About us
We primarily meet via Zoom, and read books, stories, and plays aloud together.
Note: If you receive an email purporting to be from this group offering to feature your book, it is a scam. Please see https://www.reddit.com/r/selfpublish/comments/1nki6s5/book_club_review_scam/
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For those in the local Morristown NJ area who are interested in in-person book discussions, they are now listed on Bookclubs.com, as the "Florham Park Readers Group". You can join us at this link: https://bookclubs.com/clubs/6022268/join/fb34f2/
History of this group:
Founded in 2011 by the manager of Zebu Forno (now closed but it was a great place on South Street); we have since had a stint at Atlanta Bread in Madison – now also closed – and after that Panera Bread in Morristown (until it also closed) , then the one in Florham Park. Now, we have switched to the Florham Park Diner, across the street. See above to join us.
We started as a typical book club – reading mostly "literary" best-sellers with some non-fiction sprinkled in, all suggested by members. Then we had a phase where we each picked books that had special meaning for us, and discussed them with the group. Also we did a string of great YA fiction... We then tried a "featured writer" approach, first Haruki Murakami (our members are called "Laikas" in remembrance of "Sputnik Sweetheart"), then Pat Conroy, and finally Virginia Woolf. Now we are picking books from the NYT list of the best books of this century, and all have been winners!
The Summit Sunday Book Club
We started up in 9 years ago in the winter of 2014. For the first couple of years, we met at the lovely Summit home of our founder, Amy P., always on Sunday afternoons.
Amy envisioned a sort of salon where we’d gather to discuss literary books over tea and cookies. She did a great job of selecting a diverse mix of books as well as moderating our discussions.
After Amy left in 2016 it took a few of us to fill her shoes. Suzanne organized and led us in choosing books while others pitched in to host us and/or provide the treats we had come to enjoy. We met less and less often, finding home hosting a challenge to schedule. But we soldiered on until COVID nearly shut us down.
That’s how we ended up online. At first we just exchanged recommendations for books, movies, TV, and local outdoor escapes to help us get through the lockdown. Last year we returned to our tradition of choosing/discussing individual books with more of us getting involved. Through our reading we traveled all over the place and back and forward in time.
We still meet virtually. We continue to look to the experts in the book biz for recommendations. They include reviewers, critics, and literary organizations from all sorts of media. All their output makes it much easier to find books that are likely to be interesting, informative and “discussion-worthy”.
Over the years we’ve learned that everyone’s book preferences are very different. It’s folly to promise you’ll love every book we choose. Instead, by choosing a wide variety of great books, we hope sooner or later to come up with some that intrigue you and a few that really inspire you. To learn more about us please join us at our next meeting.
The Everywhere Else Book Club
During the pandemic, we started to do Shakespeare readings over Zoom, and acquired members who are from elsewhere and who can't attend in-person gatherings. We are expanding the Zoom meetings to do more Shakespeare, and other authors. These are mostly "read-together" meetups; come-as-you-are; no pre-reading needed.
The Shakespeare readings are named in honor of our long-time participant, Milt Commons.
Upcoming events
67
Group readaloud: Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield
·OnlineOnlineThis is a read-aloud session, with all text shared on-screen, and discussions of what we just read between rounds – like a small-group seminar. There are no prerequisites.
In this session, we'll read (starting promptly at 5pm) a short analysis of "Miss Brill"; the story we read twice last week, followed by "Bliss".
"Woolf felt such a violent distaste for “Bliss” that, upon first reading the story in the prestigious English Review in August 1918, she threw her copy of the magazine across the room. Writing in her diary, Woolf criticized the quality of Mansfield’s writing – but it seems likely that her dislike for “Bliss” was far more personal." (from https://www.thecollector.com/katherine-mansfield-short-stories-to-read/)
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Latecomers (unless we know you) will generally NOT BE ADMITTED once the reading starts. If this is your first time with us, consider joining five minutes early, so we can work out any technical issues you may be having.
4 attendees
Read-Aloud: "Saint Joan of the Stockards" by Bertholdt Brecht
·OnlineOnline(In our read-alouds, the text is screen-shared. No experience in reading aloud or advance preparation necessary.
(Wiki:) Saint Joan of the Stockyards (German: Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe) is a play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht between 1929 and 1931, after the success of his musical The Threepenny Opera and during the period of his radical experimental work with the Lehrstücke. It is based on the musical that he co-authored with Elisabeth Hauptmann, Happy End (1929).[1]
In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into "Joan Dark", a member of the "Black Straw Hats" (a Salvation Army-like group) in 20th-century Chicago. The play charts Joan's battle with Pierpont Mauler, the unctuous owner of a meat-packing plant. Like her namesake, Joan is a doomed woman, a martyr and (initially, at least) an innocent in a world of strike-breakers, fat cats, and penniless workers. Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs as part of its epic dramaturgical structure and deals with the theme of emancipation from material suffering and exploitation.[2]
The environment of the Chicago stockyards was well-known to left-wing activists worldwide due to Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle. Sinclair had spent about six months investigating the Chicago meatpacking industry for the paper Appeal to Reason, the work which inspired his novel. Sinclair intended to "set forth the breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and women for profit".[3]
The play was broadcast on Berlin Radio on the 11 April 1932, with Carola Neher as Joan and Fritz Kortner as Mauler. The cast also included Helene Weigel, Ernst Busch, Peter Lorre, Paul Bildt and Friedrich Gnaß. The play did not receive its first theatrical production until the 30 April 1959, at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, after Brecht's death. Brecht had asked Gustaf Gründgens to direct, with scenic design by Caspar Neher and music by Siegfried Franz. Brecht's daughter Hanne Hiob played Joan.[1]
Saint Joan of the Stockyards was given its New York City premiere by the Encompass New Opera Theatre in 1978 in a production which incorporated music, directed by Jan Eliasberg.[4][5]([Image from https://polisteatrofestival.org/evento/saint-joan-of-the-stockyards/?lang=en](https://polisteatrofestival.org/evento/saint-joan-of-the-stockyards/?lang=en))
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Latecomers (unless we know you) will generally NOT BE ADMITTED once the reading starts.
If this is your first time with us, consider joining five minutes early, so we can work out any technical issues you may be having.
2 attendees
Past events
851
Group links
Members
1,351
