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!! Everyone welcome !!
One Monday a month we get together in the English Studies library at Vienna University to discuss some contemporary text. After 8 pm the discussion may continue in one of the local pubs...
Next meeting:
Monday 27 February:
6.15pm - 8pm
Pure
by Andrew Miller
"Andrew Miller's richly textured sixth novel
opens in 1785 in a dingy ministerial anteroom in the Palace of
Versaille. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, of solid Normandy stock and a recent
engineering graduate of the Ecole Royale des Ponts et Chaussées, is to
be interviewed for a job in Paris. [...] This is classic Miller territory: we're back
in the filth-choked, scientifically-charged 18th century (a period he
spent comfortably exploring in his first two superb novels), where the
inescapable earthiness of life assails on all sides and in all quarters. [...]
Murder, rape, seduction and madness impel this elegant novel. Baratte undertakes his commission of removing the entire cemetery of Les Innocents, close to the markets at les Halles. Closed after human remains broke through a wall into the cellar of a neighbouring tenement, the cemetery and its ancient church is to be cleansed."
A young engineer from the provinces, Jean-Baptiste Baratte — well educated, ambitious, socially raw and with uncertain leadership qualities — is summoned to Versailles and offered a commission he cannot refuse. He must eliminate Les Innocents: dismantle the church, destroy the cemetery, dispose of its jumbled, anonymous, piecemeal occupants. As he and his team of Flemish miners uncover the nameless dead, Baratte’s identity is itself almost snuffed out by the gruesome realities of his task.
Murder, rape, seduction and madness impel this elegant novel. Baratte undertakes his commission of removing the entire cemetery of Les Innocents, close to the markets at les Halles. Closed after human remains broke through a wall into the cellar of a neighbouring tenement, the cemetery and its ancient church is to be cleansed."
James Urquhart, The Guardian
A young engineer from the provinces, Jean-Baptiste Baratte — well educated, ambitious, socially raw and with uncertain leadership qualities — is summoned to Versailles and offered a commission he cannot refuse. He must eliminate Les Innocents: dismantle the church, destroy the cemetery, dispose of its jumbled, anonymous, piecemeal occupants. As he and his team of Flemish miners uncover the nameless dead, Baratte’s identity is itself almost snuffed out by the gruesome realities of his task.
Freya Johnston, The Telegraph
books previously discussed:
Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Emma Tennant: The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto
Jane Gardam: Old Filth
Austin Wright: Tony & Susan
Dara Horn: The World To Come
Siri Hustvedt: The Summer Without Men
Åsne Seierstad: The Bookseller of Kabul
Kathryn Stockett: The Help
Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
Kei Miller: The Last Warner Woman
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong
Ian McEwan: Solar
Tash Aw: Map of the Invisible World
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
Caryl Phillips: Cambridge
Fay Weldon: The Stepmother's Diary
Nicholas Baker: A Box of Matches
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
Michel Faber: Under The Skin
John Burnside: The Devil's Footprints
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
Graham Swift: The Light of Day
Gail Jones: Sorry
Iain Banks: The Crow Road
Anne Enright: Taking Pictures
J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
Jackie Kay: The Adoption Papers
Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Martin Amis: House of Meetings
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version
David Lodge: Author, Author
Julian Barnes: Arthur & George
Vienna Lit (eds): Vienna Views
Marina Lewycka: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Carol Ann Duffy: The World's Wife
Zadie Smith: On Beauty
John Updike: Terrorist
Ali Smith: The Accidental
Mitch Albom: Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Lionel Shriver: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Kate Fox: Watching the English
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus
Ian McEwan: Saturday
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair
Andrea Levy: Small Island
Emma Tennant: The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto
Jane Gardam: Old Filth
Austin Wright: Tony & Susan
Dara Horn: The World To Come
Siri Hustvedt: The Summer Without Men
Åsne Seierstad: The Bookseller of Kabul
Kathryn Stockett: The Help
Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
Kei Miller: The Last Warner Woman
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong
Ian McEwan: Solar
Tash Aw: Map of the Invisible World
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
Caryl Phillips: Cambridge
Fay Weldon: The Stepmother's Diary
Nicholas Baker: A Box of Matches
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
Michel Faber: Under The Skin
John Burnside: The Devil's Footprints
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
Graham Swift: The Light of Day
Gail Jones: Sorry
Iain Banks: The Crow Road
Anne Enright: Taking Pictures
J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
Jackie Kay: The Adoption Papers
Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Martin Amis: House of Meetings
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version
David Lodge: Author, Author
Julian Barnes: Arthur & George
Vienna Lit (eds): Vienna Views
Marina Lewycka: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Carol Ann Duffy: The World's Wife
Zadie Smith: On Beauty
John Updike: Terrorist
Ali Smith: The Accidental
Mitch Albom: Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Lionel Shriver: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Kate Fox: Watching the English
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus
Ian McEwan: Saturday
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair
Andrea Levy: Small Island
If you love reading and want to meet like-minded people
informally to have a snack, a drink, and – above all
– to discuss a contemporary text, just come along. (It would be great if you
could drop me a line so we know roughly how many people to expect:
julia.novak@univie.ac.at)
Julia Novak
(Vienna Lit Book Group Coordinator)
(Vienna Lit Book Group Coordinator)
Venue:
Fachbereichsbibliothek für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Universitätscampus Altes AKH
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 8
A-1090 Wien
http://www.univie.ac.at/AngLib/
karin.lach@univie.ac.at
How to get there: trams 43,44, 5, 33
To access courtyard 8 use any one of the main entrances to the campus: Garnisongasse (walk through courtyard 9)
Thavonatgasse, Alserstrasse (walk through courtyards 1 and 7)
Spitalgasse (walk through courtyards 1 or 2 and 7).
Fachbereichsbibliothek für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Universitätscampus Altes AKH
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 8
A-1090 Wien
http://www.univie.ac.at/AngLib/
karin.lach@univie.ac.at
How to get there: trams 43,44, 5, 33
To access courtyard 8 use any one of the main entrances to the campus: Garnisongasse (walk through courtyard 9)
Thavonatgasse, Alserstrasse (walk through courtyards 1 and 7)
Spitalgasse (walk through courtyards 1 or 2 and 7).
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To subscribe to our monthly newsletter announcing English literature events and opportunities in Vienna, click here.