Do you read? Do you like discussing what you read in a casual environment? Then come to a USF Book Club monthly meeting!

The next book we will discuss is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and we’ll meet on January 13th (Friday the 13th!) from 12 noon – 1 pm in the Seminar Room (#209) of Gleeson Library. We welcome people from the entire USF Community — students, staff, and faculty.

To get the book, request it through Link+ (arrives in about 4 business days), get it at SF Public, or check out an iPad or Kindle over the break, both of which have the e-book loaded on them. Request your copy soon — many libraries close over the holidays, so don’t wait.

The last words of this haunting novel resonate like a pealing bell. “He fell in love. It was his life.” This is the unofficial obituary of octogenarian Leo Gursky, a character whose mordant wit, gallows humor and searching heart create an unforgettable portrait. Born in Poland and a WWII refugee in New York, Leo has become invisible to the world. When he leaves his tiny apartment, he deliberately draws attention to himself to be sure he exists. What’s really missing in his life is the woman he has always loved, the son who doesn’t know that Leo is his father, and his lost novel, called The History of Love, which, unbeknownst to Leo, was published years ago in Chile under a different man’s name. Another family in New York has also been truncated by loss. Teenager Alma Singer, who was named after the heroine of The History of Love, is trying to ease the loneliness of her widowed mother, Charlotte. When a stranger asks Charlotte to translate The History of Love from Spanish for an exorbitant sum, the mysteries deepen. Krauss (Man Walks into a Room) ties these and other plot strands together with surprising twists and turns, chronicling the survival of the human spirit against all odds. Writing with tenderness about eccentric characters, she uses earthy humor to mask pain and to question the universe. Her distinctive voice is both plangent and wry, and her imagination encompasses many worlds.

–Publishers Weekly

Author Nicole Krauss will be at the JCCSF on Sunday February 26 to deliver a keynote for Book Fest. Get your tickets quick because it will probably sell out.

One of the book club members sent me this glossary that she said can be very helpful when reading The History of Love… she’s Jewish and even she was enlightened by some of the entries.

Still craving more Krauss? They have a page dedicated to her on NPR!

Also for next time, the book club would like you to bring a list of children’s books you adore, or books that greatly influenced you when growing up. We just might break another taboo and do a children’s book for February!

Have a great holiday season and we’ll see you all in the new year!

Howdy bookclubbers! Today we discussed Packing for Mars under a bright blue sky in the USF Garden and we choose our next two selections. We’ll meet in the seminar room of Gleeson Library (#209) for both of these meetings.

12-1 pm, November 11, 2011 (Friday): A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (novel)

Gleeson has a copy of A Gate at the Stairs that you can request, but it will probably go fast so your alternatives are requesting it through Link+, getting it from the SF Public Library, or reading it on one of our iPads or our Kindle.

Just months after 9/11, college student Tassie Keltjin, the brilliant daughter of a Midwestern farmer, becomes a part-time nanny for an older white couple who have adopted an African American baby. Enjoying her delightful young charge and reveling in her love affair with her Brazilian boyfriend, Tassie has a growing suspicion that her employers are somehow off. When their identities, as well as her boyfriend’s, are blown, Tassie heads home, only to be hit with another, more devastating shock. Verdict: Moore uses the same kind of poetic precision of language found in her dazzling short story collections (e.g., Birds of America) to draw the reader into her long-awaited third novel (after Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?). The challenge for readers is to reconcile the beautiful sharpness of her language with two wildly improbable plot threads. — Library Journal

One of the librarians here at Gleeson got an advanced copy of A Gate at the Stairs two summers ago. I swooped it up from the pile in the staff room and read it on my vacation to New Orleans. Moore–of whom I was a big fan already, having read a handful of her books in undergrad–didn’t disappoint with this one. If I have the time, I will re-read it before book club.

12-1 pm, December 9, 2011 (Friday) in room 139 (the electronic classroom of Gleeson Library): Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Millford (biography)

**PLEASE NOTE date and location change**

Gleeson has a copy of Savage Beauty that you can request, but it will probably go fast so your alternatives are requesting it through Link+, getting it from the SF Public Library, or reading it on one of our iPads or our Kindle.

Millay (1892-1950) was a Jazz Age phenomenon, causing a sensation wherever she went; lines from her brief poem, “First Fig” (“I burn my candle at both ends/ It will not last the night… “) would become the rallying cry of a generation. She was notorious for her sexual unconventionality and (as Edmund Wilson put it) “her intoxicating effect on people… of all ages and both sexes.” How a lyric poet could have achieved such celebrity is the conundrum at the heart of Savage Beauty. Millay, as Milford depicts her, was a troubled genius who used her prodigious gift to propel herself out of rural poverty and into the center of her age. She carefully cultivated the reporters and patrons who took the “fragile girl-child” under their wing. But her delicate image masked a force of nature whose incendiary wit and insatiable ambition took the public by storm. Milford deftly links the lyric intensity of Millay’s work with her ravenous appetite for life. Whether tracing her ghoulishly close relationship to her mother and sisters, her years at the center of cosmopolitan life or her morphine addiction and untimely death, this account offers its readers a haunting drama of artistic fame. A true paradigm of literary biography, this finely crafted book is not to be missed. — Publisher’s Weekly

Cinda, a librarian at my old work, gave me this biography when I was 22. At first I was surprised to remember I had told her I was interested in it; then I filled with dread: another book to read. My my my! This book has probably influenced my pursuit of living the poet’s life more than any other… or well, until I read Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles when I was 26. Savage Beauty was such an influence I took it to the salon and instructed my stylist to cut off my long ponytail and give me an Edna St. Vincent Millay 1930s bob. I will definitely re-read this one for book club and I am sure I will shed a few tears along the way.

To sign up for the book club mailing list, email kbaughmanmcdowell@usfca.edu.

You can also check us out on our WIKI PAGE.

Hello bookclubbers!

Media Studies Professor Vamsee Juluri is teaching a Davies Seminar this semester, which is called Making American Book Culture. He has invited Book Club to be part of the class!

I agreed to read Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart and visit the class on September 22, 2011 to join in the discussion. This is a bit late notice, but if anyone else from book club would like to join, I would be delighted. I have intensely enjoyed Super Sad True Love Story and look forward to discussing it with the class.

Making American Book Culture / Thursday Sept 22 / 6:30 p.m. – 9:15 / K-Hall 263

To get Super Sad True Love Story, request it through Link+, SF Public (they have e-copies, hardbacks, and books on tape), or check out our Kindle or one of our iPads, which have the book loaded on them.