Thanks to everyone who made ACMW book club awesome last fall! We’re continuing with the club this Winter 2009. If you like to read and chat about short stories, be sure to drop by one of our meetings!

Selected Book

Meeting Time/Location

• When: Every other Wednesday, 6:30-8:00 pm
• Where: CSE Room 678 (6th floor of the CSE building)
• Next meeting: February 17th, 2009

Mailing List

Q&A

• What is ACMW book club?
  This is essentially a book club for women in CSE who miss English class. Students in science and engineering don’t often have to read much outside of their textbooks. While for some, this is one of the great advantages of the field, there is also a nontrivial number of people who secretly miss reading and discussing novels, poems, and short stories. We may be relatively few and far between, but the ACMW book club is a way to unite fellow book lovers!
• How do I join? Can I join in the middle of the quarter?
  To join, just show up to one of our book club meetings! There’s no strict membership policy, so you’re welcome to join at any point of the year. It’d also be a good idea to join the mailing list to keep up to date with announcements and meeting reminders, as well as topics for the next meeting’s book talk.
• What sort of commitment do I have to have? What if I didn’t read/finish the book?
  Again, there is no strict membership policy, so just come to as many meetings as you can. While we may miss English class, this isn’t English class, so don’t feel embarrassed if you couldn’t finish the whole book or all the selected short stories! A few statements of the obvious: We are a book club, though, so we’re obviously going to be talking about the selected reading, including plot details. Also, you may find that if you haven’t read ANY of the short stories, you probably won’t care too much for the conversation. (If you’d still like to come by and quietly have some tea and cookies, though, and maybe color some bookmarks, you are welcome to sit in!)
• What do you read? How do you select books?
  Our aim is to read “just plain good” books, nothing particularly tied to a genre or theme. This year, we’re going to focus on short stories: they’re bite-sized and low-commitment, and you’re welcome to join the discussion even if you just read one.

Other questions? Email Victoria at vkirst@cs.washington.edu.

Downloads

The files are password-protected. Please join the mailing list to get password information!

February 17th, 2009:

• “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut” by J.D. Salinger: doc or pdf
• “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J.D. Salinger: doc or pdf

Past Meetings:

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by F. Scott Fitzgerald: doc or pdf
• “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes: doc or pdf
• “The Whore’s Child” by Richard Russo: doc or pdf
• “The Hypotheses of Failure” by O. Henry: doc or pdf
• “Bad Neighbors” by Edward P. Jones: doc or pdf
• “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor: doc or pdf
• “What Do You Want to Know For?” by Alice Munro: doc or pdf
• “Demonology” by Rick Moody: doc or pdf
• “Touch” by Alexi Zentner: doc or pdf
• “Folie a Deux” by William Trevor: doc or pdf