Penguin Classics Revisited
Featured Book
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings
A collection of stories of matchless charm and enduring popularity that enchanted listeners at Charles Dickens's public readings
Since it was first published in 1843 A Christmas Carol has had an enduring influence on the way we think about the traditions of Christmas. Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, has been adapted into countless film and stage versions since it was first published. Dickens's other Christmas writings collected here include 'The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton', the short story from The Pickwick Papers on which A Christmas Carol was based; The Haunted Man, a tale of a man tormented by painful memories; along with shorter pieces, some drawn from the 'Christmas Stories' that Dickens wrote annually for his weekly journals. In all of them Dickens celebrates the season as one of geniality, charity and remembrance. This new selection contains an introduction by distinguished Dickens scholar Michael Slater discussing how the author has shaped ideas about the Christmas spirit, original illustrations by 'Phiz' and John Leech, an appendix on Dickens's use of The Arabian Nights, a further reading list and explanatory notes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
We're diving into the classics! This group mixes popular, familiar titles with newly translated/published works and lesser known authors. Led by Todd
A collection of stories of matchless charm and enduring popularity that enchanted listeners at Charles Dickens's public readings. Since it was first published in 1843 A Christmas Carol has had an enduring influence on the way we think about the traditions of Christmas. Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, has been adapted into countless film and stage versions since it was first published. Dickens's other Christmas writings collected here include 'The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton', the short story from The Pickwick Papers on which A Christmas Carol was based; The Haunted Man, a tale of a man tormented by painful memories; along with shorter pieces, some drawn from the 'Christmas Stories' that Dickens wrote annually for his weekly journals. In all of them Dickens celebrates the season as one of geniality, charity and remembrance. This new selection contains an introduction by distinguished Dickens scholar Michael Slater discussing how the author has shaped ideas about the Christmas spirit, original illustrations by 'Phiz' and John Leech, an appendix on Dickens's use of The Arabian Nights, a further reading list and explanatory notes.
About the Venue
Aaron's Books
Founded in 2005, Aaron’s Books is a fiercely independent bookstore, offering new and used books for all ages and interests. As with every good independent bookstore, the store’s focus is on community involvement – providing goods and services that enhance the quality of life in Lititz and throughout Lancaster County. Visit us in person at 35 E. Main Street, Lititz PA!
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Don't Read After Midnight Book Group
Our purpose is simple; we’re folks reaching beyond the veil in search of spine-tingling tales. Whether you are new to the genres of horror and thriller, or a devoted consumer of it all, this group just might be for you. In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes .Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Fic Pick Book Group
A monthly discussion of buzzworthy new fiction. Selections are announced as they're published! Led by Alexis From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Award–longlisted, “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself. Rich Milford is dead. At last. We find ourselves in 1920’s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. Now, on the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford was an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. He’s dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why?Top suspects are his four “wives,” Lally, Sophronia, Georgette, and Vivianne. But as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In an electric follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires once again serves up a brilliant distillation of front-of-mind happenings—think, cults of personality, capitalism run amok in politics, and rampant societal distrust—structured like a stupefying line dance. In her uniquely powerful, humorous manner, Thompson-Spires takes on the interdependent clash of the traditional and the newfangled in this gobsmackingly excellent novel.
Long Story Short Book Group
New releases and older favorites, all under 250 pages. For those that don't have time for longer books, but still want to be in a book club. Selections will be across all genres, so get ready to read widely (but briefly)! Led by Sam Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Orlando tells the story of a poet adrift in time; he starts out his life as a nobleman in Queen Elizabeth I’s court, and her story concludes as a thirty-six year-old woman in the present. Jules Scheele’s graphic novel adaptation of this important queer work tells the complete story of Orlando’s journey through history that examines the shifting and changing ideas of gender and sexuality, and plumbs the depths of the human heart. Taking us through love affairs, betrayals and exiles, struggles against conformity and poetry through the ages, Orlando is a fantastical adventure filled with satirical wit. A powerful and essential graphic novel adaptation of a vital British classic.