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AGA Book Club
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Starts: Wednesday, March 26
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Ends: Wednesday, March 26
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Take part in the dynamic connections found between the visual arts and literature. The AGA Book Club is the product of an exciting collaboration between the Art Gallery of Alberta and the Edmonton Public Library, in which books are chosen for discussion based on their connection to current exhibitions.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.
This book selection is inspired by the exhibit Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting
Our setting is mid-fourteenth century Italy, the country-side outside of Florence. Ten young men and women have fled the city, hoping to escape the plague by sheltering in a country estate. To while away the time, they tell stories each evening—love stories both happy and sad, tales of virtue and of wit and the battle between the sexes. Written over six hundred years ago, Boccaccio’s stories have inspired the work of generations of writers from Shakespeare to Poe.
Wednesday, February 26, 7 pm
Curiosity: a love story by Joan Thomas.
This book selection is inspired by the exhibit Thomas Bewick: Imagination Field Guide
Mary Anning sold “sea shells by the sea shore,” and is credited with the discovery of several important dinosaur fossils. However, during the early nineteenth century, no woman was recognized or accepted into the scientific community and it would take more than one hundred fifty years for the Royal Society to recognize her contributions to the history of science. Set amid the landscape of a Jane Austen novel, Joan Thomas tells the story of Anning, a very real young woman who must make her way in a man’s world.
“The best historical novels effortlessly transport their readers back into the past…Thomas vividly recreates a world in which scientific questions and discoveries were beginning to shake the established Biblical version of Creation” Amy Sands Brodoff, Quill & Quire, vol.76, Issue 3, p.36.
Wednesday, March 26, 7 p.m.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.
This book selection is inspired by the exhibit Flora and Fauna: 400 Years of Artists Inspired by Nature
Considered the inspiration for the environmental movement, Silent Spring has also been dubbed one of the most harmful books of the twentieth century. Rachel Carson was a respected scientist and an award-winning writer when she wrote about the impact of chemicals on the environment and unleashed a storm of controversy that continues more than fifty years after the publication of her ground-breaking work. Join the AGA Book Club on April 23, at 7 p.m., when we discuss Silent Spring and its impact.
All sessions take place at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Lower Level
Free; registration required.
This program is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Alberta.
Event Location
Stanley A. Milner Library
7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Edmonton, Alberta
T5J 2V4