Reading Groups

Members Only: The Nightlighters

Free

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Monday, 6:00 pm EDT June 12, 2023

The Center for Fiction

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The World and All That It Holds - Eliana Cohen-Orth

June 2023 Inaugural Selection:
The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon

Due to popular demand for a members-only reading group in the evenings, we’re bringing you The Nightlighters! Similar to The Literarians, The Nightlighters will read a wide variety of contemporary fiction. Led by rotating staff members at The Center, participants will select novels for us to sink into each month. You’re welcome to join for all sessions or drop in when you’d like. Meetings will take place at 6pm ET on the second Monday of the month here at The Center for Fiction.

Members are welcome to join The Nightlighters throughout the year. Not a member yet? Join today!

Click Register above to RSVP for this month’s discussion. Questions? Please email us at [email protected].

The World and All That It Holds - Eliana Cohen-Orth

2023 Selections

  1. . 
    The World and All That It Holds - Eliana Cohen-Orth

    The World and All That It Holds

    By Aleksandar Hemon

    Published by FSG

    PURCHASE

    June 2023 Inaugural Selection

    As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his estimable father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it’s nothing a dash of laudanum from the high shelf, a summer stroll, and idle fantasies about passersby can’t put in perspective.

    And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller; Pinto’s protector and lover.

    Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches, survive near-certain death, tangle with spies and Bolsheviks. Over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto’s love for Osman—with the occasional opiatic interlude—that keeps him going.

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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