The Open Book Club

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Setting some #2023goals? Want to escape digital distractions into a classic novel or two? Whether you’re an avid reader or you can’t name the last print book you finished, the Open Book Club is here for you.

From January to March 2023, you’ll read two short novels — Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) — and, best of all, your fellow readers will keep you motivated. Your guide and reading coach is Michael Ullyot, English professor at the University of Calgary.

For Calgary members, both novels are available at a 15% discount at Pages Bookstore in Kensington, so you can support independent bookstores while stimulating your mind. (Ask at the counter for Michael Ullyot’s English 253 books.) For further-flung friends, you can also buy them online, if you insist. (I like BookFinder because it lists all the new and used copies in the world.)

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You’ll read one or both novels on your own, and then join a Zoom meeting to discuss each one: our schedule is below. I’ll also record you an introductory podcast on each novel. And we’ll discuss them in our forum on Goodreads.

So why these two books? It’s not only because they’re short; they’re also really good.

• Jane Austen is the 19th century’s most famous novelist. The plots of her six major novels (including Pride and Prejudice) focus on courtship, sociability, and the possibilities of fulfilment in marriage — and Emma is the story of a 21-year-old whose beliefs in social propriety get upended after she plays matchmaker in her rural village. Prep for your reading by watching Anya Taylor-Joy in the latest adaptation on Netflix.
• A century later, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway gives us the more narrowly focused poetic vision of a single day in June 1923: a society wife reminisces about the episodes and relationships that define her life while she traverses London, preparing to host a party; meanwhile a poet and war veteran struggles to reintegrate into ordinary life. A modernist masterpiece like James Joyce’s Ulysses but a tenth as long, Mrs Dalloway makes you see your world differently — refracted through your own memory and imagination.

Schedule

• Now to January 1: Registration & GoodReads group discussion begins
• January 11: Austen’s Emma podcast released
• January 29: Austen’s Emma Zoom meeting
• March 13: Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway podcast released
• March 19: Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway Zoom meeting