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Quotable Fri Nov 30 2007

Quotable Friday

Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is from Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow:

"The temperature was in the nineties, and on hot nights Chicagoans feel the city body and soul. The stockyards are gone, Chicago is no longer slaughter-city, but the old smells revive in the night heat. Miles of railroad siding along the streets once were filled with red cattle cars, the animals waiting to enter the yards lowing and reeking. The old stink still haunts the place. It returns at times, suspiring from the vacated soil, to remind us all that Chicago had once led the world in butcher-technology and that billions of animals had died here. And that night the windows were wide open and the familiar depressing multilayered stink of meat, tallow, blood-meal, pulverized bones, hides, soap, smoked slabs, and burnt hair came back. Old Chicago breathed again through leaves and screens."

Alice Maggio

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This Month's Selection:

January 2009

A Raisin in the Sun

by Lorraine Hansberry

A Raisin in the SunLena Younger's husband has passed away, and as Lena and her family wait for a $10,000 life insurance check, they dream of leaving their tiny Chicago apartment and starting new lives. This groundbreaking play won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award when it was first produced in 1959.

Meet & Discuss

Join us at The Book Cellar at 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave. (map) to discuss the book. We'll meet on Monday, January 12, at 7:30pm. New members are always welcome!

Upcoming Books

January 12
A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry

February 9
A River Runs Through It
by Norman Maclean

March 9
The Book of Ralph
by John McNally

April 13
Then We Came to the End
by Joshua Ferris

May 11
Passing
by Nella Larsen

June 8
Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut

July 13
Every Crooked Pot
by Renee Rosen

August 10
La Perdida
by Jessica Abel

September 14
The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers

October 12
Lords of the Levee
by Herman Kogan and Lloyd Wendt

November 9
Travel Writing
by Peter Ferry


Past Books


About GB Book Club

The Gapers Block Book Club is a reading group dedicated to reading fiction by Chicago area authors and nonfiction works about our city. We read a new book every month, and new members are always welcome.

In Person
The book club meets on the second Monday of the month at The Book Cellar bookstore in Lincoln Square (map).

By Email
Sign up for the book club mailing list to receive reminders about upcoming meetings and other special announcements.


Editors: Alice Maggio & Veronica Bond, bookclub@gapersblock.com

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