In January 2023, Addison’s bookstore will begin a year-long book club devoted to English-language classics.

 

Each meeting will take place on the last Wednesday of each month from 7pm to 8:30pm. There will be a $5 fee for each meeting attended. Attendees are welcome to bring their own food and drinks and Addison’s will also offer the purchase of snacks and drinks as well. To join the book club contact list and receive more information about meeting dates and details, please fill out the form below. 

The selection of books was chosen by Cody Jones. Cody Jones earned joint PhDs in Comparative Literature and Religion, Philosophy, and Visual Culture from the University of Chicago. They’re currently writing a book on philosophy and horror. They teach at UTK and may be found at Addison’s on Saturday or at www.ccjones.me.

The selection of 12 works is intended to provide a general but representative introduction to the development of English fiction. Each of these texts is considered a masterpiece by scholars, and each was selected in order to illustrate the development of style, topic, and plot from the language’s literary beginnings up to the relative present. They are also intended to be readable in the space of a month, and to stimulate conversation on a range of topics. Finally, the list provides an appropriate balance of gender, and cultural spread, including Anglo-Saxon, English, Irish, American, and Caribbean writers, as well as authors writing in English for whom the language is not their first.

Here is the list of month & book pairings with dates of publication/composition included:

January - Beowulf (c. 700-1000) Roy Liuzza or Seamus Heaney translation
February - Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
March - Jane Austen, Emma (1815)
April - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
May - Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
June - Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)
July - Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (1859)
August - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
September - E.M. Forster, Howards End (1910)
October - James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
November - Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)
December - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

We look forward to seeing you at Addison’s.