Join JASA NextAct’s Book Club!
Want to read more classics, but life keeps getting in the way? This book club will encourage you to revisit old favorites, discover some you missed, and build community with fellow readers. We’ll meet twice a month to discuss a novella of 200 pages or less. In the first meeting (of two per book), Dr. Jennifer Gilchrist will introduce the author and provide a little publishing and historical context before opening up the discussion to establish the main characters and address any questions that have arisen so far. The next class period will cover the book in full: the plot, themes, character development, writing style, philosophical/political/artistic meaning, and open discussion. What is the novella saying about the time in which it was written? How does it (and does not) resonate with us now?
With a nod to the semi-quincentennial, we’ll start with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 swing at the Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby. Changing class, race, and gender roles, upward social mobility, a financial bubble, crime, murder, and Midwesterners in Manhattan and Long Island—Fitzgerald’s novella will give us much to talk about.
The book club welcomes member suggestions of 200-page or less classic novellas with the following are strong possibilities: Nella Larson’s Passing (1929), Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915), Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958), Murial Stark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brody (1961), Alexander Baron’s The Lowlife (1963), Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban (1982), and Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha (1953).
Registration Information
Registration Opening Soon!
Join the JASA Book Club for 10 months for just $150! Or, try it out for 5 months for $75. At the end of the first 5 months, you can choose to continue for another 5 months for an additional $75. There will be a new book each month based on the theme and suggestions from members. JASA does not provide the reading materials.
Instructor Information
Jennifer Gilchrist is a veteran New Yorker who now resides in Metro Detroit. She taught literature courses at Hunter College and has published articles in Twentieth-Century Literature and Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. In addition to her instruction at JASA, she is the review editor of Supernatural Studies: A Journal of Art, Culture, and Media. With a specialty in modernist narrative, she received her Ph.D. in twentieth-century American and British literature from Fordham University in the Bronx.