Reading Groups

The Love Story, Continued: From the Traditional to the Taboo with Sheila Kohler

4 Sessions Mondays, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT July 7 to September 8, 2025

Online via Zoom

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The ‘With Books’ option includes the titles required for this group at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
7/7, 7/28, 8/18, 9/8
Online via Zoom

In this reading group, we will continue our look into the evolution of the love story: What makes a love story feel authentic and true to life? How do we tell one and make it new but strange and original and yet universal? We will read two books from different cultural traditions that portray different approaches.

The Safekeep, by young Dutch writer Yael van der Wouden, describes a relationship between two women that starts with hate and becomes passionate. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez describes a long, loving marriage and flashes back to the wife’s early love affair with a man who returns after the death of her husband.

What to read in advance of the first meeting: The first half of Love in the Time of Cholera up to page 163, or the words “It’s not so much.”

What to expect from this reading group: The instructor will send questions to frame discussion in advance of each session. At each meeting, she’ll present the book and then open the discussion to all who wish to participate.

Reading List:

Session I & II: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Session III & IV: The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Sheila Kohler

Sheila Kohler

Sheila Kohler is the author of eleven novels, three volumes of short fiction, a memoir, and many essays. Her most recent novel is Open Secrets, (Penguin, 2020). Her memoir, Once We Were Sisters was published by Penguin in 2017 as well as Canongate in England and Alba in Spain. She has won numerous prizes including the O. Henry twice and been included in Best American Short Stories in 2013 and Best American Mystery 2020. Her work has been published in thirteen countries. She has taught at Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington and at Princeton since 2007. Her novel, Cracks was made into a film with directors Jordan and Ridley Scott with Eva Green playing Miss G and was recently reissued by Open Road. Open Road will republish six of her early books this year. You can find her blog at Psychology Today under Dreaming for Freud. She has been made “Writer in Residence” at the America Library in Paris for 2025.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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