Classics & Contemporary Book Discussion: Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Tuesday, April 9, 10:30-11:30am, Adults, Auditorium
Palace Walk is the first novel in Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent Cairo Trilogy, an epic family saga of colonial Egypt that is considered his masterwork.
The novels of the Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons—the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. The family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two world wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries.
Copies of the book are available here. Ebook and audiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app. The audiobook is always available through Hoopla.
For those who would like to purchase a copy of Palace Walk, please support our local independent bookstore, The Book Stall at 811 Elm Street in Winnetka.
Read Around the World Book Discussion: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Thursday, April 25, 10:30-11:30am, Adults, Auditorium
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. (From the publisher)
Find a copy of the book here. Ebook and audiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
For those who would like to purchase a copy of The Berry Pickers, please support our local independent bookstore, The Book Stall at 811 Elm Street in Winnetka.
