Book Discussion Group

A Celebration of Reading!
Read each selection & join staff members Wendy Wise or Michele Reinhart for a spirited discussion!
Last Wednesday (usually) of each month at 7 pm in the Conference Room:
November 24 (Tues): Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not an orthodox three-volume novel; it is not even a one-volume novel of the ordinary type; it is simply a paper-covered shilling story, belonging, so far as external appearance goes, to a class of literature familiarity with which has bred in the minds of most readers a certain measure of contempt. Appearances, it has been once or twice remarked, are deceitful; and in this case they are very deceitful indeed, for, in spite of the paper cover and the popular price, Mr. Stevenson's story distances so unmistakably its three-volume and one-volume competitors, that its only fitting place is the place of honour. It is, indeed, many years since English fiction has been enriched by any work at once so weirdly imaginative in conception and so faultlessly ingenious in construction as this little tale, which can be read with ease in a couple of hours... [The] story has a much larger and deeper interest that belonging to a mere skilful narrative. It is a marvelous exploration into the recesses of human nature; and though it is more than possible that Mr. Stevenson wrote with no ethical intent, its impressiveness as a parable is equal to its fascination as a work of art.
--James Ashcroft Noble
The Academy
23 January 1886
Please check for available copies of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the Circulation Desk and join us for our discussion on Tuesday, November 24.
December 30: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
January 27: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
February 24: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
March 31: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
April 28: On the Beach by Nevil Shute
May 26: Empire Falls by Richard Russo