Welcome to Malvern Books!
Malvern Books is now closed. Malvern Books was a bookstore and community space in Austin, Texas. We specialized in visionary literature and poetry from independent publishers, with a focus on lesser-known and emerging voices.
An Update from the Manager of Malvern Books
Dear Friends,
We’ve had a wonderful time sharing our favorite books with you over the past nine years, and it’s been an honor to celebrate the work of so many brilliant writers through our readings and events.
Malvern Books is the realization of Joe Bratcher’s vision—Joe dreamt of a bookstore that would carry the books he loved, mostly poetry and fiction from small, independent presses. He wanted to promote writers and translators of books from other countries, while also championing the work of local writers.
When Joe first talked to me about opening Malvern Books, I must admit I was skeptical. I didn’t think we’d find an audience. It was 2012 and everyone was saying that bookstores were dead, Kindle and online shopping were the future. I anticipated many quiet sales days, with Joe and I just sitting there, looking at each other. He told me if that’s how it ended up, well, at least we’d have a chance to chat—and since we always seemed to laugh a lot when we talked, it sounded like a good way to spend some time. And so from then on, whenever we’d have a really slow sales day, with just a few people coming in, we’d look at each other and say, “We’re living the dream!” and we’d laugh.
But back to opening… in early 2013, with the help of our amazing architect, contractor, and interior designer, we created the space that Joe had in mind. We started posting on social media thanks to Tracey, our wonderful digital media manager and first Malvern hire. And we were so grateful to the many enthusiastic writers and readers who expressed their excitement at the imminent arrival of Malvern Books. From the very beginning it felt like we were building a community.
We opened our doors in October 2013, and we were shocked by how many people came by. You showed up and you loved what we had to offer! You constantly surprised and humbled us with your kind words and helpful suggestions. People from out of town would visit the store because a local friend had told them they had to come by, and we received much appreciated shout-outs from the Austin Chronicle and numerous other newspapers and journals.
And then 2020 hit—but even with the pandemic, we had loyal customers who came by for curbside pick ups, signed up for individual shopping appointments, and participated in our Zoom book clubs and events. If we didn’t say it enough, THANK YOU!
All along the way, we were lucky enough to have truly wonderful staff members who loved the books we carried and who helped us build the store we have now. Their work has been invaluable and we could not have done this without them.
On July 28th of this year, we lost Joe. I can’t tell you how hard it has been to try and carry on in this space without him. Our little Malvern world has not been the same since, and, as much as we love this store and our amazing customers, Malvern Books simply cannot continue without our Joe.
Malvern Books will be closing on December 31st, 2022. It has been a wonderful nine years and we thank each and every one of our cherished customers, friends, staff, and suppliers for helping us along the way.
As we move forward, we’ll be sharing our plans with you for sales and specials. For now, we just wanted to let you know this was coming. We hope you all continue to seek out works in translation and books published by small presses—there is so much great stuff out there—and that you continue to support our local independent bookstores, like our dear friends at BookWoman, among others. But, most importantly, we hope to see you in the store sometime soon, to say goodbye and to thank you, both for being the readers that you are and because you have come with us on this incredibly fulfilling journey in Joe’s world.
With heartfelt thanks and wishing you all the best,
Becky Garcia,
Manager, Malvern Books
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase has been described as “an Epic Surreal Ear Movie Musical!” It’s an enchanting illustrated tale told with music, dialogue, and sound effects… think Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but with a distinctly Austin twist!
Join us at Malvern Books for a lively evening of Ivy-related fun. Author Brian Beattie will give a recitation of the “epic” poem, “The Backstory Ballad of Ivy Wire,” and we’ll also feature musical performances and an exhibition of original artwork from the book.
Brian and the book’s illustrator, Valerie Fowler, will also present a “crankie” show, in which a long illustrated scroll is “cranked” along while a song from the musical is played—a sort of a very low tech, handmade video! And you’ll also have a chance to ask questions of the book’s creators, as well as have copies of the book signed.
Brian Beattie and Valerie Fowler live in Austin with their two teenagers, Felix and Ramona Beattie.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us for an afternoon with novelist Larry Brill, a twenty-five-year veteran of TV news and former Austin TV news anchor. Larry will sign copies of his latest novel, The Patterer, a comic odyssey through the world of 18th-century London trash journalism, but based on Brill’s 20th-century experiences in the business. Along with a reading by one of the characters in his novel, Larry will be joined by Austin’s own Next Chapter Improv Group. The actors will call on writers in the audience to read a single page from their own work and then create a comedy sketch on the spot based on that reading.
Larry Brill spent twenty-five years as a television news anchor and reporter in four states, picking up numerous awards along the way. After leaving the business in 2000, Larry penned his first novel, Live At Five, a gentle lampooning of the TV news business. His second novel, The Patterer, carried that theme back in time, to imagine the hilarious possibilities of how today’s news clichés might look to a theater audience in 18th-century London.
Larry was crowned the “Worst Writer in America” twenty years ago as the winner of a tongue-in-cheek competition to intentionally write the WORST opening sentence to an imaginary novel based on that famous line “It was a Dark and Stormy Night….” The small amount of fame that followed gave him a new goal: with two books published and inching towards the bestseller list, he has set his sights on becoming the first author to officially go from worst to first.
The Next Chapter Improv is a group of twelve gifted actors from around the country now living in Austin. Their weekly performances received rave reviews during the 2013 season at The Institution Theater, and the recent Improv Play Festival. The concept is simple: a published author reads a short segment from his or her book, and based only on that, the actors create a sketch to advance the story in any way they see fit.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
B & C Book Club has been with us since we first opened our doors, so it’s only appropriate that they meet to discuss Macbeth on the weekend of our first anniversary!
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
We’re celebrating Malvern Books’ first anniversary this weekend, and we’re doing it in fine style, with music, readings, food, prizes and cake! Come and join the fun!
This evening we’ll have classical guitar from Tony Morris, along with readings from W. Joe Hoppe, Kurt Heinzelman, and Richard Sober (who will also be displaying his artwork).
Kurt Heinzelman is a poet, translator, scholar, and editor. His latest book of poems, his fourth, is Intimacies & Other Devices (2013). Demarcations (2011) is his translation of Jean Follain’s 1953 volume of poetry Territoires. A scholarly article, “The Grail of Origin: Translation and Originality,” is forthcoming in The Writers’ Chronicle. He was founding co-editor of The Poetry Miscellany and is currently Advisor and Editor-at-Large for Bat City Review and Editor-in-Chief of Texas Studies in Literature and Language (TSLL). He is also an Honorary Professor at Swansea University (Wales).
Richard Sober has been painting and writing since he was fifteen. Sober’s checkered career includes work as a carpenter’s helper, mailroom clerk, cabdriver, messenger, dishwasher, line cook, housepainter, gardener’s helper, census field supervisor, bibiliographic searcher, caregiver, union steward, data entry clerk, warehouseman, and harm reduction specialist. He is the author of Chopin Express, Anything With a Hole In It, Rosewood-The Serpentine Nature of the Beast-Four Windowboxes, Correo Aereo, Because the House is Wild and Empty, and Adjusting to the Light. He is currently working on two manuscripts of poems, Borrowed Earth and Fictive Kin. This December he will have a solo exhibition of 350 paintings in Baltimore. Sober and Sandie Castle can be heard on a spiken word CD, Missing in Action, produced by Birdhouse Studios.
We’re celebrating Malvern Books’ first anniversary this weekend, and we’re doing it in fine style, with music, readings, food, prizes and cake! Come and join the fun!
This afternoon we have honky-tonk cabaret from TOPSY, a reading and book signing with Dr. Fred McGhee (author of Austin’s Montopolis Neighborhood), and a reading and screening of two short films from poet and film maker Richard Bailey.
Fred L. McGhee, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at Austin Community College and served as the founding president of the Montopolis Neighborhood Association. Also a former board member of the Austin History Center Association, he has combined historical photographs with personal photographs and images generously provided by longtime residents and friends of the Montopolis neighborhood. A specialist in the multicultural history of Texas and Hawai’i, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently a candidate for the Austin City Council from District 3, which includes Montopolis.
Richard Bailey’s poetry collection REVIVAL was awarded Finalist for the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. His poems have appeared in several journals, including The Madison Review, Mudfish, and Whiskey Island Magazine. His play A SHIP OF HUMAN SKIN was a Finalist at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Festival, 2012, and Semifinalist at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2012, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, 2012. His short films have shown in festivals across the country, including SXSW, Black Maria, FOCUS, Social Outcast, Wildcatter Exchange, and at Anthology Film Archives in NYC.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Stop by Malvern Books to enjoy an afternoon of folk/experimental country music with musicians Jackson Emmer and Alison May.
Jackson Emmer is an American Folk and Experimental Country composer, known mostly for his songwriting, unique vocal style, and dynamic performances. Emmer also plays the guitar, mandolin, and banjos. A prolific DIY artist, Emmer has self-released 21 records since 2007, both solo, and with old-time band The Howling Kettles. He collaborates frequently with Alison May, and performs with the group Hot Eagle. Emmer was born in Chicago, but raised in California and Colorado.
Alison May is a folk singer, song writer, and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing, writing and recording out of Oakland, CA since leaving her native Texas in 2012. In 2013, May promoted the release of her first album, Earnest Keep, with two regional tours through the South and Midwest, one of which was by way of Amtrak train. May’s latest album is called Loved/Dark.
B & C Book Club has been with us since we first opened our doors, so it’s only appropriate that they meet to discuss Macbeth on the weekend of our first anniversary!
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
B & C Book Club has been with us since we first opened our doors, so it’s only appropriate that they meet to discuss Macbeth on the weekend of our first anniversary!
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we will be reading and discussing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, #17 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we will be reading and discussing Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, #19 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we’ll be reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow, number 21 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we’re reading Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, #22 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. We’re starting with A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes, an unexpected, entertaining story of inept pirates and cruel children. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on November 7th.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our December selection is A Schoolboy’s Diary by Robert Walser, a collection of “strange and wonderful” stories. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on December 5th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our January selection is the novel Speedboat by Renata Adler, a wry, dreamlike investigation of contemporary life. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on January 2nd.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our February selection is Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, a novel far more subversive and fascinating (and less sentimental) than the Disney film we’re so familiar with. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on February 6th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our March selection is The Door by Magda Szabó, an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on March 5th.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our April selection is The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, a masterpiece of American noir. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
If you enjoy top-drawer detective fiction … we can recommend this one with no reservations whatsoever.
— The New York Times
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on April 2nd.
Join us for a reading/performance from Austin playwright and debut novelist Kirk Lynn.
Kirk will present a reenactment of selected scenes from his fantastic debut novel, Rules for Werewolves, which is written entirely in dialogue. This event will feature, among other things, a choral reading, group prayers (prayer requests welcome!), saxophone music, and an audience Q & A.
Kirk Lynn has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and a sixth sense for finding the exact point at which absurdity mutates into heartbreak—or vice versa. Rules for Werewolves is a dark, delirious, innovative riot of a novel; a grand blast of chaos across the front lawns of America, and a truly outstanding debut.
—Justin Taylor, author of Flings and The Gospel of Anarchy
Kirk Lynn is one of six coproducing artistic directors of Rude Mechanicals theater collective. He is the head of the Playwriting and Directing Area in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, and received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Lynn lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, the poet Carrie Fountain, and their children.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Join us for an evening with myth-maker and storyteller William Kuko, who will share a personal narrative mixed with history and myth to create a sacred place.
William Kuko is an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest. Most of his time is spent in the Seattle metro area; he is an hermit and recluse by nature, even in the metropolis. Often Mr. Kuko disappears into the Cascade Mountains for great lengths of time. He is a most extraordinary student of poetry, history and all things biologic. Most importantly, William Kuko is a myth-maker and a storyteller: he makes all that was old and forgotten new again.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our May selection is Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood, a macabre, mordantly funny novel that reveals the gothic craziness behind the scenes in the great houses of the aristocracy, as witnessed through the unsparing eyes of an orphaned teenage girl. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
As gripping as a whodunit. There are passages like passages in a strange house: when they turn a corner, something unexpectedly shocking comes into sight. It is also very funny, and the characters are vividly eccentric—or just plain vivid: Blackwood’s writing never merely trundles along.
— The Times Literary Supplement
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on May 7th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us for an afternoon with writer and musician Don Paul, who will share with us prose, poems, and songs from his one new book (Animals Are Always Making Music) and four new albums!
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our June selection is In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano, an absorbing evocation of a particular Paris of the 1950s, shadowy and shady, a secret world of writers, criminals, drinkers, and drifters. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
In the Café of Lost Youth is a kind of suspense story. It is a story about the many facets of a single woman but also, unquestionably, a story about the multiple worlds within Paris, a city that, as much as any individual human being, remains essentially unknowable. It casts a near hypnotic spell.
—Douglas Kennedy, L’Express
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on June 4th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
David Jewell and Brian Cutean combine their many years of elliptical storytelling and feverish brainmindhearts to present an afternoon of music, spoken word, and analogious sonic surprise at Malvern Books.
David Jewell (above left) is poet, storyteller, author, actor and stream of consciousness visionary imagineer who chronicles the 21st century mind and its many idiosyncracies. He and his writing have appeared in two Richard Linklater movies, Before Sunrise and Waking Life, and he’s shared shows with Laurie Anderson and Leon Redbone. His books are time bombs already detonating in another generation and hIs bio says he was “born in blank and lives in and.”
Brian Cutean (above right), a teller of offbeat street-tales filled with wordplay-metafable and songs from a colorful guitar, was a mainstay of Austin music in the 1980’s and 90s. He performed often at The Cactus Café, Chicago House, Maggie Mae’s, The Other Side, Folkville Ice Cream and other long gone venerable venues. Now hailing from the Pacific Northwest, he’s celebrating the release of his 9th nationally-released recording, The Sound Of Photosynthesis, on Burnttoothbrush Records. The record includes a musical version of an ee cummings poem and a song tribute to Austin bassist Robert Vignaud, who accompanied Cutean in concert and on recordings for more than 30 years.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our July selection is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, a withering, eloquently misanthropic tale regarded by many as the finest comic novel of the twentieth century. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
Remarkably, Lucky Jim is as fresh and surprising today as it was in 1954. It is part of the landscape, and it defines academia in the eyes of much of the world as does no other book, yet if you are coming to it for the first time you will feel, as you glide happily through its pages, that you are traveling in a place where no one else has ever been. If you haven’t yet done so, you must.
—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on July 2nd.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our August selection is Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns, a beguiling tale of marriage gone awry in 1930s London. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
[Comyns’s] capturing of youth is so fresh and accurate that nothing is lost in the passing of decades. There is a modern sensibility at play in her women and their experiences, their attitudes and reactions towards love and sex, marriage and having children . . . Comyns’s skill is subtle and surprising.
—Lauren Goldenberg, Music and Literature
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on August 6th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The greatest authors of Ancient Greece and their modern counterparts have asked many of the same questions about the world; questions about death, beauty, politics, love, language, and God, for instance. This group will host parallel meetups to try to understand the answers (and further questions!) great thinkers have given us. With these big questions in mind, we will study works of Ancient Greek philosophy, history, and drama as well as modern works of fiction. All are welcome. Please come as you are, with or without experience reading these kinds of books. All Greek works will be available for free online and can be read in a translation of your choice. We will do our best to choose modern literature available for free online or accessible at Austin public libraries. More information is available on our Meetup Group page.
At this meeting we’re going to discuss Plato’s Protagoras. In the Protagoras, Socrates and a group of sophists discuss various related questions. As in the Meno, the nature of virtue and its teachability are emphasized, but here, Socrates is talking not to a young political upstart like Meno, but to older, cleverer interlocutors.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our September selection is Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze, a hard-boiled story of doomed love that careens through a landscape of desperate passion and wild reversals. Bill Pronzini called this novel “an indisputable noir classic,” so be sure to come by the store and pick up a copy for a page-turning summer read. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up.
The novel features everything we’ve come to love about noir crime fiction. The dialogue is crackling, stylized and often funny. . . . Chaze’s characters are more memorable than you often find in hard-boiled fiction. . . . Chaze’s gift with words, combined with a plot that moves quickly toward its brutal, startling conclusion, makes Black Wings Has My Angel a trip worth taking for anybody with a taste for the darker side of crime fiction.
—Michael Schaub, NPR Books
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on September 3rd.
The greatest authors of Ancient Greece and their modern counterparts have asked many of the same questions about the world; questions about death, beauty, politics, love, language, and God, for instance. This group will host parallel meetups to try to understand the answers (and further questions!) great thinkers have given us. With these big questions in mind, we will study works of Ancient Greek philosophy, history, and drama as well as modern works of fiction. All are welcome. Please come as you are, with or without experience reading these kinds of books. All Greek works will be available for free online and can be read in a translation of your choice. We will do our best to choose modern literature available for free online or accessible at Austin public libraries. More information is available on our Meetup Group page.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our October selection is The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf (translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky), a riveting—and unforgettably creepy—tale set in a remote Swiss village. The Black Spider can be seen as a parable of evil at large in society (Thomas Mann saw it as foretelling the advent of Nazism, and noted, “There is scarcely a work in world literature that I admire more”), or as a vision of cosmic horror.
Gotthelf’s talent is to make his horror credible by the simplicity of his style and the acuteness of his psychological perception, particularly of the herd instinct among the villagers. His story is a homily, showing how the everyday moral weaknesses of men and women give an opening to the spirit of evil.
—Piers Paul Read, The Times (London)
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on October 1st.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our November selection is Fair Play by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal), a fascinating novel centered on the lives of two creative women.
Fairness and playfulness are at the heart of this delightful novel, which chronicles in 17 luminous snapshots a shared artistic life…. Jansson has a knack for packing a good deal of wit and wisdom into ostensibly simple tales. These deft and gentle stories are as refreshing as a dip in chilly Finnish seas. —The Guardian
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on November 5th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our December selection is Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter (translated from the German by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore), a Christmas story of almost unendurable suspense. Thomas Mann claimed Rock Crystal has “one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature.”
Two children—Conrad and his little sister, Sanna—set out from their village high up in the Alps to visit their grandparents in the neighboring valley. It is the day before Christmas but the weather is mild, though of course night falls early in December and the children are warned not to linger. The grandparents welcome the children with presents and pack them off with kisses. Then snow begins to fall, ever more thickly and steadily. Undaunted, the children press on, only to take a wrong turn. The snow rises higher and higher, time passes: it is deep night when the sky clears and Conrad and Sanna discover themselves out on a glacier, terrifying and beautiful, the heart of the void.
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on December 3rd.
Join us for a meeting of the Boomertime Book Club!
The Boomertime Book Club aims to read all types of books, fiction and nonfiction. We select the book to be read at a meeting and then discuss it at the next meeting. We meet monthly. We limit attendance at each meeting to no more than twelve in order to encourage participation by all. Attendance is first come, first served. We encourage guests and encourage new membership within the Meetup Boomertime social group. For more information, please email Greg Smith at greg02390239@gmail.com.
Boomertime is a Meetup group for babyboomers (ages 50+). Its purpose is to provide opportunities for Austin adults to have fun and meet new people. Boomertime is a group where individuals can make friends and can plan events around their special interests for all to participate in. Boomers dance, hike, read, talk, laugh, and engage in many more activities.
