My friend and I are starting a book discussion group to cover “serious” books (in order to pretend we have the time and money to take classes at community college). I’m not sure yet if this will be an official Anthology book club, but we’d love for you to join us!

Our initial focus will be modern classics - literary books that win prestigious awards and ones by celebrated authors (something more serious than an Oprah Book Club Pick). We plan to branch out later into books in the “classical canon” that we never got around to in school, and maybe even other academic disciplines like philosophy or history.

Since these promise to be more difficult reading, we will discuss the book much as you would in a senior-level seminar in college; thoughtfully, over the course of two or three meetings. We’ll also explore secondary sources, including Cliff’s Notes/Sparknotes, author info including interviews and biographies, etc. (Since we don’t actually have a teacher, we’ll have to make our own way through the material in an academic way.)

Naturally, that means we’ll have to meet more often than once a month. Right now, it looks like we’ll try for every other Wednesday evening at 6pm. If you’re interested but can’t make that time, please let me know! This is still in the planning stages, so we’re very flexible.

Our first pick is Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It’s a borderline scifi/literary dystopia like The Road, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. Our “syllabus” calls for reading to the end of section 6 by our first meeting on April 13. At least in the paperback, this is about 150 pages, or around 50 pages per week.