Literary Class 82. School of the Arts Book Club with Anna DiMartino | Athenaeum Music & Arts Library | School of the Arts | La Jolla
August 12, 2025: 4 PM - 5:30 PM
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July 15 & August 12
July 15: "So Big" by Edna Ferber
August 12: "Less" by Andrew Sean Greer
Tuesdays, 4 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Joan & Irwin Jacobs Music Room
Are you an avid reader or would you simply like to read more? Would you like to read more thoughtfully? Are you intellectually curious and longing to be with a group of like-minded folks?
Join us for lively and thought-provoking discussion on award-winning (or nominated) literature, primarily fiction.
Wine and snacks provided.
July 15: "So Big" by Edna Ferber
Pulitzer PrizeWinner, 1925
The story follows the life of a young woman, Selina Peake De Jong, who decides to be a school teacher in farming country. During her stay on the Pool family farm, she encourages the young Roelf Pool to follow his interests, which include art. Upon his mother's death, Roelf runs away to France. Meanwhile, Selina marries a Dutch farmer named Pervus. They have a child together, Dirk, whom she nicknames "So Big." Pervus dies and Selina is forced to take over working on the farm to give Dirk a future. As Dirk gets older, he works as an architect but is more interested in making money than creating buildings and becomes a stock broker, much to his mother's disappointment. His love interest, Dallas O'Mara, an acclaimed artist, tries to convince Dirk that there is more to life than money. Selina is visited by Roelf Pool, who has since become a famous sculptor. Dirk grows very distressed when, after visiting his mother's farm, he realizes that Dallas and Roelf love each other and he cannot compete with the artistically minded sculptor. The book was inspired by the life of Antje Paarlberg in the Dutch community of South Holland, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. It won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1925.
August 12: "Less" by Andrew Sean Greer
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (New York Times Book Review).
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
National Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017
A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017
A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award and the California Book Award
"I could not love "LESS" more."—Ron Charles, Washington Post
"Andrew Sean Greer's "Less" is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful."—Christopher Buckley, New York Times Book Review
Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes—it would be too awkward—and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur "Less" will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, "Less" is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author the New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," "Less" shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
Event Supported By
Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, located in the heart of La Jolla, Calif., in San Diego County, is one of only 16 nonprofit membership libraries in the United States. This rare cultural institution, an important one to the greater San Diego area, offers a depth and accessibility of resources and programs found nowhere else in the region. The library, devoted exclusively to music and art, has an outstanding and ever-expanding collection of books, periodicals, reference material, compact discs, videocassettes, DVDs, sheet music and librettos, as well as one of the most significant collections of artists' books in Southern California. The library is open to the public five days a week and members can check out materials for a modest annual fee. The Athenaeum also presents an eclectic, year-round schedule of art exhibitions, concerts (classical, jazz and new music), lectures, studio art classes through its School of the Arts, tours and special events. To quote the San Diego Union-Tribune, "There are few libraries in America as unusual as the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library." Admission: Admission to the library is free. Gallery exhibits are free and open to the general public. Materials may be used in the library or checked out by members. Borrowing privileges are limited to members only. Books may be checked out for four weeks and all CDs, videos and DVDs for two weeks. Materials may be reserved in advance. Guided Tours: Free guided tours take place the third Saturday of every month at 11 a.m.