*NEW*🔥📚 A Book Club For Curious Minds

💌 JOIN our NEW SUBSTACK to read ALL the book summaries 📕👇

https://rubyrossini.substack.com/

If you have not yet read the book, you are still very welcome to join us. However, in the case of reading a novel, reading it beforehand is strongly encouraged — both to deepen your own experience and to enrich the conversation for others.

Regardless of whether you have read the book, take the time to go through the summary ( it will be published on Substack a few days before our event ) - it will help to ground the conversation on an even level for everyone on Saturday. It is not AI-written - I write all summaries & think pieces myself, and I aim to make them as in-depth as I possibly can.

For Announcements

Join our WhatsApp Group. I will announce here any new events and share the summary for those who are not on Substack: https://chat.whatsapp.com/G011Ugv9bah08PYlcQFJ4m

( This is the announcement group only - ONLY once you have attended the event, you'll be able to join the other group, which is for the community)

⛔️ No Show

Don't be a 💩. Our waitlist is usually chunky. If you can’t make it, change your RSVP, it only takes a second. Two consecutive no-shows and you will be removed from future signups.

Book of the Month

In our last chapter, Rejection took us deep into one of the most painful human fears: not simply being unwanted, but being left alone. Its characters contort themselves around the need to be chosen, desired, admired, and loved. Again and again, rejection appears not only as romantic disappointment, but as the threat of emotional deprivation itself. But if rejection hurts because it denies us love, then a more difficult question follows: What exactly is love?

Is it devotion, desire, possession, intimacy, habit, sacrifice, dependency? Can love survive cruelty? Can we love someone and still misunderstand them completely? And how much of what we call love is really projection, fear, loneliness, or the need not to be alone?
For our next read, we turn to Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Across seventeen spare, unsettling short stories, Carver looks at ordinary people trying, and often failing, to understand one another. Couples separate and reconcile, betray and forgive, cling to one another, hurt one another, and continue calling what remains love.

We’ll focus particularly on So Much Water So Close to Home, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Gazebo, A Serious Talk, Everything Stuck to Him, and Popular Mechanics.
Carver offers no easy answers. Instead, he asks us to look at love stripped of romance and ask what, exactly, remains.

At the centre of the collection is a deceptively simple question that none of its characters can quite answer:
What do we actually mean when we say we love someone?

If you have a problem getting yourself a copy of the book/s, get in touch!

Make a commitment 👏 📅

As the spots fill up pretty quickly, be quick to sign up - but do so ONLY if you make a real commitment to join.

We have an amazing, committed community that generously shows up, contributes, and gives its best. Sign up only if you are committed and eager to attend. Mark your calendar and make a commitment to yourself and your community.

Discussion

For the discussion, we’ll divide in smaller groups of around 4-6 as to have a more intimate environment to facilitate conversations where everyone can feel welcome to participate at their pace.

About Us

Welcome to "Curious Collective" – A Book Club for Curious Minds.

If you find yourself here, chance is, you are curious. You are a wanderer, an explorer of ideas, seeking the 'whys' and 'hows' of our world, of what makes us human.

In a culture dominated by “hyper-connectivity”, we often lose sight of what truly matters; the treasure of ancient wisdom, the beauty of curiosity, and the profound meaning of community.

The Curious Collective is here to rekindle those flames. 🔥

We believe in the power of shared ideas, meaningful conversations, and sharing the journey.

As Joseph Addison wisely said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." Our collective mission is to exercise our minds, curiosity, and sense of belonging to a community of like-minded people.

We are not: Intellectual W*nkers or debate-club warriors here. We keep it real, there is no intellectual or self-righteous snobbery here.

We are: Ordinary humans who crave knowledge, connection—someone to chat with, share ideas, and journey alongside.

Tips:
I suggest having a notebook/ a place where you can take notes of the most interesting parts & thoughts you had - this is going to be very helpful for the discussion.

Stay Curious – for there's always more to discover.