“The Classics” Study Group

This group meets to discuss classic literature selected by the group. Meetings are held at 1:30 pm on the 3rd Wednesday in even numbered months throughout the year.

The October meeting has a longer format that includes lunch. This meeting is devoted to an in-depth study of an author and his/her works.

For information, email mariam.sml17@gmail.com

2023 selections – Banned and Challenged Books (Reader’s Choice) – include:

February 15th             Books Banned for Religious Reasons

April 19th                     Books Banned for Racist Reasons

June 21st                     Books Banned for Political Reasons

August 16th                Books Challenged in Schools and Libraries

October 18th              Books Banned for Sexuality Reasons

December 13th           Book Selections for 2024

2022 selections – Biographies – include:

February 16th             The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

April 20th                     The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

June 15th                     Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington (meeting at the BTW Monument)

August 17th                Travels With Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

October 19th              Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

December 7th           Book Selections for 2023

2021 selections – 20th Century Fiction – included:

February 17th             The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

April 21st                     A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

June 16th                     Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Discussion Leader Needed)

August 18th                One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ralph Ellison

October 20th              A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

December 8th           Book Selections for 2022

2020 selections – Books I Wish I Had Read – included:

February 19th             1984 by George Orwell

April 15th                     Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

June 17th                     Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

August 19th                Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

October 21st              Middlemarch by George Eliot

December 9th           Book Selections for 2021

2019 selections – Mystery – included:

February 20th             The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

April 17th                     The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

June 19th                     The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

August 21st                The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell hammett

October 16th              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of Agatha Christie

   Death on the Nile to be read by the entire group. One short story to be          selected and read by each member

December 11th         Book Selections for 2020

2018 selections – included:

February 21th             Silas Marner by George Eliot

April 18th                     East of Eden by John Steinbeck

June 20st                     Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

August 15th                Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

October 17th              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of Louisa M. Alcott

   Little Women to be read by the entire group. One other work to be selected and read by each member

December 12th         Book Selections for 2019

2017 selections – Romance – included:

February 15th             Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

April 19th                     Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

June 21st                     Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare

August 16th                Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

October 18th              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of William Faulkner

   The Sound and the Fury to be read by the entire group. One other work to be selected and read by each member

December 13th         Book Selections for 2018

2016 selections – all from the Science Fiction genre – included

February 17th             The Last Man by Mary Shelley

April 20st                     Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

June 15th                     I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

August 17th                Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

October 19th              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of Ray Bradbury

   Fahrenheit 451 to be read by the entire group. One other work to be selected and read by each member

December 21st         Book Selections for 2017

2015 selections included:

February 18th             Grimm’s Fairy Tales ,  Andersen’s Fairy Tales – Read 3 from each collection.

April 15th                     Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset- 1st book: The Wreath

June 17th                     Watership Down by Richard Adams

August 19th                Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

October 21st              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of Mark Twain

   The Innocents Abroad to be read by the entire group. One other work to be selected and read by each member

December 16th         Book Selections for 2016

2014 selections included:

February 12th             Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

April 16th                     The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

June 18th                     The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

August 20th                Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

October 15th              Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of George Bernard Shaw.

   Pygmalion to be read by the entire group. Other titles to be selected individually at the August meeting

December 10th         Book selections for 2015

2013 selections included:

February 13th             20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

April 10th                    The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West

June 12th                     Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

August 14th                 The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

October 9th                 Meeting at 10:30 am with lunch – Works of Jane Austen

    Pride and Prejudice to be read by the entire group, with other titles  selected by individuals

December 11th         Poems of Emily Dickinson

Examples of earlier reading selections are Advise and Consent, Animal Farm, Red Badge of Courage, The Crucible, Wind in the Willows, Heart of Darkness, The Awakening, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. and Inherit the Wind.