#APStogether

#APStogether,  • Virtual Book Clubs

How It Works

#APStogether is a series of virtual book clubs that take place on social media. They are free, and open to all. Each session is hosted by a different writer, who selects a book to read together. The selected titles can be ordered here, or at your local independent bookstore.

#APStogether is a sequel to #TolstoyTogether, a virtual book club hosted by Yiyun Li to read War and Peace. This summer, the book clubs will be shorter journeys—short novels, and even some poetry. We will read slowly, at a pace of about 15 pages each day, and finish each book within two weeks. The schedule for each book club will be listed below. Every morning, we will share observations from the writer hosting the current book club on our Twitter and Instagram accounts. Readers will take the conversation from there—offering their insights, sharing research, asking questions. The ongoing conversation will be organized using #APStogether. An archive of the writer-host's daily observations and highlights from the book club will be available on our website here and shared in a newsletter. If you aren't already on our mailing list, you can join here. Please email us with any questions.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum | Muriel Spark

#APSTogether,  • October 1, 2020

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum | Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie invites us into a world that feels heartbreakingly distant right now: a school classroom, filled with young minds and restless bodies and desks and noise and essays on how you spent your summer vacation. At the helm of our classroom is the indelible Miss Brodie, a character of magnificent convictions and questionable judgment who exercises outsized influence on her coterie of handpicked students, with unpredictable results. In this time of pervasive brain fog, I can’t imagine a more bracing antidote than the nimble storytelling and brilliant, funny, incisive sentences of Muriel Spark.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Madeleine Is Sleeping and Ms. Hempel Chronicles, and most recently a story collection, Likes (FSG). She lives in Los Angeles.

Reading Schedule
Day 1 | October 1: Ch. 1, pp. 1-11

Day 2 | October 2: Ch. 2, pp, 13-26 (through “'That is the order of the great subjects of life, that’s their order of importance.'”)

Day 3 | October 3: Finish Ch. 2, pp. 26-41

Day 4 | October 4: Ch. 3, pp. 43-55 (through “photographing this new Miss Brodie with her little eyes.”)

Day 5 | October 5: Ch. 3, pp. 55-70 (through “with her little pig-like eyes”)

Day 6 | October 6: Finish Ch. 3, pp. 70-78

Day 7 | October 7: Ch. 4, pp. 79-82 (through ““only the squares on the other two sides”)

Day 8 | October 8: Finish Ch. 4, pp. 92-104

Day 9 | October 9: Ch. 5, pp. 105-121

Day 10 | October 10: Ch. 6, pp. 123-137 (The End)

A virtual discussion of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

#APStogether,  • Monday, October 12

Join us for a virtual discussion of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum on Monday, October 12.

Event Details
Monday, October 12, 2020
7:30 p.m. ET
Online on Zoom
This event is free and open to all. Registration is required, and you can register here. Please feel free to submit questions to Sarah for discussion when registering. Details for accessing the online event will be sent via email. Please note a free Zoom account is required to access the event.

Questions? Write to megan@apublicspace.org.

Aimee Bender | William Maxwell

#APSTogether,  • October 15, 2020

Aimee Bender | William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

When I was in graduate school, a trusted friend told me about this novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, and how it was one of his favorites. He hooked me in when he mentioned a surprise move in the storytelling, something I won’t reveal now, because it would be a kind of lowkey spoiler, but it let me know the book was different than how it appeared; I didn’t imagine this plainspoken-looking novel would take such a risk. His comment got me in the door of the book, which is then full of further surprises; it’s a novel with a dramatic story to tell, and that intrigued me too, but it has a quiet core, a thrumming beautiful dignified quiet core about loss, and that is the magnetic pull that brings me to it again and again. I really look forward to reading and discussing it with you.

Reading Schedule:
Day 1 (October 15) | Chapters 1 and 2

Day 2 (October 16) | Chapter 3

Day 3 (October 17) | Chapter 4

Day 4 (October 18) | Chapter 5

Day 5 (October 19) | Chapter 6

Day 6 (October 20) | Chapter 7

Day 7 (October 21) | Chapter 8

Day 8 (October 22) | Chapter 9

A Public Space | The Brothers Grimm

#APSTogether,  • October 29, 2020

A Public Space | The Grimm Reader: The Classic Tales of the Brothers Grimm

In 1806, the Napoleonic armies invaded Hesse-Cassel, where Jacob and Wilhelm, the Brothers Grimm were researching for their folk-tale projects in their spare time. Speaking of the turmoil of the time, Wilhelm wrote: “Those days of the collapse of all existing establishments will remain forever before my eyes…. Undoubtedly, the world situation and the necessity to draw into the peacefulness of scholarship contributed to the reawakening of the long-forgotten literature; but not only did we seek something of consolation in the past, our hope, naturally, was that this course of ours would contribute something to the return of a better day.”

This fall, as history presents uncertainty and turmoil in more than one form, we invite you to read tales from the Brothers Grimm with A Public Space and Yiyun Li, not merely for consolation, but for the hope of the return of a better day.

Reading Schedule
Day 1|October 29: The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich. The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat. Mother Trudy.

Day 2|October 30: The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats. The Twelve Brothers. The Hand with the Knife.

Day 3|October 31: Little Brother and Little Sister. How Children Played Butcher with Each Other.

Day 4|November 1: The Three Little Men in the Woods. The Brave Little Tailor. Hans Dumm.

Day 5|November 2: Mother Holle. The Seven Ravens. The Evil Mother-in-Law.

Day 6|November 3: The Bremen Town Musicians. The Devil and His Three Golden Hairs. The Children Living in a Time of Famine.

Day 7|November 4: The Magic Table, The Gold Donkey, and the Club in the Sack. The Elves. The Stubborn Child.

Day 8|November 5: The Robber Bridegroom. Godfather Death. The Rose.

Day 9|November 6: Fircher’s Bird. The Juniper Tree. The six Swans.

Day 10|November 7: Briar Rose. The Golden Bird. The Three Feathers.

Day 11|November 8: Furrypelts. The Singing, Soaring Lark. The Goose Girl.

Day 12|November 9: A Fairy Tale about a Boy Who Left Home to Learn about Fear. The Worn-out Dancing Shoes. Snow White and Rose Red.

Claire Messud | Jane Bowles

#APSTogether,  • December 3, 2020

Claire Messud | Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies