Book Club

**Moderate level – adults and teenagers with hiking experience** **Sunday, March 15** **Preacher’s Throne** is one of the most beautiful viewpoints in the **Pilis Mountains**, overlooking the famous **Danube Bend**. The route begins with a **long, steep climb** — the most challenging part of the hike. After that, the trail becomes easier. Along the way we will also visit the **Standing Stones** — impressive rock formations rising straight from the ground. It’s a truly **beautiful and rewarding route**. On the way we can prepare a **shared hot lunch**: grains, vegetables, cheese, and spices — simple but very tasty hiking food. And as always, we will include our **practice of silence**, learning to reconnect with nature and inner harmony. *** 🥾 **Distance:** 15.8 km ⬆️⬇️ Total ascent/descent: **693 m / 620 m** *** ## ⏱ Meeting point **08:20 – Újpest-Városkapu metro station** Last carriage from the city center, upstairs near the ticket offices. Return to **Batthyány tér** around **16:30–17:30**. *** ## 💶 Price Early payment (until Friday 20:00): **12,000 HUF** Until Saturday 14:00: **14,000 HUF** Standard: **16,000 HUF** 🥣 Optional hot lunch: Under 16 – **2000 HUF** Adults – **2500 HUF** *** ## Cancellation policy Less than **24 hours before the event** – 50% refund Less than **12 hours** – no refund *** ## 🎒 What to bring * Water 1,5 liter * Packed lunch **or** bowl and spoon + extra water if joining the group meal * Comfortable clothes and shoes you don’t mind getting dirty * Warm layers * Wind / rain jacket * Tick repellent * Optional thermos with tea * Something sweet to share with tea (we usually share with the group) To sign up please contact me via **WhatsApp: https://wa.me/36305183643** +36305183643 **Or Telegram:** @Rudra_AM You can also pay to Revolut, Wise, by bank transfer.

**Moderate level – adults and teenagers with hiking experience** **Sunday, March 15** **Preacher’s Throne** is one of the most beautiful viewpoints in the **Pilis Mountains**, overlooking the famous **Danube Bend**. The route begins with a **long, steep climb** — the most challenging part of the hike. After that, the trail becomes easier. Along the way we will also visit the **Standing Stones** — impressive rock formations rising straight from the ground. It’s a truly **beautiful and rewarding route**. On the way we can prepare a **shared hot lunch**: grains, vegetables, cheese, and spices — simple but very tasty hiking food. And as always, we will include our **practice of silence**, learning to reconnect with nature and inner harmony. *** 🥾 **Distance:** 15.8 km ⬆️⬇️ Total ascent/descent: **693 m / 620 m** *** ## ⏱ Meeting point **08:20 – Újpest-Városkapu metro station** Last carriage from the city center, upstairs near the ticket offices. Return to **Batthyány tér** around **16:30–17:30**. *** ## 💶 Price Early payment (until Friday 20:00): **12,000 HUF** Until Saturday 14:00: **14,000 HUF** Standard: **16,000 HUF** 🥣 Optional hot lunch: Under 16 – **2000 HUF** Adults – **2500 HUF** *** ## Cancellation policy Less than **24 hours before the event** – 50% refund Less than **12 hours** – no refund *** ## 🎒 What to bring * Water 1,5 liter * Packed lunch **or** bowl and spoon + extra water if joining the group meal * Comfortable clothes and shoes you don’t mind getting dirty * Warm layers * Wind / rain jacket * Tick repellent * Optional thermos with tea * Something sweet to share with tea (we usually share with the group) To sign up please contact me via **WhatsApp: https://wa.me/36305183643** +36305183643 **Or Telegram:** @Rudra_AM You can also pay to Revolut, Wise, by bank transfer.

This will be our second (and possibly last) meeting on *Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic*, by Matthew Stewart. For this meeting, please try to read chapters 4 and 6. (You can skim chapter 5, which is particularly confusing). **Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy?** America’s founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began. [LINK](https://a.co/d/bkTWJNb) This book is not always an easy read. You may want to make use of AI tools such as ChatGPT. You can ask it questions like: "What does Matthew Stewart say about happiness in his book Nature's God?" OR: What does Matthew Stewart say about Spinoza? This may be our last meeting on this book. If you want to have a third meeting later, on the last two chapters, let me know. I hope to see you there! Fred

Join us for a discussion of ***Thick: And Other Essays* by Tressie McMillan Cottom** Here's the summary: Tressie McMillan Cottom, the writer, professor, and acclaimed author of Lower Ed, now brilliantly shifts gears from running regression analyses on college data to unleashing another identity: a purveyor of wit, wisdom—and of course Black Twitter snark—about all that is right and much that is so very wrong about this thing we call society. In the bestselling tradition of bell hooks and Roxane Gay, McMillan Cottom’s freshman collection illuminates a particular trait of her tribe: being thick. In form, and in substance. This bold compendium, likely to find its place on shelves alongside Lindy West, Rebecca Solnit, and Maggie Nelson, dissects everything from beauty to Obama to pumpkin spice lattes. Yet Thick will also fill a void on those very shelves: a modern black American female voice waxing poetic on self and society, serving up a healthy portion of clever prose and southern aphorisms in a style uniquely her own. McMillan Cottom has crafted a black woman’s cultural bible, as she mines for meaning in places many of us miss and reveals precisely how—when you’re in the thick of it—the political, the social, and the personal are almost always one and the same. **Let’s meet at Caboose Commons in Fairfax to enjoy some good discussion and meet new friends.**