Bloor West Classic Book Club

The Bloor West Classic Book Club meets once a month to discuss classic literature.

Accepting New Members!

New members are welcome to join our group. Please send me an email with some information about yourself if you're interested in joining including the following:
Name:
Age:
Occupation:
Favourite Novel (and why):
Willing to host meetings (Y/N)*:
Closest Intersection:
Why you wish to join:

*Please note that you must be willing to host meetings and live in the Bloor West Village / High Park general vicinity to participate.

Meeting Location

Meetings are held once a month on a weekday from 7pm to 9-10pm. All meetings are held at member's residences in the Bloor West Village / High Park area.

Membership Diversity

Members should be within the ages of 27-35. Meetings usually consist of four to five members at a time. Despite the word 'classic', we're far from stuffy; if anything, we're a very knowledgeable and passionate bunch with full bookcases.

Choosing Books

We currently have a patented system, whereby books are chosen that all members want to read (what a 'novel' idea)! We generally all have the opinion that books are meant to stimulate the mind, so our selections generally reflect that. It's acknowledged that the definition of "classic" is subject to interpretation, of which, we do our best.

Book List

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams
2. The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
4. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
5. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
6. Tess of D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
7. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
8. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
9. The Red and the Black by Stendhal
10. True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway
11. The Return by Joseph Conrad
12. Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
13. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
14. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
15. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
16. The Trial by Franz Kafka
17. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
18. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
19. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
20. Utopia by Sir Thomas More
21. A Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman [non-classic pre-screen]
22. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
23. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
24. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot
25. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
26. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
27. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
28. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen [Mar 2010]
29. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott [Apr 2010]
30. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte [May 2010]

In Summary

What makes us unique includes the way we choose books that all our members want to read and the fact that we read "classic" novels only. Carol Shields, Danielle Steele and Steven King have politely been asked to leave, while the spirits of Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Salinger go about enriching our lives. We hope to see you at one of our meetings, in the near future.

Chris
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