HARMONY BOOK GROUP

The next meeting is Wednesday, July 1st, at 6:15 PM at the Harmony Library.

Typically, meetings are on the 1st Wednesday of the month at 6:15PM at the Harmony Library. Check out the FAQ for more information about the book group.

Upcoming Selections

  • July 1st: Classic Male, summer project part one: I, Claudius by Robert Graves We will also discuss the poem "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" by Richard Lovelace from the collection Great Short Poems edited by Paul Negri
  • August 5th : Classic Male, summer project part two: Claudius the God by Robert Graves
  • September 2nd : Classic Female The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (a play)
  • October 7th : Contemporary Male Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
  • November 4th : Contemporary Female TBD by TBD
  • December 2nd : Classic Male TBD by TBD

    • Here is the poem for July (spelling or punctuation may be different than it is in the book):

    To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars

    By Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)

    Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
    That from the nunnery
    Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
    To war and arms I fly.

    True, a new mistress
    now I chase,
    The first foe in the field;
    And with a stronger faith embrace
    A sword, a horse, a shield.

    Yet this inconstancy is such
    As you too shall adore;
    I could not love thee, dear, so much,
    Loved I not honor more.



We will read and discuss one author or at most a few authors per month from the collection:
Great Short Poems edited by Paul Negri.

Previously we read one short story per month from The Best American Short Stories of the Century edited by John Updike and co-edited by Katrina Kenison. We finished the book in August of 2008.

Email: HarmonyBookGroup@comcast.net

HARMONY BOOK GROUP

Reading List (since October, 1998)

  1. June 2009: Contemporary Female: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl.
  2. May 2009: Classic Female: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  3. April 2009: Classic Male: Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.
  4. March 2009: Contemporary Male: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay Mcinerney
  5. February 2009: Contemporary Female: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
  6. January 2009: Classic Female: Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar


    7. 2008 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: The Age of Innocence
    2nd The Meadow
    3rd: The Master (note that Washington Square written by the master, Henry James, was a close 4th)


  7. December 2008 : Classic Male: As you Like It by William Shakespeare
  8. November 2008: Contemporary Male: The Meadow by James Galvin.
  9. October 2008 : Contemporary Female: The Gathering by Anne Enright
  10. September 2008: Classic Female: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  11. July and August 2008 (summer project): Classic Male: The Aeneid by Virgil, translation by Robert Fagles.
  12. June 2008: Contemporary Male: Snow by Orhan Pamuk
  13. May 2008: Contemporary Female: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai


    14. The February, March and April selections form a theme of late 19th century New York. The Master is a fictionalized account of Henry James.
  14. April 2008: Classic Male: Washington Square by Henry James
  15. March 2008: Classic Female: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  16. February 2008: Contemporary Male: The Master by Colm Toibin
  17. January 2008: Contemporary Female: Hell's Bottom, Colorado by Laura Pritchett


    18. 2007 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: The Road
    2nd The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (most 1st place votes)
    3rd: Suite Francaise
    The top short story of the year from the collection we are reading was "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien.

  18. December 2007: Classic Male: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
  19. November 2007: Classic Female: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
  20. October 2007: Contemporary Male: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  21. September 2007: Contemporary Female: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
  22. July and August: Summer Project: Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
  23. June 2007: Contemporary Male: A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
  24. May 2007: Classic Female: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė
  25. April 2007: Classic Male: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  26. March 2007: Contemporary Female: March by Geraldine Brooks
  27. February 2007: Contemporary Male: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  28. January 2007: Classic Female: The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott.


    29. 2006 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: The Brother Karamazov
    2nd: Tale of Two Cities
    3rd: Tie: Water Music and All the Pretty Horses
    The top short story of the year from the collection we are reading was "The Rotifer" by Mary Ladd Gavell.

  29. December 2006: Classic Male: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  30. November2006: Contemporary Female: Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
  31. October 2006: Contemporary Male: All the Pretty Horses by Cormack McCarthy
  32. September 2006: Classic Female: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  33. July/August 2006 summer project: Category: Classic Male: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevesky
  34. June 2006: Contemporary Female: The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
  35. May 2006: Contemporary Male: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
  36. April 2006: Classic Female: Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
  37. March 2006: Classic Male: Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  38. February 2006: Contemporary Female: Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min
  39. January 2006: Contemporary Male: Water Music by T.C. Boyle


    40. 2005 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: Tie: The Corrections and Pale Fire
    3rd: Pride and Prejudice
    Honorable mention: The Iliad

  40. December 2005: Classic Female Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
  41. November 2005: Classic Male Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
  42. October 2005: Contemporary Female Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
  43. September 2005: Contemporary Male Nothing but Blue Skies, Thomas McGuane
  44. August 2005 summer project: Category: Classic Male The Odyssey, by Homer
  45. July 2005 summer project: Category: Classic Male The Iliad, by Homer
  46. June 2005: Classic Female Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  47. May 2005: Classic Male Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  48. April 2005: Contemporary Female Winter Range, Claire Davis
  49. March 2005: Contemporary Male The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
  50. February 2005: Classic Female Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
  51. January 2005: Classic Male The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner


    52. 2004 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: Life of Pi
    2nd: a tie between Don Quixote and For Whom the Bell Tolls
    3rd: Sailing Alone Around the Room

  52. December 2004: Contemporary Female The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard
  53. November 2004: Contemporary Male The Information, Martin Amis
  54. October 2004: Classic Male The Winters Tale, William Shakespeare
  55. September 2004: Classic Female: Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
  56. July/August 2004 summer project: Category: Classic Male: Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (translation by Edith Grossman)
  57. June 2004: Contemporary Female: Beloved, Toni Morrison
  58. May 2004: Contemporary Male: Sailing Alone Around the Room(Poetry), Billy Collins
  59. April 2004: Classic Female: Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
  60. March 2004: Classic Male: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway
  61. February 2004: Contemporary Female: Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
  62. January 2004: Contemporary Male: Life of Pi, Yann Martel
    and first story in The Best American Short Stories of the Century


    63. 2003 Selections

    As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
    1st: Middlemarch
    2nd: Atonement
    3rd: Emma


  63. December 2003: Classic Female: The Green Knight, Iris Murdoch
  64. November 2003: Classic Male: Macbeth, William Shakespeare
  65. October 2003: Contemporary Female: Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
  66. September 2003: Contemporary Male: White Noise, Don DeLillo
  67. July/August 2003 summer project: Category: Classic Female: Middlemarch, George Elliott
  68. June 2003: Classic Male: The Quiet American, Graham Greene
  69. May 2003: Contemporary Male: Atonement, Ian McEwan
  70. April 2003: Classic Female: Emma, Jane Austen
    March 2003: no meeting due to blizzard
  71. February 2003: Contemporary Female: The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
  72. January 2003: Classic Male: The Big Money, John Dos Passos


    73. 2002 Selections

    Top book of the year:
    Under the Net

  73. December 2002: Classic Female: Under The Net, Iris Murdoch
  74. November 2002: Contemporary Male: Rabbit, Run, John Updike
  75. October 2002: Contemporary Female: Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
  76. September 2002: Classic Female: Out of Africa, Isak Dineson
  77. August 2002: Contemporary Male: Waiting, Ha Jin
  78. June and July 2002: Classic Male: Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
  79. May 2002: Contemporary Female: Bee Season, Myla Goldberg
  80. April 2002: Classic Male: High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes
  81. March 2002: Classic Female: Ship of Fools, Katherine Anne Porter
  82. February 2002: Contemporary Male: A House for Mr. Biswas,V.S. Naipaul
  83. January 2002: Contemporary Female: White Teeth , Zadie Smith


    84. 2001 Selections


    Top book of the year:
    War and Peace
    Exempting War and Peace, the top vote getter was
    A Month in the Country

  84. December 2001: Classic Male: A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
  85. November 2001: Classic Female: The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty
  86. October 2001: Contemporary Male: Ravelstein, Saul Bellow
  87. September 2001: Contemporary Female: The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
  88. July and August 2001: Classic Male: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
  89. June 2001: Contemporary Male: A Prayer for the Dying, Stewart O'Nan
  90. May 2001: Classic Female: My Antonia, Willa Cather
  91. April 2001: Contemporary Female: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
  92. March 2001: Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
  93. February 2001: Classic Female: The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
  94. January 2001: Classic Male: The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
  95. December 2000: Contemporary Female: Regeneration, Pat Barker
  96. November 2000: Classic Male: The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
  97. October 2000: Contemporary Male: The Hours, Michael Cunningham
  98. September 2000: Classic Female: Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
  99. August 2000: Contemporary Female: Close Range, Annie Proulx
  100. June and July 2000: Classic Male: Ulysses, James Joyce
  101. May 2000: Classic Female: The Bridal Wreath, Sigrid Undset
  102. April 2000: Contemporary Male: Life and Times of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee
  103. March 2000: Gigi, Collette
  104. February 2000: The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
  105. January 2000: Ship Fever, Andrea Barrett
  106. December 1999: Passage to India, E.M. Forster
  107. November 1999: Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
  108. October 1999: Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes
  109. September 1999: Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston
  110. August 1999: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
  111. July 1999: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
  112. June 1999: So I Married a Communist, Philip Roth
  113. May 1999: Charming Billy, Alice McDermott
  114. April 1999: Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
  115. March 1999: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
  116. February 1999: Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
  117. January 1999: Friend of My Youth, Alice Munro
  118. December 1998: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
  119. November 1998: To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
  120. October 1998: Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ideas for future selections

Possibilities for future selections are from various literary prizes, lists of top literature, and suggestions from the members of the book group.