Novel Reading

📚 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 a writing workshop! Please submit your pieces to our Google Drive folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PfiTjIZEugDVRC-fFBViUSFq4mt5_MHt?usp=drive_link When entering submissions, please consider the following guidelines: 1\. Keep submissions to approximately 2\,000 words\, maximum 2\. Consider adding a brief Author's Note to introduce your work and let us know what kind of feedback you are looking for 3\. Please ensure that your submission is appropriate for a general audience and include trigger warnings as necessary 4\. Try to post your submission by Saturday or Sunday at the latest so that people have time to read it before the event\. If you are coming to participate in Workshop, please read the submissions in the folder by Monday evening and prepare your feedback! We will aim to discuss each piece in the submission folder, although some pieces may be pushed to the following workshop if time runs short. Feel free to add your notes as comments on the document itself, write them up in a separate file, or jot them down so that you can provide them to the writer.

On Monday, we'll meet in front of the Courthouse Library, 2100 Clarendon Blvd, and head towards the Arlington Cemetery and Memorial Bridge. Notes: If you're not familiar with the area, please review the routes. If it's cold, take cover inside the foyer area of 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Routes: We'll run 20 minutes out and then turn around and run 20 minutes back to Courthouse. Everyone runs at his/her own pace, so the distance will depend on your speed. 1. Courthouse Library > N Rhodes St. Bridge > Arlington Blvd > N Meade St. > Iwo Jima/Marine Corps Mem > Arlington Cemetery > Memorial Bridge. Depending on your preferred pace, you may turn around at any point on the route. Pace: All paces are welcome! We'll be doing an out and back route, so everyone will turn around at the halfway time marker. That way we should all start and end at the same time. Free Parking at Courthouse Plaza: The underground garage is on Clarendon Blvd btwn Wayne and Veitch Sts. (near Strayer/CVS and the AMC Theater). If the first 2 levels on the left are full, you can park on the lower levels to the right. Street and Surface Parking lots should be free in the area as well. Metro: Orange or Silver line to Courthouse Station. Note: Photos taken during the event may end up on Instagram, Meetup, Strava and similar platforms.

Memorial Day History Tour of the National Mall & White House Neighborhood! Examine 250 years of U.S. history in this unique walking tour, on Memorial Day, around the National Mall & White House. MEET outside the National Theater, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004 Our packed itinerary will draw from: o The locale where the most famous military anthem was written o The World War One memorial park o How the White House was secretly designed o The Kennedy Center star who was a war hero at Yorktown o The humble woman who faced down an enemy general o The official who brokered America's first Civil War--of 1794 o Civil War spies o Presidential humor o Where Frederick Douglass worked after recruiting troops for the Union Army o Sites of presidential assassination attempts o How Lafayette was saved by an American President o The Union sea captain who nearly lost the Civil War o Where Dolley Madison saved the National Archives o General Jackson's battles and duels o The greatest of the early U.S. Navy heroes o The secret of George Washington's martinet o How the "Paul Revere of the South" saved the American Revolution o The scoundrel who saved the Battle of Gettysburg o The battle of Army generals vs. Army veterans o The house of astronauts and scientists o The greatest caregiver to America's soldiers. o The White House racetrack o Thrilling monuments to the military's most valiant units. And more! Preregister and Prepay via: Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/memorial-day-tour-of-the-national-mall-white-house-neighborhood-dc-tickets-1989339939310?aff=oddtdtcreator Or send $23 via PayPal to: paypal.me/EMoser460 Or, pay in cash at the tour's start: $23. Your guide is a former Presidential speechwriter, former Tonight Show writer, and author of a Second World War spy novel: https://www.amazon.com/Femme-Fatalité-Lizzy-Thorne-Novel/dp/B0F5NPSKDS/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 And of The White House's Unruly Neighborhood: https://www.amazon.com/White-Houses-Unruly-Neighborhood-Lafayette-ebook/dp/B082ZVDCD7 And a forthcoming book on Georgetown's history: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/georgetown-on-the-potomac/ MEET outside the National Theater, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004 Celebrate U.S. military history, and more, on Memorial Day, at some of America's most memorable locales.

No sign\-ups required \| All levels welcome \| 21\+ If you're looking for a casual game of chess in a fun atmosphere, this event is for you! Members range from beginner to master level, and games are played both with and without time controls. There are dozens of players each week, with only a fraction of the participants registering on meetup. This event is held at a bar, the Board Room, in Washington, DC, and is intended for 21+ players. We meet upstairs, on the mezzanine. Upon arrival, fill out a name tag and indicate your relative skill, to facilitate match-ups. Chess sets and boards are provided. We don't have club clocks, but most people use the Chess Clock app from Chess.com to play timed games.

​**Due to the popularity of the event, registration is requested at [https://luma.com/dcmahjongg](https://luma.com/dcmahjongg).** We do not use the RSVP system on Meetup. **A drop-in game every Monday at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Central Library, located at the corner of 9th and G Streets NW.** **==> THESE MONDAY GAMES ARE FOR EXPERIENCED PLAYERS ONLY -- THERE ARE NO INSTRUCTORS ON SITE** <== The Gallery Place Metro station (9th Street entrance) is located across the street. Street parking is available. We play in the Great Hall -- as you enter the library, we are on the right of the room. Games begin at 6:00. Games wrap up at 8:00. **If you own a mah jongg set, we encourage you to bring.**

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!

This month we’ll be reading Herland! It is the second book in a trilogy (but it stands alone as well), and you don’t need to read the first and third books (unless you want to!). Here is the description from Storygraph: Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly installments as a serial in 1915 in The Forerunner, a magazine edited and written by Gilman between 1909 and 1916, with its sequel, With Her in Ourland beginning immediately thereafter in the January 1916 issue. The book is often considered to be the middle volume in her utopian trilogy; preceded by Moving the Mountain (1911), and followed by, With Her in Ourland (1916). It was not published in book form until 1979.

Our inaugural meeting will discuss the popular "The Briar Club" by Kate Quinn in Washington, DC, at the Mount Vernon Square Bus Boys and Poets. From Amazon, "Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst? Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test."

This is the first part of our discussion series on Middlemarch by George Eliot. This meeting will be dedicated to talking about the first half of Middlemarch. We will be reading books 1-4 ending with book 4 Three Love Problems. 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 Discord group. Please message me to be added.

* We meet inside Zazzy * 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 are going to talk about the books we read—any books, from any genre. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, classic literature or something modern, everyone is welcome to share their thoughts, impressions, and favorite passages. It’s a relaxed and friendly conversation where we can discover new ideas and enjoy each other’s perspectives.

We invite you to an engaging evening of wine, cheese and lively conversation around NYT Bestseller ***Relic,*** a horror novel and techno-thriller by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child about a series of brutal murders at the New York Museum of Natural History just before a major exhibition opens. The killings are blamed on a prehistoric, beast-like creature from the Amazon that has a connection to the museum's new exhibition. Museum researcher Margo Green must team up with FBI agent Pendergast to find out what the creature is and how to stop it before the killer strikes again. **From Goodreads:** Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human... But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who—or what—is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre? As always, please feel free to join even if you have not finished the book - no stress :-) All attendees are asked to please bring one of the following: 1. A bottle of wine 2. Cheese and Crackers 3. An alternate beverage or nosh of your choice Host will provide glasses, wine opener, plates & napkins. To enhance the opportunity for great conversation, we would like to keep the group small. Please feel free to sign-up to meet us along with up to 2 friends. 📚 Exciting Updates for 2026 Book Club! 📚 Starting in January 2026, we’ll be implementing a new system for book recommendations that will make our reading selections even more collaborative and engaging! **Book Recommendations:** From January through October, members can submit book recommendations at each meeting, via email, text or Meetup DM. All suggestions will be added to a shared Google Sheet, which will include links to Goodreads and other pertinent information for each book. [LINK to 2027 BOOK LIST](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18AC_FH9bGGxyH6v7Rw36EvPtKtVl5e_N/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102804280893316002961&rtpof=true&sd=true) **Voting for 2027 Reads:** Our voting for next year’s book selections will take place during the November 2026 meeting. Members in attendance will have the opportunity to cast 12 votes for their favorite picks. If you’re unable to attend the November meeting, you can still participate! Simply submit 6 votes via email, text, or DM through Meetup before the start of the November meeting. **Announcement of Selections:** The chosen books for 2027 will be revealed at the end of the November meeting. We’re excited about this new process and can’t wait to see the amazing book recommendations you all have! 📖✨ PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMMITTED TO ATTEND WHEN YOU RSVP FOR THIS EVENT. We ask that ALL folks honor their RSVP. If you are unable to attend after sending in a YES, please update your status so that others may join us. In the event you do not communicate and are a no-show, your ability to RSVP for future events will be restricted. Thank you in advance for your understanding. If you are unable to join us in May, we hope you'll remain interested and join us for an evening in the future. Looking forward to wine & cheese with you soon - happy reading!

Come join us to discuss our July pick "Tusk Love" by Thea Guanzon! Book description: A merchant’s daughter who yearns for adventure gets more than she bargained for when she falls for a broodingly handsome stranger in this saucy romantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hurricane Wars. “A true delight of a book! Spicy and heartfelt—this one is a winner all around.”—Katee Robert, author of Neon Gods As the daughter of an ambitious merchant, Guinevere’s path has been predetermined: marry into a noble house of the Dwendalian Empire, raise her family’s station, and live quietly as a lordling’s obedient wife. But Guinevere longs for a life unbounded by expectations, for freedom and passion and adventure. Those distant dreams become a sudden reality when her caravan is beset by bandits, leaving her guards slain and Guinevere stranded alone on the dangerous Amber Road. Her only chance of survival is to travel alongside Oskar, the aloof half-orc who saved her during the attack. Unlike Guinevere, Oskar’s path is not so set in stone. With his mother dead and his apprenticeship abandoned, all that’s left is a long, lonely walk to a land he’s never seen to find family he’s never met. The last thing he needs is a spoiled waif like Guinevere slowing him down—even if the spark between them sizzles with promise. Despite his cold exterior, Oskar is brave and thoughtful and unlike anyone Guinevere has ever met. And while Guinevere may be sheltered, she brings out a softness in him that he has never dared to feel before. As the flames of their passion grow, they realize that soon they’ll need to choose between their expected destinations or their blossoming romance. Written by New York Times bestselling author Thea Guanzon at the behest of Critical Role’s Jester Lavorre, Tusk Love brings the most romantic story on Exandrian bookshelves to life.

[Columbus library link to book](https://cml.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S105C3351321) Location: The Goat River South 219 S High St, Columbus, OH 43215 Street parking is free on Sundays [Menu](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/686d3ed16745133042482c5f/t/68ff654dbb03b96875430bde/1761568077220/all_brunch-20250311.pdf) Book summary: On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: 'You exist too much,' she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.

Join us for Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn! Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the unsolved murder of a preteen girl and the disappearance of another. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story-and survive this homecoming.

Welcome, readers! Our May read is **_Kindred_ by Octavia E. Butler.** The story follows Dana, a Black woman living in 1976 California, who is suddenly pulled back to a Maryland plantation before the Civil War. She learns her survival is tied to a white slaveholder’s son. Forced to move between centuries, she must endure the brutal realities of slavery while fighting to hold on to her identity. Tense, intimate, and unforgettable, Kindred explores how the past refuses to stay buried. 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! 📖

Let’s meet and share discussion of the James Baldwin short story collection, Going to Meet The Man.

**Our June novel is: *The Eights* by Joanna Miller** **This month’s novel is set during World War I. It’s a 20th-century historical fiction story about friendship and war, with coming-of-age elements and a slightly haunted tone. The book is 384 pages in print and 10 hours and 9 minutes on audiobook.** Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its one-thousand-year history, Oxford University officially admits female students. Burning with dreams of equality, four young women move into neighboring rooms in Corridor 8. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto—collectively known as The Eights—come from all walks of life, each driven by their own motives, each holding tight to their secrets, and are thrown into an unlikely, unshakable friendship. Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Politically-minded Beatrice, daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way - and some friends her own age. Otto was a nurse during the war but is excited to return to her socialite lifestyle in Oxford where she hopes to find distraction from the memories that haunt her. And finally Marianne, the quiet, clever daughter of a village pastor, who has a shocking secret she must hide from everyone, even her new friends, if she is to succeed. Among the historic spires, and in the long shadow of the Great War, the four women must navigate and support one another in a turbulent world in which misogyny is rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War don’t always remain dead.