Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
BIRDSONG by Sebastian Faulks
Date: May 21, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
In 1910, Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, journeys to France, becomes embroiled in a series of traumatic events, including a clandestine love affair, and is later trapped amid the horrors of the First World War. Check the Catalog 
Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot
Date: September 03, 2010
10:00 am - 11:00 am
In nineteenth-century England, Dorthea Brooke's wishes to defy social conventions are inhibited by the strict nature of her surroundings.
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Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
For Esme - with Love and Squalor (in NINE STORIES) by J.D. Salinger
Date: September 17, 2010
10:00 am - 11:00 am
An Army sergeant's (referred to only as Sergeant X) recollection of a meeting he had with a young girl, Esmé, before he was sent into combat. His strange but loving relationship with Esmé helps him to endure the squalor of war. Check the Catalog
Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy
Date: October 01, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Story of the rape, excruciating suffering, and execution of a beautiful village maid--as passionate in condemnation of the forces that persecute her as in depiction of the strange beauty that accompanies her agonies.
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Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
CANDIDA by George Bernard Shaw
Date: October 15, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
A woman is caught between her comfortable marriage and her young poet lover. As her 'own woman,' she needs to choose who she will be with. In a collection of plays by the author. Check the Catalog
Gordon-Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde
Date: November 05, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
After having his portrait painted, Dorian Gray is captivated by his own beauty. Wishing to stay young forever, he pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses, he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruption of moral decay. Check the Catalog
Future Readings:
- Nov 19: LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Dec 3: "Intimations of Immortality" in COMPLETE POEMS by William Wordsworth
- Dec 17: THE WIZARD OF OZ by Frank Baum
- Jan 7: SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS by Peter Taylor
- Jan 21: WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
GOOD EARTH by Pearl Buck
Date: April 04, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
A poignant tale about the life and labors of a Chinese farmer during the sweeping reign of the country's last emperor.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
MOLL FLANDERS by Daniel Defoe
Date: April 18, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Defoe's eighteenth-century novel of a woman's eventual escape from the life of immorality and wickedness imposed on her by society since her birth.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
Date: May 16, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Owning a small portion of the Trinidad earth and a respectable house of his own is the dream and the reality sustaining Mohun Biswas through a life of frustration and despair after he marries into the domineering Tulsi family.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
BARCHESTER TOWERS by Anthony Trollope
Date: September 05, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The appointment of a new bishop and the ensuing conflicts and intrigue form the basis of this satire of the clergy. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
"Song of Myself" and "Democratic Vistas" (from LEAVES OF GRASS) by Walt Whitman
Date: September 19, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M.Forster
Date: October 03, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
In a scathing indictment of British imperialism, Forster's once controversial novel portrays two Englishwomen who experience misunderstanding and cultural conflict after they travel to India. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE PRINCE by Nicolo Machiavelli
Date: October 17, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE EXPEDITION OF HUMPHRY CLINKER by Tobias Smollett
Date: November 07, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The novel satirizes the society of the late eighteenth century to great effect and held together with Smollett’s characteristically coarse sense of humour - usually at the expense of his characters and the stereotypes they represent.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
AGNES GREY by Anne Bronte
Date: November 21, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn the money to care for herself, she takes one of the few jobs allowed to respectable women in the early Victorian era – the role of governess to the children of the wealthy. In working with two different families (the Bloomfields and the Murrays), she comes to learn about the troubles that face a young woman who must try to rein in unruly, spoiled children for a living, and about the ability of wealth and status to destroy social values.
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN by Marguerite Yourcenar
Date: December 05, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Fictional account of the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book takes the form of a letter to Hadrian's cousin and eventual successor "Mark" (Marcus Aurelius).
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION by George Bernard Shaw
Date: December 19, 2008
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The play centers on Mrs. Warren, who, forced by the economic realities of nineteenth-century London, becomes a prostitute and later runs several successful brothels. Through her characterization, Shaw exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of the "genteel" class. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER and HOLIDAY by Katherine Ann Porter
Date: January 02, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Short novels deal with turn of the century family life, a new hired hand, and the World War I homefront and the influenza epidemic
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
Date: January 16, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
A cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronté
Date: February 06, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The passionate love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff mirrors the powerful moods of the Yorkshire moors. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
"Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats and "Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens
Date: February 20, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Read poems by two well known American poets.
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
BLIND ASSASSIN by Margaret Atwood
Date: March 06, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
In an imaginative, multi-layered novel, Iris describes the 1945 death of her sister, Laura, who drives her car off a bridge, followed, two years later, by the death of her husband, a wealthy industrialist whose body is found aboard a sailboat, in a story that features a novel-within-a-novel about two unnamed lovers who meet in a dark backstreet room. Winner of the Booker Prize. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
Discussion of works by Harlem Renaissance contemporaries of Zora Neale Hurston. THE BIG READ
Date: March 20, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
BARTLEBY IN MANHATTEN & WIVES AND MISTRESSES by Elizabeth Hardwick
Date: April 03, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Collected recent essays by the acclaimed novelist-critic range over a broad spectrum, offering fresh and sharply focused appraisals of life and art. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
Date: April 17, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Captain Charles Ryder, stationed at Brideshead, recalls his boyhood associations with the odd but charming members of an English noble family. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
ANTIGONE by Jean Anouilh
Date: May 01, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Antigone buries her brother although her uncle, the king, has decreed death to anyone who does so. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
CORRIDORS OF POWER by C.P. Snow
Date: May 15, 2009
10:00 am - 11:30 am
The corridors and committee rooms of Whitehall are the setting for the ninth in the Strangers and Brothers series. They are also home to the manipulation of political power. Check the catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
"OUT OF AFRICA" AND "SHADOWS ON THE GRASS" by Isak Dinesen
Date: September 04, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Presents Dinesen's compelling account of the fifteen years she spent managing a coffee plantation in colonial East Africa and four sketches that evoke the land and the people of her beloved Africa. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE BRIDAL WREATH by Sigrid Undset
Date: September 18, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
A Nobel prize winner in 1928, this trilogy deals with the life of a Scandinavian woman in the fourteenth century. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
Poems by Robert Frost
Date: October 02, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
"Mending Wall," "After Apple Picking," and "The Wood-Pile."
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
Date: October 16, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
The story of a charismatic schoolteacher’s catastrophic effect on her pupils. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
Two essays by well known authors.
Date: November 06, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
"On a Criticism of Thomas Hardy" by Katherine Anne Porter. "Love and Loss on Zyrcon" by John Updike.
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
Date: November 20, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
TOYS IN THE ATTIC by Lillian Hellman
Date: December 04, 2009
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Saga of family life that includes a Southern man obsessed with grandiose dreams.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE BEGINNING OF SPRING by Penelope Fitzgerald
Date: January 08, 2010
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Nellie Reed disappears from her home at 22 Lipka Street, and her husband Frank - suspecting she has returned to England - must raise their three young children with the help of beautiful Lisa Ivanovna. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
AN ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER READER by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Date: January 22, 2010
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Discussion of the short stories: "Gimpel the Fool," "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," and "A friend of Kafka."
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
Date: February 05, 2010
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour becomes Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico, and over the next forty years he faces the lawlessness and loneliness of the frontier as he tries to spread his faith.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA by William Shakespeare
Date: February 19, 2010
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
A magnificent drama of love and war, this riveting tragedy presents one of Shakespeare's greatest female characters—the seductive, cunning Egyptian queen Cleopatra and the Roman leader Mark Antony who is a man torn between pleasure and virtue, between an empire and love.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
Date: March 19, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Change location due to construction: will meet at Northside Library
An American's love for an English nurse during the First World War ends in tragedy.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE RED AND THE BLACK by Stendhal
Date: April 02, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Change location due to Book Sale: call Tod Oliver for info 296-4041.
Stendhal’s masterpiece is the story a young dreamer from the provinces, fueled by Napoleonic ideals, whose desire to make his fortune sets in motion events both mesmerizing and tragic. Stendhal weaves together the social life and fraught political intrigues of post–Napoleonic France, bringing that world to unforgettable, full-color life. His portrait of Julien Sorel and early-nineteenth-century France remains an unsurpassed creation, one that brilliantly anticipates modern literature.
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Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
Date: April 16, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Through the eyes of Miss Toklas, Gertrude Stein reviews both of their lives before their meeting and during their years of companionship. Check the Catalog
Gordon-The Literary Masterpiece Book Group ( adult )
THE STRANGER by Albert Camus
Date: May 07, 2010
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." Check the Catalog