Again in the spirit of the many year-end retrospectives, be they of the news, movies, plays, music, or sports, I offer a look back at the activities of the Huntington Public Library's Great Books Reading and Discussion Group in 2013.
In January our selection was "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death," by Sigmund Freud, the text of a talk Freud delivered in Vienna during the First World War. February was "The Secret Sharer," by Joseph Conrad, a fascinating piece of psychological fiction featuring the narrator's "doppelgänger," or double. In March it was a selection from The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, considered a classic of economics literature (even without equations!). April featured "The Stages of Life" by C. G. Jung.
In May and June we looked at two works of short fiction by women writers: "Tell Me a Riddle," by Tillie Olsen and "Boys and Girls," by Alice Munro. With the June meeting we polished off the Great Conversations I anthology. Coincidentally Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October.
In July we examined "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill," by John Cheever, and in August a selection of readings from the anthology Vital Ideas: Sex.
In September we took up the Great Conversations II anthology with "The Story of Samson" from the Book of Judges.
October featured analysis of five poems by John Donne. We finished our cycle of meetings for the year in November with "Meditations I and II" by René Descartes, in which he compares human reason to a ball of beeswax!
Whether you (a) approached an author for the first time, (b) sampled a new work by an author with whom you were already familiar, or (c) re-visited a work you'd already read, I hope 2013 was another enriching year of teasing out some of life's more vexatious questions in the company of the best thinkers and writers and of your Huntington Public Library discussion partners.
Here's looking forward to 2014, our tenth anniversary year!
