1 year Anniversary Renaissance Dinner & King Lear

The 1st year anniversary dinner and King Lear discussion held on Thursday January 20th was a wonderful sucess despite the snow which made it impossible for several members to attend. They were missed, but those who did attend were a lively group. Dinner consisted of Beef Pies with Orange Marmalade, Winter Salad with raisin vinaigrette, Cauliflower in Orange-Lemon sauce, Almond Chicken in Bread, and "The Banquet"--shortbread cookies, cream puffs, an apple tart, and a brie cheese with dried fruite and almond tray. We drank spiced apple cider, but a few poured coffee. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning about a few key differences between Renaissance dining (no coffee, tea, chocolate, or vanilla among other things) and modern dining.

The conversation was fantastic as usual. Several key points concerning King Lear were raised. A new member (Jessica, welcome to our group!) brought up the information that King Lear was written in Shakespeare's later years. It fell into the period when he was writing tragedies, and when people feared that Queen Elizabeth would soon die leaving their society unstable. Other issues were his view of women (strong but not good), the setting of this play in a pre-Christian society, the film's use of modern hair styles as a signal that this kind of tradegy could happen in any time period--human nature doesn't change, and the ending with Edgar becoming king and what that said about the other characters.

We also discussed selecting The Scarlet Pimpernel in the fall with the idea of getting together in September, carpooling to see the Barter Theater play version, followed by dinner. We'll discuss details in March. In the meantime, enjoy For the Roses which is our next selection! I'm sure we'll discuss the major change between King Lear and this modern romance as entertainment for popular audiences.

This is a recent photo of BCPL without the Children's Addition visible. 

Welcome!

I've set this blog up to discuss the Buchanan County Public Library Book Club selections. This club selects six titles a year to read and discuss together at the public library. The BCPL Book Club Blog will hopefully allow members, or other interested people, to keep up with book club selections and share their thoughts about titles when they can't attend meetings in person. The upcoming 2005 title schedule is:
January King Lear by William Shakespeare
March For the Roses by Julie Garwood
May King Solomon's Mine by H. Rider Haggard
and June Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

I look forward to discussing these titles with you. Please keep in mind general rules of courteous discussion including no profanity and respect for differing viewpoints.

Sherry Bright
BCPLBookClub