groupgreatbookskc

We will discuss Idylls of the King at our next meeting. Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere ... (more)and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. The whole work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Modred. Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint, Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and also Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. There is little transition between Idylls, but the central figure of Arthur links all the stories. The poems were dedicated to the late Albert, Prince Consort. The Idylls are written in blank verse. Tennyson's descriptions of nature are derived from observations of his own surroundings, collected over the course of many years.The dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or tone, but derive elegiac sadness from the idylls of Theocritus. Idylls of the King is often read as an allegory of the societal conflicts in Britain during the mid-Victorian era.

Our group will meet to discuss "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry. It is a play that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision ... (more)of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood. Since it's a play it can be read in about an hour; so it's one of the shorter reads on our 2012 schedule.

Our next meeting: Friday, December 2, 2011, 7:00 PM Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch, Small Meeting Room 4801 Main Street Kansas City, MO We plan to discuss the Federalist Papers which are a series of 85 essays written in 1877 and 1888 to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution. ... (more)The following is a discussion of the contents of the Federalist Papers. As you read them and note items of interest, you all are invited to add comments to this post. Perhaps these comments can then serve as a guide regarding which to give priority in case you don't have time to read them all. (I've already added the first two comments regarding Papers 10 and 84.) Structure and Content of the Federalist Papers In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton listed six topics to be covered in the subsequent articles: "The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity" – covered in No. 2 through No. 14 "The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union"—covered in No. 15 through No. 22 "The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed to the attainment of this object"—covered in No. 23 through No. 36 "The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government"—covered in No. 37 through No. 84 "Its analogy to your own state constitution"—covered in No. 85 "The additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty and to prosperity"—covered in No. 85. As the series grew, this plan was somewhat changed. The fourth topic expanded into detailed coverage of the individual articles of the Constitution and the institutions it mandated, while the two last topics were merely touched on in the last essay. LINK TO COMMENTS LINK TO DISCUSSION OF POTENTIAL BOOKS FOR 2012 SCHEDULE

Our next meeting: Friday, October 28, 2011, 7:00 PM Kansas City Public Library/Plaza Branch, Small Meeting Room 4801 Main Street Kansas City, MO We are meeting to discuss Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes from the Underground (Russian: "Notes from Underground" is a more literal ... (more)translation) is an 1864 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy. The second part of the book is called "Àpropos of the Wet Snow," and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator.

This is our "non-western literature" book of the year. Omar Khayyam was a 12th Century Persian Poet (also mathematician, astronomer, also philosopher). The Rubaiyat is available at most libraries and free on-line. It's not very long. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) ... (more)is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A Persian ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistechs) per line, hence the word "Rubáiyát" (derived from the Arabic root word for "four"), meaning "quatrains".

This is our annual literature and movie night. We will discuss Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" and then together watch the movie, "10 Things I hate About You," which is loosely based on Shakespeare's work. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between ... (more)1590 and 1594. We will discuss Shakespeare's play for about 30 minutes, and then we together will watch the movie, "10 Things I Hate About You." The movie is a 1999 American teen romantic comedy film. It is a loose adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew set in a modern Seattle, Washington, American high school. The screeply was written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith.

This book is our ancient Greek (or Roman) classic for the year. It's also a book that our group previously discussed six years ago. It is included in this year's reading list because we believe classics deserve to be reread. Our next meeting will be February 25, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. Our meeting place will ... (more)be the small meeting room at the Plaza Branch Library, 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, MO. We will be discussing The Odyssey by Homer.

The Age of Innocence (1920) is a novel by Edith Wharton, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. The story is set in upper class New York City in the 1870s. We will meet Friday, January 28, 2011 at the Plaza Branch Library in the Small Meeting Room at 7:00 p.m. to discuss this American classic. This novel ... (more)meets our "recent" and "woman author" slots for book selections this year. This book has a wider popular appeal to the general reading public than some of our other selections. So if you're one who has complained that our book selections are too old and boring, this may be the one book for this year that you can enjoy. And if you attend our meeting, we hope that you find our group so interesting that you'll want to attend more of our book discussions.

A classic (circa 400 B.C.) of Chinese literature, Art of War by Sun Tzu reveals the strategies, tactics, and insights that lead to success. Some today apply it to business success. Mastery of warfare and the maintenance of power are the most important values in Sun's philosophy--without which there can ... (more)be no peace or life. According to Sun, studying your enemy, detecting his weakness, allowing him to expose himself and then acting accordingly is the key to success. But, it is perhaps even more important to master the skill of winning without fighting. Sun's battle-proven strategies have been put into practice by countless leaders. (Since we just finished talking about Napoleon and General Kutuzov, maybe we discuss which one best followed Sun's advice.) Filled with practical wisdom and strategy, Art of War is an indispensable guide for anyone who wants an edge over the competition.

Our third meeting will be August 27 to continue our discussion of Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE. That's our big book book for the year. We're spreading our discussion over three meetings during the summer so you have all summer to finish it. Our first meeting was on June 25. There were seven in attendance ... (more)at our June 25 meeting and six at the July 30 meeting. They were both good meetings filled with lively conversation. We hope more can join us for our August meeting. The next Great Books KC meeting: What: War and Peace by Tolstoy When: August 27, 2010, 7:00 PM Where: Plaza Branch Library 4801 Main Street, KC, MO 64112

On June 25, a Friday, we plan to have our first of three meetings to discuss Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE. That's our big book book for the year. We're spreading our discussion over three meetings during the summer so you have all summer to finish it http://greatbookskc.blogspot.com/ http://www.librarything.com/groups/gr...

We plan to meet and discuss Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST and then watch the movie FORBIDDEN PLANET which is based on it. Watching the movie will take more time than our usual meeting so we plan to meet at 6:00 p.m., discuss Shakespeare's play first, then watch the movie, and be finished by around 8:30 p.m.

It is believed that this is the first book written by a woman in the English language. Julian of Norwich (c. November 8, 1342 – c. 1416) is thought of as one of the greatest English mystics. Little is known of her life aside from her writings. Even her name is uncertain, the name "Julian" coming from ... (more)the Church of St Julian in Norwich, where she was an anchoress (a type of hermit living in a cell attached to the church, engaged in contemplative prayer). At the age of 30, suffering from a severe illness and believing she was on her deathbed, Julian had a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ. (They ended by the time she overcame her illness on May 13, 1373.) She recorded these visions soon after having them, and then again twenty years later in far more theological depth. They are the source of her major work, called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (circa 1393).

What better way for a book group to get into the Christmas spirit than rereading this classic. Have you read the original Dickens' version, or just seen the movies or plays? Well, maybe it's time the read the original.

This is a classic Japanese short story available on line in English translation. In A Grove is a short story by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It first appearing in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his ... (more)award-winning movie Rashōmon. "In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth. The story is often praised as being among the greatest in Japanese literature. Those of you who have complained in the past that the books selected by the Great Books group were too long have no excuse for not reading this book. It is about 9 pages long depending on the font size.