Book Club

📚 Do you love reading, but wish you had a structure and a community to share your insights with? Join our small circle of curious minds (just 4 members per gathering) as we come together for an hour of focused reading—in the calm setting of a library or the cozy atmosphere of a café. Here’s how it works: First part: Quiet reading on your own—bring a book you’re exploring, whether it’s philosophy, history, psychology, literature, or anything meaningful to you. Second part: We regroup and each person shares key takeaways, insights, or questions sparked by their reading. This sparks a structured yet free-flowing conversation around ideas, perspectives, and personal reflections. Why join? Add structure to your reading habit. Discover new books, authors, and ideas through others’ choices. Build real connections by sharing and listening deeply. Socialize around something meaningful instead of small talk.

Calling all Crew Members! 🚢 BBaddies On A Track! We will be meeting at 6am to hit the track. We will do a warm up and then a few drills and sprints on the track! We will also have fun and be in community!

Bonjour! Are you missing your French? Have you been wanting to practice your French in a day-to-day setting? Join the Alliance Française Library during our Salon de Conversation every 2nd Tuesday of the month to practice your French in a fun and informal setting. This event is for all levels of French speakers. Please note that on January 13th we will be meeting IN-PERSON in the AFDC Library from 5:30 to 6:30 PM, and ONLINE via zoom from 6:30 to 7:30 PM.

Welcome. Come out and play! We meet on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th TUESDAY of the month. Players of all skill levels are welcome. Bring a chess set if you can. Friendly group and a variety of skill levels are typical for each meeting. Adults of any age and children with a parent are welcome. Cohosted by Effie and Lawrence. Email us for updates: greenbeltchessclub@gmail.com Kids Night will be held on the third Tuesday each month. One of our most experienced chess enthusiasts and instructors, Gary Fok, and possibly other instructors, will be on hand to teach. (Adults are welcome as well!)

**Description:** Join us for trivia at Lost Dog Cafe in McLean, Virginia located at 1690 Anderson Rd every Tuesday evening in October. Trivia begins at 7pm, but please consider joining earlier, around 6:30, since seating’s first-come-first-served. Speaking of seating, per Lost Dog’s regulations, a team needs to have at least five members in order to participate in trivia. So please make sure you RSVP so we can secure a spot to play in trivia. The nearest metro is McLean. **Donation:** Neurodivergent District strives to compensate Neurodivergent District members that volunteer to host our events. Please consider a donation to @katewoodwardcm for hosting. Please specify "donation to trivia host" in the description of your payment. Questions? Text 202-930-2881.

**This talk has completely sold out in advance and no door tickets will be available.** [Profs and Pints DC](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“Satanic Panics,”** a look at waves of fear of demonic activity as an American tradition, with Luxx Mishou, cultural historian and former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy and area community colleges. The 1980s found the United States gripped by fear of Satanic cults targeting children. They were believed to be corrupting young ones in daycare centers and tempting teens through subliminal messages on heavy metal albums or through the quiet inclusion of demonic rituals in role-playing games. Satanic serial killers supposedly stalked the suburbs. Doctors helped patients uncover what were claimed to be repressed memories of ritualistic satanic abuse. Parents, police, and politicians were urged to protect impressionable youths from both moral and physical danger. With Satanic cults deemed to be a real and material threat, it was a frightening time for everyone, including those who suddenly came under suspicion for doing evil deeds. Then, suddenly, it all faded from public consciousness, just as surely as did eighties fads such mullet haircuts, leg warmers, and Cabbage Patch Kids. Why did it all start? Why did it stop? And has this happened before or since? Hear such questions tackled by Luxx Mishou, a cultural historian and media specialist who has long researched the devious and villainous in cultural artifacts. She’ll discuss moral panics as a longstanding cultural tradition, with each new one stemming from fear of cultural shifts and shaped by the time and place where it occurred. Among the panics we’ll look into are the Red Scare of the 1950s and the public response to the gruesome 1969 murders committed by the Manson Family. Delving into the 1980s panic, Mishou will describe how it began with the 1980 publication of psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder’s memoir *Michelle Remembers*, detailing the suppressed memories of ritualistic abuse reportedly suffered by a patient. As that book quickly became a best seller, its ideas saturated American culture. A California daycare center became the focus of a three-year investigation, followed by three years of trials, based on allegations that its owner had engaged in secret ritualistic abuse of the children in its care. Mishou will lead you through the media that convinced the public that devil worshipers were among them, and she’ll talk about how reactions to imagined threats can have very real social costs. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image by Canva.

Join us for Book Club from 1-3 pm at The Spot in Rockville, MD, on January 18. We will be reading “Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie. All are welcome, even if you haven’t finished the book.

Hello! Happy New Year! Chase away the winter blahs and beat the New Year's blues with the company of your fellow autists at Cleveland Park Library! Located at 3310 Connecticut Ave. NW in Washington, DC, this library is in a safe and thriving neighborhood just two blocks from the Cleveland Park Metro on the Red Line. Bringing games is optional. We'll be meeting in the large second-floor conference room. HOUSEKEEPING RULES Per library policy, eating is prohibited, but covered drinks are permitted. Per fire code, only 20 RSVPs are allowed. If the list gets to 20, additional RSVPs will move to the waitlist. Please do not take pictures of people without permission. Due to space and liability concerns, people under 18 are not permitted. AFTER MEETUP On the waitlist? Don't worry! You are welcome to join us at Fat Pete's afterwards. It is located at 3407 Connecticut Ave. NW, just across the street and a block over from the library. The owner has made an arrangement where I call him and let him know we're coming over. He then tells me if the place is quiet or noisy. This way, sensory sensitivities are met. The place also has a wide variety of extremely good food and is handicapped-accessible. HEALTH AND SAFETY Since this is the middle of winter, I will keep an eye on the weather. If there are ice/sleet/snow accumulation/winter mix, I am cancelling the event. I am also testing for COVID the morning of the event. Yes, it's still here. If I am well and test negative, I'll be there. If I am sick and/or test positive, I'm staying home. I'm sharing the results in either case. HOW TO GET THERE DC is notoriously hard to drive in. Parking is even worse - almost impossible to find and way too expensive. Taking the Metro or a rideshare is much easier. Cleveland Park Library is located at 3310 Connecticut Ave. NW two blocks away from Cleveland Park Metro on the Red Line. Once you enter the library, go to the second floor. Then go through the glass double doors to the adult books section. We're meeting in the large conference room next to the balcony. If you have trouble finding us, please call or text me at 202-802-3238. See you soon, Jenny

**\*\*Please note we are starting 15 minutes early because of a conflict with the room at 2:45 pm.\*\*** Embarking on an exploration of African philosophy before the modern era immediately raises surprising questions of scope, method, and interpretation. We might think we know what we mean by the term “Africa,” but if we are referring to the continent, then we have to ask questions such as: should we start our investigation with Saint Augustine? He was, after all, ethnically an African Berber. Yet it seems obvious that he fits more comfortably into the European philosophical tradition. What about the thought of ancient Egypt, wherefrom we can trace an influence on the Greeks, especially regarding mathematics? Moreover, both Christianity and Islam extended their reach into Africa. When we encounter their influence, should we treat them as alien interventions, or as ways of thinking that integrated into African cultures? Methodological problems emerge because much of the wisdom traditions of Africa were never recorded in writing but were passed down orally across generations. Can any of the ideas of those traditions be recovered? If so, is there any way of understanding them on their own terms, or do they inevitably become polluted by the modern, and often colonial, interpretations through which they are viewed? Indeed, examining African philosophy raises definitional questions: should we consider philosophy to be something done by the elite scholars and sages of a society, or should it refer to the wider worldview of the culture itself, as its people grapple with questions of being, knowledge, and the best ways to live together? Furthermore, if we don’t think of Africa as a mere landmass, but in terms of culture, then we must ask: is there a singular African culture? While scholars sometimes sought for a monolithically “African” philosophy in the past, it seems clear that there are a diversity of cultural and philosophical traditions that must be accounted for. For our purposes, we will leave aside Augustine (whom we previously addressed in detail as part of the Greco-Roman canon) and examine three areas of African philosophy for which contemporary scholars have found enough material to extensively analyze. First, due to the existence of a written record, the thought of ancient Egypt and its sages are available to us to some degree. We will read some secondary scholarship that can give us at least a fragmentary look into a world far removed from ours that seems very different, yet at the same time familiar. Next, the Ethiopian thinker Zera Yacob and his protege Walda Heywat wrote their “Hatatas,” or inquiries, in the 1500s, and demonstrated that serious philosophical thinking was occurring in Africa under an education system that was quite different from the European one. At the same time their thought was influenced by Christianity and its disputes with indigenous traditions, Islam, and Judaism. Yacob recorded the interesting story of his life and in the process asked deep questions about his relationship to his deity and the world, as well as the best way to live. His student Heywat then followed in his footsteps, providing his own philosophical take on perennial questions. Finally, we will read additional secondary literature on a variety of African philosophical topics, including sage philosophy, oral philosophy, what it means to be a person, and the concept of Ubuntu. This month we will read *[The Hatata Inquiries](https://www.amazon.com/Hatata-Inquiries-Seventeenth-Century-Philosophy-Responsibilities/dp/3112214110)*, by Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat, which is available in paperback on Amazon. Please read pages 1-8 and 71-160. The front matter (maps and figures, chronology, histories of the manuscripts) is also of interest. Additionally, please read the following chapters in *[Africana Philosophy from Ancient Egypt to the Nineteenth Centur](https://www.amazon.com/Africana-Philosophy-Ancient-Nineteenth-Century-ebook/dp/B0F1LLX3WB)y*: 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 17, and 20. Each chapter is short, and they total about 90 pages of reading. Chapters 8, 9, 10, and 18 are also informative, but optional. This text is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon. Since we are dealing with pre-modern African philosophy in this session, we will delay exploring philosophy among the African diaspora or modern African thinkers until later meetings. **Secondary Resources** *Wikipedia:* [Zera Yacob](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zera_Yacob_%28philosopher%29) [Walda Heywat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walda_Heywat) [African Philosophy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_philosophy) *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:* [Africana Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/africana/) [African Sage Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-sage/) [Akan Philosophy of the Person (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/akan-person/)

This meeting will be dedicated to talking about the entirety of "Persuasion" by Jane Austen We will be meeting in the National Portrait Gallery Atrium. To stay up to date with events and discuss meetings or books, you can join our Whatsapp group. Please message me to get added.

Our next book for Rockville Vegans Book Club is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. This book is available for free in both audiobook and eBook on Hoopla.. You can log into Hoopla using your library card information. Currently I have the Meetup location set to Pike Kitchen. This is a vegan friendly food hall in Rockville with a lot of indoor seating available. Purchasing a food/drink would be optional. This location may change as I continue to explore options that can hold our group indoors. And please feel free to message me with location suggestions. Happy reading and looking forward to discussing the book with you all January 17th.

**Our January novel is: Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan** **This month's featured novel is a 20th-century biographical fiction, coming-of-age, historical romance, women’s fiction, world literature, student biography, heartfelt, magic, and feel-good novel. The book is 311 pages in print and 7 hours and 8 minutes on audiobook.** 1950: Margaret Devonshire (Megs) is a seventeen-year-old student of mathematics and physics at Oxford University. When her beloved eight-year-old brother asks Megs if Narnia is real, logical Megs tells him it's just a book for children, and certainly not true. Homebound due to his illness, and remaining fixated on his favorite books, George presses her to ask the author of the recently released novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a question: "Where did Narnia come from?" Despite her fear about approaching the famous author, who is a professor at her school, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with C. S. Lewis and his own brother Warnie, begging them for answers. Rather than directly telling her where Narnia came from, Lewis encourages Megs to form her own conclusion as he shares the little-known stories from his own life that led to his inspiration. As she takes these stories home to George, the little boy travels farther in his imagination than he ever could in real life. After holding so tightly to logic and reason, her brother's request leads Megs to absorb a more profound truth: "The way stories change us can't be explained. It can only be felt. Like love."

If you enjoy knitting, crocheting, working with yarn, this is the group for you. Meet new friends, bring your projects, learn from others.
We normally meet a few times a month during the week from 6-8pm. We will occasionally meet on weekends during daytime hours.

If you enjoy knitting, crocheting, working with yarn, this is the group for you. Meet new friends, bring your projects, learn from others.
We normally meet a few times a month during the week from 6-8pm. We will occasionally meet on weekends during daytime hours.

**Our February novel is: Julia by Sandra Newman** **This month is a classic, dystopian, fiction, literary fiction, women’s fiction, and science fiction novel. The book is 394 pages in print and 14 hours and 20 minutes on audiobook.** **An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman.** Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell’s 1984. All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else. She is an ideal citizen: cheerfully cynical, always ready with a bribe, piously repeating every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules, but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia. Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story. Julia takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell’s now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia, but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe. This unique perspective lays bare our own world in haunting and provocative ways, just as the original did almost seventy-five years ago.

If you enjoy knitting, crocheting, working with yarn, this is the group for you. Meet new friends, bring your projects, learn from others.
We normally meet a few times a month during the week from 6-8pm. We will occasionally meet on weekends during daytime hours.

Join us for our January Book Club gathering where we will come together to discuss *Can't Spell Treason Without Tea* by Rebecca Thorne in a safe and welcoming environment. Make new friends who share your passion for books and connect with fellow LGBTQ book enthusiasts.