this time we're asking that you also watch the movie adaptation. During our discussion, we'll explore the strengths of both the book and the movie, evaluate the adaptation's effectiveness, and touch on any other topics that arise.

You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book and watched the movie before attending (though finishing either is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT READ&WATCH ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next Read & Watch (date TBA). If you have a good pairing in mind, please ensure that the book is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules), and that the movie or TV-series is readily available. When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.