Monday, May 15, 2017

OUR SOULS AT NIGHT, BY KENT HARUF

Discussion Date and Time:
 Monday, June 19, 2017, at 2:00 p.m. 
In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf’s inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis’s wife. His daughter lives hours away, her son even farther, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in empty houses, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. But maybe that could change? As Addie and Louis come to know each other better—their pleasures and their difficulties—a beautiful story of second chances unfolds, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer’s enduring contribution to American literature.

Monday, May 1, 2017

1984, BY GEORGE ORWELL

DISCUSSION DATE AND TIME: MONDAY, MAY 15, 2017, AT 2:00 P.M.
In her recent essay in the New York Times (January 17, 2017), "Why '1984' is a 2017 Must-Read," Michiko Kakutani writes: 
The dystopia described in George Orwell’s nearly 70-year-old novel “1984” suddenly feels all too familiar. A world in which Big Brother (or maybe the National Security Agency) is always listening in, and high-tech devices can eavesdrop in people’s homes. (Hey, Alexa, what’s up?) A world of endless war, where fear and hate are drummed up against foreigners, and movies show boatloads of refugees dying at sea. A world in which the government insists that reality is not “something objective, external, existing in its own right” — but rather, “whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth.”

 Please join H-WPL Readers for a lively and timely discussion of this classic  novel.