Do you like to be left scratching your head after finishing a book? Do you enjoy asking yourself, “What, exactly, did I just read?”
What Did I Just Read?! Book Club may be just what you’re looking for!
Once a month, we’ll meet to discuss an innovative work of literature that avoids taking the straight path from A to B. These books sometimes start at B, or they skip B, or they never really leave A. Perhaps they just circle around point C. Whether thrilling, heartbreaking, terrifying, or goofy, What The?! seeks to explore and discuss the kinds of books that even other books think are weird.
For February's meeting, we'll be reading
Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. In this perplexing, exasperating, and provocative collection of prose pieces, Stein meditates on common objects-but her language is anything but common.
Tender Buttons has been called everything from nonsense to an incredibly important work of 20th-century Modernism. Whether it's ridiculous or sublime or something in between, the way she writes transforms language itself into an object, something we can touch and examine.
Check out DC Libray's literature
databases for in-depth, thoughtful criticism and summaries of
Tender Buttons and other Stein works.
What Did We Just Read?! Book Club will meet on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
For questions or comments, email torin.jensen@dc.gov.
