Starting off small, we chose six books that we haven't already read (but probably should have) for our first year. Alternating monthly between book discussions and playing games (chess, backgammon and tombola around Christmas time), members will meet at various locations (TBD) around the New York metropolitan area.
Doing our best to keep a broad range of subjects, styles and authors, we decided to read Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851); Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764); Louis Mendola’s The Kingdom of Sicily, 1130-1860 (2015); Joris-Karl Huysmans' The Cathedral (1898); Francis Marion Crawford’s The Upper Berth, For the Blood is the Life, and Other Horrors (2018); and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835).
By limiting ourselves to just half a dozen books, a few really interesting suggestions (e.g. Richard Barber’s The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (2004) and William Shakespeare's The Tempest (c.1610)) had to be shelved for another time. A toss-up between F.M. Crawford's horror fiction anthology and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) for Halloween, we ultimately went with the former because of his comparisons with the master of horror, H.P. Lovecraft.
Depending on the success of the venture and the commitment of the participants, we may consider opening up club membership to the general public at a future date.
