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
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
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| National Novel Writing Month discussion 7:00 pm National Novel Writing Month discussion Dec 8 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Participants from this year’s National Novel Writing Month will meet up to talk about their experiences. | ||||||
Malvern Books will be exhibiting works from Josh Ronsen’s Tiny Art Exchange, an international art exchange of art between artists. We’ll have a ton of these tiny (less than an inch!) artworks for you to take a look at, so be sure to stop by! (The tiny art pictured below is by Reed Altemus.)
“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.
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the original publication of Gertrude Stein’s modernist classic, Tender Buttons. To celebrate this groundbreaking work, poet Daniel Carter has created a puzzle zine based on Tender Buttons. Daniel will be hosting an evening of Tender Buttons fun at Malvern Books, using these puzzles to explore the wit and wisdom of Stein’s masterpiece.
We will also be celebrating the release of City Lights’ new edition of Tender Buttons. This centennial edition is the first version to incorporate Stein’s own handwritten corrections, as well as corrections discovered among her papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
Daniel Carter is a writer, researcher, and designer, and is currently working on a PhD in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrelhouse, Nashville Review, and Salt Hill.
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.
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.
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.
Join us for readings and a discussion with Valerie Miles, editor of A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, a collection featuring twenty-eight of the greatest Spanish-language writers. And we’ll start the night in fine style with live Flamenco music from guitarist David Córdoba.
A Thousand Forests in One Acorn is perhaps the greatest cross-section of contemporary Spanish-language literature to be anthologized and translated into English. Composed over many years of conversations and literary adventures throughout the Spanish-speaking world, the book captures the voices of leading writers as they reflect on the particular work they consider closest to their heart, or that best expresses their driving creative obsession. Editor Valerie Miles will discuss her inspiration to assemble this formidable anthology and what it was like to interview some of the greatest authors of Spanish-language literature including: Nobel prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Javier Marías, Ana María Matute, and Enrique Vila Matas, among many others.
Valerie Miles is a writer, editor and translator who was born in New York and grew up in Pennsylvania, though she’s been living in Spain for over twenty years. In 2003, she founded the Spanish-language version of Granta, together with Aurelio Major, which is now on its fourteenth issue. Her articles, essays, and reviews appear in the New York Times, Paris Review, La Nación, La Vanguardia, and Granta.
David Córdoba was born in San Fernando, Spain. He began playing the guitar at the age of ten, and started taking classical lessons at sixteen under the tutelage of Spanish guitarist Antonio Clavel. At eighteen he fell in love with Flamenco music after getting his first album from the great Flamenco master Paco de Lucía. Since then, he has had the opportunity to perform throughout Spain, and has continued studying Flamenco guitar with gypsy maestro Baldomero Amador. David moved to Austin from Spain seven years ago.
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 a collaborative art opening and poetry reading with students from Austin Community College and Austin Independent School District.
Vision + Voice is a new collaboration between Austin Community College and Austin Independent School District that promotes literacy and creative expression by combining artwork from ACC students with poetry from AISD students. In the spring of 2014, ACC’s Arts & Humanities Division hosted a poetry contest open to all AISD students. AISD students submitted over 800 poems and a panel of judges selected one winning poem and 2-4 honorable mentions per grade for a total of 52 poems (you can watch videos of the winning students reading their poems here). Each of the fifteen winning poems has been paired with an original artwork by an ACC student to create posters designed to promote literacy and creativity. These posters will be displayed throughout AISD and ACC campuses, and in many other public spaces in Austin, including at Malvern Books through the month of December. We’re delighted to feature these art works in our store, and to host an art opening and poetry reading that celebrates this wonderful collaboration. Come to Malvern Books and…
See the posters!
Hear the poems!
Meet the poets!
Eat the cake!
“The Vision + Voice collaboration contributes to the culture of literacy we want for our district. Students were able to engage in authentic literacy experiences and the community is given the opportunity to celebrate their passion, creativity, and talents.”—Dr. Pauline Dow, AISD Chief Academic Officer
“The creative arts are important factors in student success and retention. By pairing the AISD poems with the artwork of ACC students we have created an enduring showcase for student work. We are thrilled to be able to partner with AISD on Vision + Voice and look forward to this being an annual project.”—Lyman Grant, ACC Dean of Arts and Humanities
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.
Join us for an afternoon with cartoonist, artist, and activist Issa Nyaphaga. Issa will be discussing his latest collection of political cartoons, Art Stronger Than Hate (Alamo Bay Press). And we’ll get the afternoon off to a lively start with Mae Stoll and DrumForFun, a group of hand drummers who play and celebrate West African rhythms on traditional West African instruments.
Issa Nyaphaga is a renowned artist, activist, and educator who addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this year on the subject of freedom of artistic expression. After exile from his native country of Cameroon, he lived in Paris for ten years, where he worked at Charlie Hebdo. He now lives in Santa Fe, teaching at the community college and the Tarnoff Art Center.
“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.
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 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.
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.
On June 26th Malvern Books will join the world in observation of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture with presentations and discussion. Come join Celia VanDeGraaf, Joe Bratcher, Christopher Brown, Taylor Pate, and Matthew Hodges as we celebrate the survival of victims of torture and wonder in dismay that this practice continues. A significant portion of the event will center on discussion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture.
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.
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.