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HARMONY BOOK GROUP
The next meeting is Wednesday, Sep. 10th, at 6:15PM at the Harmony Library in Fort Collins.
Typically, meetings are on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at 6:15PM at the Harmony Library. Check out the FAQ for more information about the book group.
Upcoming Selections
- September: Classic Female: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. We will also discuss the 1st poem "Even Such Is Time" by Sir Walter Raleigh in the collection Great Short Poems edited by Paul Negri
- October : Contemporary Female: The Gathering by Anne Enright. We will also discuss the 2nd poem "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" by William Shakespeare in the collection Great Short Poems edited by Paul Negri
- November : Contemporary Male: TBD by TBD.
- December : Classic Female: TBD by TBD.
For those that have not purchased the collection yet, here is the poem for September:
Even Such Is Time
by: Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust
We will read and discuss one poem 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)
- July and August 2008 (summer project): Classic Male: The Aeneid by Virgil, translation by Robert Fagles.
- June 2008: Contemporary Male: Snow by Orhan Pamuk
- May 2008: Contemporary Female: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
The February, March and April selections form a theme of late 19th century New York. The Master is a fictionalized account of Henry James.
- April 2008: Classic Male: Washington Square by Henry James
- March 2008: Classic Female: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- February 2008: Contemporary Male: The Master by Colm Toibin
- January 2008: Contemporary Female: Hell's Bottom, Colorado by Laura Pritchett
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.
- December 2007: Classic Male: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
- November 2007: Classic Female: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
- October 2007: Contemporary Male: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- September 2007: Contemporary Female: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
- July and August: Summer Project: Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
- June 2007: Contemporary Male: A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
- May 2007: Classic Female: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė
- April 2007: Classic Male: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- March 2007: Contemporary Female: March by Geraldine Brooks
- February 2007: Contemporary Male: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- January 2007: Classic Female: The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott.
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.
- December 2006: Classic Male: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- November2006: Contemporary Female: Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
- October 2006: Contemporary Male: All the Pretty Horses by Cormack McCarthy
- September 2006: Classic Female: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- July/August 2006 summer project: Category: Classic Male: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevesky
- June 2006: Contemporary Female: The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
- May 2006: Contemporary Male: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- April 2006: Classic Female: Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
- March 2006: Classic Male: Walden by Henry David Thoreau
- February 2006: Contemporary Female: Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min
- January 2006: Contemporary Male: Water Music by T.C. Boyle
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
- December 2005: Classic Female Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
- November 2005: Classic Male Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
- October 2005: Contemporary Female Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
- September 2005: Contemporary Male Nothing but Blue Skies, Thomas McGuane
- August 2005 summer project: Category: Classic Male The Odyssey, by Homer
- July 2005 summer project: Category: Classic Male The Iliad, by Homer
- June 2005: Classic Female Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- May 2005: Classic Male Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- April 2005: Contemporary Female Winter Range, Claire Davis
- March 2005: Contemporary Male The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
- February 2005: Classic Female Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
- January 2005: Classic Male The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
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
- December 2004: Contemporary Female The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard
- November 2004: Contemporary Male The Information, Martin Amis
- October 2004: Classic Male The Winters Tale, William Shakespeare
- September 2004: Classic Female: Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
- July/August 2004 summer project: Category: Classic Male: Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (translation by Edith Grossman)
- June 2004: Contemporary Female: Beloved, Toni Morrison
- May 2004: Contemporary Male: Sailing Alone Around the Room(Poetry), Billy Collins
- April 2004: Classic Female: Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
- March 2004: Classic Male: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway
- February 2004: Contemporary Female: Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
- January 2004: Contemporary Male: Life of Pi, Yann Martel
and first story in The Best American Short Stories of the Century
2003 Selections
As voted at the December meeting, the top 3 books of the year were:
1st: Middlemarch
2nd: Atonement
3rd: Emma
- December 2003: Classic Female: The Green Knight, Iris Murdoch
- November 2003: Classic Male: Macbeth, William Shakespeare
- October 2003: Contemporary Female: Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
- September 2003: Contemporary Male: White Noise, Don DeLillo
- July/August 2003 summer project: Category: Classic Female: Middlemarch, George Elliott
- June 2003: Classic Male: The Quiet American, Graham Greene
- May 2003: Contemporary Male: Atonement, Ian McEwan
- April 2003: Classic Female: Emma, Jane Austen
March 2003: no meeting due to blizzard
- February 2003: Contemporary Female: The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
- January 2003: Classic Male: The Big Money, John Dos Passos
2002 Selections
Top book of the year:
Under the Net
- December 2002: Classic Female: Under The Net, Iris Murdoch
- November 2002: Contemporary Male: Rabbit, Run, John Updike
- October 2002: Contemporary Female: Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
- September 2002: Classic Female: Out of Africa, Isak Dineson
- August 2002: Contemporary Male: Waiting, Ha Jin
- June and July 2002: Classic Male: Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
- May 2002: Contemporary Female: Bee Season, Myla Goldberg
- April 2002: Classic Male: High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes
- March 2002: Classic Female: Ship of Fools, Katherine Anne Porter
- February 2002: Contemporary Male: A House for Mr. Biswas,V.S. Naipaul
- January 2002: Contemporary Female: White Teeth , Zadie Smith
2001 Selections
Top book of the year:
War and Peace
Exempting War and Peace, the top vote getter was
A Month in the Country
- December 2001: Classic Male: A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
- November 2001: Classic Female: The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty
- October 2001: Contemporary Male: Ravelstein, Saul Bellow
- September 2001: Contemporary Female: The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
- July and August 2001: Classic Male: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
- June 2001: Contemporary Male: A Prayer for the Dying, Stewart O'Nan
- May 2001: Classic Female: My Antonia, Willa Cather
- April 2001: Contemporary Female: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
- March 2001: Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
- February 2001: Classic Female: The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
- January 2001: Classic Male: The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
- December 2000: Contemporary Female: Regeneration, Pat Barker
- November 2000: Classic Male: The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
- October 2000: Contemporary Male: The Hours, Michael Cunningham
- September 2000: Classic Female: Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
- August 2000: Contemporary Female: Close Range, Annie Proulx
- June and July 2000: Classic Male: Ulysses, James Joyce
- May 2000: Classic Female: The Bridal Wreath, Sigrid Undset
- April 2000: Contemporary Male: Life and Times of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee
- March 2000: Gigi, Collette
- February 2000: The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
- January 2000: Ship Fever, Andrea Barrett
- December 1999: Passage to India, E.M. Forster
- November 1999: Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
- October 1999: Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes
- September 1999: Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston
- August 1999: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
- July 1999: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
- June 1999: So I Married a Communist, Philip Roth
- May 1999: Charming Billy, Alice McDermott
- April 1999: Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
- March 1999: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
- February 1999: Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
- January 1999: Friend of My Youth, Alice Munro
- December 1998: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
- November 1998: To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
- October 1998: Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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