English Books & Literature

📚 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.

Join us for another lowkey writing session! Bring your laptop, iPad, or notebook so that you can get some words down! We will start around 6:00 as people filter in. Writing, chatting, and casual introductions will go on until 6:30 as people arrive and grab food and drinks, when we will do a round-table to introduce ourselves, our genres and writing styles, and what we are looking for from the group. After that, we can buckle down to do some writing and make ourselves be productive! I will try to snag the big community table to the right of the registers at Tatte, or sit against the back wall with a couple of tables pulled together, so you can look for me there. I'll post in the comments when I arrive, so feel free to check there or message me if you are feeling lost or having difficulty finding the group. I'll look forward to meeting you all! Our next workshop will take place on the Monday following this one, so look forward to that, as well!

[Profs and Pints DC](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“Venezuela’s Future—and Ours,”** an analysis of how the Trump administration’s intervention in Venezuela will affect that nation, the U.S., and the rest of the world, with Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab at American University. [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-venezuela-future](https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-venezuela-future) .] On January 3rd, after a long military buildup, the United States used special forces to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their residence in Caracas, Venezuela to stand trial here on criminal charges. The development marked a major turning point in our relationship with Venezuela and the rest of Latin America and raised a host of complex questions, not just for Venezuelans living inside and outside that country but for American citizens and other nations of the world. Coming to the stage to break down what all of this means is Ernesto Castañeda, a scholar of Latin America who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks on immigration policy and has given dozens of interviews to media outlets around the world in the wake of the U.S. raid. In a talk offering informed perspective on the latest news developments, Professor Castañeda will discuss various theories about why the U.S. conducted the operation to get Maduro out of Venezuela. He’s put our nation’s current plans for Venezuela into context by touching on previous U.S. military interventions in Latin America and beyond. Professor Castañeda will look at the implications of recent events for U.S. politics and U.S. citizens and what such developments tell us about the balance of power in the United States. He’ll examine the distance between decisions made by the White House and public priorities, touching on how it all relates to our immigration policies and our views about peaceful protest and democracy. He’ll consider how the Venezuela raid and our actions since have altered relations between the U.S. and other nations and provide scenarios about what the future might hold. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image by Canva.

Hit the pause button for an hour and reduce your stress. You will be compassionately guided through an exploration of intentionally linking your breath with the movement of both dynamic and static stretching and its impact on your (P)hysical, (I)ntellectual, (E)motional, and (S)piritual layers. Then experience the calming practice of restorative yoga which was designed specifically to move you from the fight, flight, or freeze state of the nervous system into the rest and digest state. Leave this all levels, accessible class feeling restored, renewed, and ready for what life has in store for you next. **Please reserve your spot at www.piesfitnessyoga.com.** The session is offered InStudio only. **Sign up for sessions must be made at least 2 hours prior to class.** The address is 1322 Prince St Alexandria, VA 22314. Our entrance is located on the side of the building, parallel to West St. **Street parking is available and additional parking is located at Shiloh Baptist church, spaces 3,5,7,9.** The church is located across the street from the studio, on the corner of Duke St. and West St.

This meeting will be dedicated to talking about the entirety of “White Noise” by Don Delillo 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.

This month's selection is "Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy," by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams! Real life "Succession" drama!! If you're new, welcome! Don't worry if you can't finish or don't like the book, we're here for good casual conversation...

Note: RSVPs for this meetup open when our last meetup ends. For February, we are reading Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah. The book was first published in 2025 and the hardcover version runs 296 pages. The GoodReads blurb is In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change. At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

* We meet inside Northside Social * Bring something to read, as we often take some time at the beginning telling each other about what we're currently reading. * I have a favor to ask of you. To offset the cost of Meetup fees (\~$200 a year), I kindly request that you consider a small donation to my my [Pledge account](https://www.meetup.com/a-different-type-of-book-club-arlington/#pledge). 😊 **NOTE: NO DISCUSSION OF POLITICS: 12/31/21 UPDATE** For the sake of polite company, moving forward, we will avoid the discussion of politics at meetings of the book club. Please let me know if you have any questions. **NON-ATTENDANCE / NO-SHOW POLICY** If you have said that you will attend this event, but no longer are able to attend, please kindly update your status to "Not Attending" so that someone on the waitlist is able to RSVP. **Because this Meetup group is popular, and typically has a waitlist, effective immediately, I'm instituting a two-event no-show policy. If you RSVP as "Attending" but do not show at two events, you will be removed from this Meetup group.** We look forward to seeing you! Best, Jay

We will meet outside as long as the weather is nice. If not, we will move inside. Look out for a comment the morning of each meeting with our exact location. As we are meeting in person, please remember to bring something to read as we usually spend some time sharing our current reads and/or reading when meeting in person. As a reminder, there is no assigned reading; please bring whatever you are currently working on. This group is super casual, sometimes we read and sometimes we talk the whole time. **** NO SHOW POLICY: Due to the high number of members on the waitlist recently we are having to reinstate our no-show policy. If you sign up and no-show to 2 events you will be removed from the group. Reminders are provided weekly to change your RSVP to allow those on the waitlist a chance to come to the meet-up, no 3rd chances with be given. Please be considerate to your fellow members. Thank you! I look forward to reading you!

Love audiobooks and nature? Looking to connect with fellow book lovers? Come **Book It Around** with us! Monthly audiobook walks are FREE and held in accessible public spaces around the D.C. Metro area. These \~ 90 minute walks are often followed by a social gathering -- book swap, picnic, indie bookstore private shopping, etc. Get a little dose of nature, read a few chapters, and make a bookish new friend! All ages, fitness levels, and identities welcome. If the event listing says "full," ignore that, come anyway, and bring a friend -- the more the merrier! Questions? Email bookitaround AT gmail DOT com

Calling all founders, CEOs, lawyers, doctors, and entrepreneurs to join our special *Founder Edition* of Sip & Read meetup event. Let's sip on fine wine and discuss our first book **The 5AM Club- Own Your Morning Elevate Your Life, by Robin Sharma**. We will pair this book with our favorite wine at **Wine on High** and engage in thought-provoking discussions on startup businesses and entrepreneurship, and network with like-minded individuals in a cozy book club setting. Come prepared to discuss this month's book. At the end of each book club meeting, we will take next book and venue suggestions from the participants for the next meeting. Whether you are a book lover, women entrepreneur, or a content creator, this event is perfect for sharing ideas and insights with other funders and founders in the entrepreneurial world. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to connect, learn, and grow together. Sign up now to reserve your spot! *Fun fact! This meetup was established in 2015 and had over 1,000 members. I had to shut down operations while attending law school, but we're back!!*

**I’m planning future book club meetups and would love your input. Please choose your top three from the list below—your picks will help decide what we read next!** **Book Options** *The Hong Kong Widow* – Kristen Loesch *American Spy* – Lauren Wilkinson *God of the Woods* – Liz Moore *Listen for the Lie* – Amy Tintera *The Swallows* – Lisa Lutz *The Drowning Kind* – Jennifer McMahon *The Eights* – Joanna Miller *The Quiet Librarian* – Allen Eskens Thanks so much for sharing your pick! Please **reply in the comments** with your top three. I can’t wait to see which books rise to the top and to discuss them together at our next meetups.

**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.

Welcome, readers! Our February read is **_1984 by George Orwell._** In 1984, George Orwell imagines a world where the government watches everyone, rewrites reality, and punishes even private thoughts. Winston Smith dares to question this system, believing that truth and love might still exist. His rebellion draws him into a chilling struggle against a power that knows him better than he knows himself. The novel leaves readers asking whether freedom is possible when reality itself can be controlled. Looking forward to discussing with everyone! We will meet at Zaftig Brewing Co in their event room in the back. We are welcome to bring in our own food, but **drinks must be purchased at the bar.** Happy reading! 📖

Join us for The Fisherman by John Langan. In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

Join us as we get together to see the steamy-romance-period-drama, WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Director Emerald Fennell gives us her take on the romance between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw from the classic Emily Bronte novel. Here’s a description, trailer and plan for this event: DESCRIPTION: The film tells a passionate and tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire moors, exploring the intense and destructive relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. The film is directed by Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) and is loosely based on the classic novel by Emily Bronte. It stars Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Alison Oliver, Owen Cooper and Hong Chau! TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fLCdIYShEQ PLAN: We’ll plan for a 7pm-ish showing and will meet inside the lobby area about 30 minutes before the show begins. Advance ticket purchase not required for this theater but early arrival is advised! Be sure to mention you’re with the Movie Group for admission and concession discounts! And, after the movie, don’t miss the best part of the night – food and drinks at the nearby Rusty Bucket! Complete details will be confirmed/announced as the date gets closer! Look forward to seeing you there, Dan