Play Book Tag discussion

I know I have mentioned The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn NY previously. Pandemic had them take their discussion groups and workshops virtual and they are continuing. I am on my third discussion group and cannot recommend them highly enough. It also offers a lot of programs and workshops for writers, which I have not tried but I suspect are extremely good given how quickly they sell out.

Here's a link to the spring schedule. I unfortunately cannot commit the time (I'm struggling with the time commitment with the Modern Gothic and Women Authors one I'm taking now), but I'm salivating over the Dickens and Elizabeth Strout discussion groups.

https://centerforfiction.org/groups-w...

Theresa wrote: "I know I have mentioned The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn NY previously. Pandemic had them take their discussion groups and workshops virtual and they are continuing. I am on my third discussion g..."

Thanks for sharing! I probably don't have the time either, but going to torture myself by looking at the options. You had me at Elizabeth Strout.

Anita wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I know I have mentioned The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn NY previously. Pandemic had them take their discussion groups and workshops virtual and they are continuing. I am on my th..."

Hah! I knew I would! I needed someone else to be as tortured!

Also, you have likely already read all of the Strouts, or all but one, so you just need to fit the discussions in which for me is the easier aspect. I still need to read 2 of them.

It's the Dickens one that makes my heart yearn. Just no way I can pull it off.

I'm in the torture chamber with you! Both Strout and Dickens in one "season"!?!?!?

I was tempted by the one with Edna Ferber. I didn't know she was Jewish and don't even know the other author, Fannie Hurst. But I am overcommitted now with local book groups, not to mention GR. I am in one general monthly library book group (mostly fiction but not entirely) and one mystery monthly library group. And I signed up for a 4-week session in March on mysteries set in Wisconsin, one book a week. Hopefully some of these books will count for my other challenges!

I actually had heard of Fannie Hurst but don't know why or from where. It will come to me at some point.

Theresa wrote: "I actually had heard of Fannie Hurst but don't know why or from where. It will come to me at some point."

I see she is the author of Imitation of Life, which was a very famous movie.

Theresa wrote: "Anita wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I know I have mentioned The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn NY previously. Pandemic had them take their discussion groups and workshops virtual and they are continuing...."

If anybody wants to read Dickens in depth, a GR member named Bionic Jean runs a fabulous group here called Dickensians. They read the novels one chapter a week, which leads to very in-depth discussion. No fees or special scheduling required!

I just had one of those moments of unexpected overlaps or synchronicity in my reading life that happen, aka rabbit holes.

RobinP and I were talking about Fannie Hurst as there is a workshop on Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst. I have been reading off and on Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime featuring Tommy and Tuppence for an Agatha Christie Book Club challenge. It is a collection of short stories tied together as cases solved by the duo while running a detective agency as a cover for some espionage work. Tonight I read the one called The Case of the Missing Lady, about an arctic explorer who, on returning from an expedition, hires the duo to find his missing fiancé. They ultimately do find her hiding out at a spa trying to lose the weight she had gained while the explorer was away as he has an aversion to fat women. Seems he has returned several weeks earlier than expected.

What has this to do with Fannie Hurst? Well, I just read through Hurst's wikipedia entry because I am still trying to pinpoint where and why her name crossed my life at some point fairly recently. As I read with increasing fascination about her, I discover that during the 1920s and 1930s, she had a pretty public and torrid affair with the famous arctic explorer Stefansson, and that Hurst herself was obsessed with dieting and keeping her weight down, and all of this would have been written up in all the journals, newspapers, and gossip columns of the day.

Since Partners in Crime was written in the 1920s and published in 1929, there is no question in my mind that it was Hurst and Stefansson that inspired that particular 'case'.

BTW, I am now adding to my torture list the Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst Workshop.

I have had weird things like that come up as well, like an odd random fact that shows up in 2 unrelated books in a row.

Just want to mention that my winter virtual discussion group here at The Center for Fiction just wrapped up and was truly terrific. Dynamic, interesting, everyone respectful, great discussions, even the one we all pretty much ended up disliking had an awesome discussion.

I am going to miss it - though I am relieved to have one less book a month I have tovread by a certain date. I need to catch up on challenges.

The Summer Reading Groups are up - remember these are virtual - and I want to take them all.

https://centerforfiction.org/groups-w...

Well maybe just most of them.

Alas, I'm too busy and too much other reading. But I can say that the Modern Gothic one I took from January through April was fantastic. Obviously I loved the Proust one from 2019/2020 - ah the days when I seemed to have time for a monthly discussion group of a 5,000 page book.

The fall discussion workshop list is up. While they have added back several in person ones -- at their Brooklyn facility near BAM -- they still have a large roster of virtual ones and they are yummy. Again I want to take at least half of them but schedule (mostly) will not permit.

Here's a link - note there are 2 pages of options.
https://centerforfiction.org/groups-w...