Reading Groups

Nabokov's "Christmas" and a Cocktail with Elizabeth Howard (Sold Out)

$30

Includes a Complimentary Cocktail from Our Café & Bar

Out of stock

Monday, 6:30 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT December 19, 2022

The Center for Fiction

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This reading group has reached its capacity. To join the waitlist, please email Sam Lim-Kimberg at [email protected].

This reading group will take place in person at The Center for Fiction with a complimentary cocktail from our Café & Bar.

Vladimir Nabokov’s story, “Christmas,” translated from the Russian text of 1925 by Dmitri Nabokov, in collaboration with the author, was published in the print edition of the New Yorker on December 29, 1975.

The story is one of grief and loss. Specifically, the loss of a son, a child. It is Christmas Eve, and there are “huge north Russian snowdrifts” as the country house where the story is set is only used in the summer.

Yet, Nabokov is using the symbols in this beautiful story to suggest there may be places where all of us cannot return. Life is the act of remembering to remember. There is healing power in memory, and the beauty found through cycles of nature that keep us hopeful.

A link to the story will be emailed upon registration.

Led by

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard grew up with a passion for books and reading. She received the Tilton Essay Award for outstanding expression in her writing when she was sixteen. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others. Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015), and Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016).

She is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change.

She holds an M.A. from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. through the Graduate School of Political Management, an M.S. in communications design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and a B.A. in English literature from Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire. She studied at the University of Southampton in Bournemouth, U.K.

Elizabeth Howard lives in New York City.

About this series

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