Free
RSVP Below
Wednesday, 12:30 pm EST - 1:30 pm EST January 26, 2022
Online via Zoom & at
The Center for Fiction*
This session will take place in person* and online via Zoom. Please click Register above to RSVP. Questions? Please email Allison Escoto at allison@centerforfiction.org.
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!
Not a member yet? Join today!
Up Next:
Zorrie by Laird Hunt
Previous Selections:
- Matrix by Lauren Groff
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
- Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
- How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
- The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Real Life by Brandon Taylor
- Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
- Indelicacy by Amina Cain
- Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
- A Burning by Megha Majumdar
- 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
*To attend this reading group in person, please email your proof of vaccination to health@centerforfiction.org prior to visiting the Center. Mask wearing will be required throughout the building. Accepted vaccination proofs include:
- an image of your CDC vaccination card
- a screenshot or scanned printout of your Excelsior pass
- a record of vaccination from the healthcare provider who gave you your vaccine
In compliance with developing guidelines issued by federal, state, and our local government, we ask that all visitors to The Center for Fiction’s member spaces provide proof of vaccination for COVID-19. If you remain unvaccinated because of a disability or sincerely held religious belief, please also contact us at health@centerforfiction.org for assistance or to request a reasonable accommodation.
Led by
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Allison Escoto
Head Librarian & Education Director
Allison Escoto
Head Librarian & Education Director
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 reviews books for Booklist and serves on the ALA RUSA Notables committee. From 2017-2020, she was the Associate Editor for Newtown Literary Journal, a publication dedicated to featuring writers from her beloved Queens.
Up Next
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Zorrie
By Laird Hunt
Published by Bloomsbury
As a girl, Zorrie Underwood’s modest and hardscrabble home county was the only constant in her young life. After losing both her parents, Zorrie moved in with her aunt, whose own death orphaned Zorrie all over again, casting her off into the perilous realities and sublime landscapes of rural, Depression-era Indiana. Drifting west, Zorrie survived on odd jobs, sleeping in barns and under the stars, before finding a position at a radium processing plant. At the end of each day, the girls at her factory glowed from the radioactive material.
But when Indiana calls Zorrie home, she finally finds the love and community that have eluded her in and around the small town of Hillisburg. And yet, even as she tries to build a new life, Zorrie discovers that her trials have only begun.
Spanning an entire lifetime, a life convulsed and transformed by the events of the 20th century, Laird Hunt’s extraordinary novel offers a profound and intimate portrait of the dreams that propel one tenacious woman onward and the losses that she cannot outrun. Set against a harsh, gorgeous, quintessentially American landscape, this is a deeply empathetic and poetic novel that belongs on a shelf with the classics of Willa Cather, Marilynne Robinson, and Elizabeth Strout.
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.
