Reading Groups

Members Only: The Literarians

Free

Open to Members Only

Wednesday, 12:30 pm EDT - 2:00 pm EDT October 21, 2020

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The Literarians will be held online via Zoom. Members who have RSVP’d will be contacted with instructions for joining. Please email Allison Escoto at allison@centerforfiction.org with any questions.

The Literarians is a free monthly discussion group open to members of The Center. Led by our head librarian Allison Escoto, The Literarians read a wide variety of contemporary fiction. New participants are welcome throughout the year!

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Up Next:
A Burning by Megha Majumdar

Previous Selections:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
Milkman by Anna Burns
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Led by

Allison Escoto

Head Librarian

Allison Escoto

Head Librarian

New Yorker by way of New Orleans, Allison Escoto received her BA in Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz and closed out the 90s as a bookseller in Greenwich Village. After several years in publishing, she pursued and received her MLS from Queens College. Since then she has worked as a librarian for 15 years in various libraries in and around NYC and has been moonlighting as a poet and copywriter. She is the Associate Editor for Newtown Literary Journal, a publication dedicated to featuring writers from her beloved Queens.

Up Next

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A Burning

By Megha Majumdar

Published by Knopf

PURCHASE

Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan’s fall. Lovely–an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.

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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