June 28, 2013 -- The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights (Volume 1)

Date: Friday, June 28, 2013

Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch

Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO (edit map)

 Our "long" read for the summer is "The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights." Our discussion of the book will be spread over the three summer meetings of June 28, July 26 and August 30.

There are numerous English translations claiming to be "The Arabian Nights." However, the only unabridged English translation is the three volume set published by Penguin Classics (published 2010).

June 28 Meeting Book, Volume 1: Nights 1 to 294 (1008 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Arabian-Nights-Classics-ebook/dp/B00390BE7Q/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

July 26 Meeting Book, Volume 2: Nights 295 to 719 (900 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Arabian-Nights-Classics-ebook/dp/B00371V74C/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

August 30 Meeting Book, Volume 3: Nights 720 to 1001 (884 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Arabian-Nights-Classics-ebook/dp/B00371V71K/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2

That's 2,784 pages, so it is suggested to get an early start on reading.

One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of West and South Asian storiesand folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English language edition (1706), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazār Afsān which in turn relied partly on Indian elements.

What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryār and his wife Scheherazade and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more.

Some of the stories of The Nights, particularly "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", while almost certainly genuine Middle Eastern folk tales, were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were added into the collection by Antoine Galland and other European translators. The innovative and rich poetry and poetic speeches, chants, songs, lamentations, hymns, beseeching, praising, pleading, riddles and annotations provided by Scheherazade or her story characters are unique to the Arabic version of the book. Some are as short as one line, while others go for tens of lines.

May 31, 2013 -- "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare

Meeting Information:
Date: Friday, May 31, 2013
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: KC Plaza Branch Library
Address: 4801 Main Street
We meet in the Small Meeting Room

Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English Language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.  Thus our group always selects one of his works each year for discussion. We selected "As You Like It" because it is being performed this summer in Kansas City's "Shakespeare In The Park" performances.

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the First Folio, 1623.

Here is a good video review from PBS of "As You Like It" from minute 30 to the end (the first half is about Twelfth Night):

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/video/the-comedies-with-joely-richardson/

April 26, 2013 -- Elizabeth Bishop's poetry

Meeting Information:

Date: Friday, April 26, 2013

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location:  Plaza Library, Small Meeting Room

Address: 4801 Main Street, KC, MO

April is poetry month.  So our group has decided to honor poetry month this year by meeting in April to discuss Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. Bishop won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for the collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring, which combined her first two books.

You are welcome to read any of her poems, and it's not necessary to limit your reading to only those found in North & South and A Cold Spring. Most libraries have books of her poems, and books containing her complete works can be purchase on line at low.  Most of her poems are available on the web (see links to some below).

In order to have some poems read by all participants at our next meeting, we suggest reading the following poems (links provided).

From NORTH & SOUTH
The Map by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-map/
The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish/

From QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina/
Sandpiper by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sandpiper/

From GEOGRAPHY III
In the Waiting Room by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-waiting-room/
The Moose by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-moose/
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/one-art/
Five flights Up by Elizabeth Bishop:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/five-flights-up/

March 29 -- Genesis from the Bible

Meeting Information:
Date: March 29, 2013
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Plaza Library, Small Meeting Room
Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO

Biblical literature is one of the two major sources of the Western literary tradition. Our group therefore includes one book from the Bible each year to be reviewed and discussed from a literary perspective. This year we will be discussing the The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament.

We recommend watching Bill Moyer's "Genesis: A Living Conversation." It's on DVD and available at most libraries.  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/genesis/

A word about a recommended translation:   Stephen Mitchell has produced a new translation of the Bible's first book, Genesis: A New Translation of the Classic Bible Stories.  Mitchell's sensitivity to the original Hebrew language and the history of biblical scholarship is evident in his carefully written work.

February 22 -- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Meeting Information:

Date: Friday, February 22, 2013
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Plaza Branch Library, Small Meeting Room
Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, Mo

We will meet to discuss the book, Things Fall Apart, a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published in 1958. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming".

The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia—one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria, inhabited by the Igbo people (archaically, and in the novel, "Ibo"). It focuses on his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo, and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community during the late nineteenth century.

January 25 -- A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Meeting Information:
Date: Friday, January 25, 2013
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Plaza Branch Library, Small Meeting Room
Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, Mo

We will be discussing the book, A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf. This books was first published on 24 October 1929 and is based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and Fiction", and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction. The essay is generally seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

Schedule for 2013

January 25 -- A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

February 22 -- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

March 29 -- Genesis from the Bible

April 26 -- Poems: North & South. A Cold Spring by Elizabeth Bishop

May 31 -- As You Like It by William Shakespeare

June 28 -- One Thousand and One Nights (part 1)

July 26 -- One Thousand and One Nights (part 2)

August 30 -- One Thousand and One Nights (part 3)

September 27 -- On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

October 25 -- Medea by Euripides

December 6 -- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

December 7 -- Gospel of Mark (from the Bible)

Meeting Information:

• Book: Gospel of Mark (from the bible)
• Other Business: Select books for next year's schedule (*See Note)
• Date: Friday, December 7, 2012
• Time: 7:00 PM
• Location: Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch
• Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO
• Meeting Room: Small Meeting Room. 

*Note: Please send your book suggestions for next year's reading schedule to:
chostetler@kc.rr.com
The received suggestions will be compiled and distributed about a week before the next meeting so you'll have time to think it over.
A list of categories followed in our selections is at this link:
http://tinyurl.com/b5s3bg3
A list of past books is at this link:
http://tinyurl.com/adenvwz

Comments about Gospel of Mark:

Biblical literature is one of the two major sources of the Western literary tradition. Our group therefore includes one book from the Bible each year to be reviewed and discussed from a literary perspective. This year we will be discussing the Gospel of Mark from the Christian New Testament.

Most contemporary scholars now regard Mark as the earliest written of the canonical gospels. The gospel was written in Greek, possibly in Galilee or Syria, shortly after the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. The writing style of Mark is crude and terse when compared to the later synopitic gospels, Matthew and Luke.

Octber 26 -- Epic of Gilgamesh

Meeting details:

Date: Friday, October 26, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch
Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO
We meet in the small meeting room.

We will meet to discuss the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Mesopotamia, is amongst the earliest surviving works of literature. Parts of it are believed to date to 18th century BC and other parts the 13th to 10th Centuries BC.

September 28 -- Anthony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

Meeting details:
Date: Friday, September 28, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch
Address: 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO
We meet in the small meeting room.

The topic of discussion for our next meeting is Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to Cleopatra's suicide. Many consider the role of Cleopatra in this play one of the most complex female roles in Shakespeare's work.