Events Calendar
Hot Off the Press Spring 2022
Join the new session, launching February 22, 2022!
If you love a book conversation that’s lively and engaging, where we talk about the book thoroughly and thoughtfully, then this class is for you. Led by long-time teacher and publishing professional Lynn Rosen, this class tackles brand new literary fiction.
Class conversations include analysis of the book as well as background information provided by Lynn about the author and the book’s path to publication. We talk serious book talk, but have a lot of laughs too!
The Spring 2022 session of HOTP includes five class meetings in which we will be reading new books by favorite authors, debut authors, and prize winning fiction.
CLASS DATES/TIME:
Class meets virtually via Zoom on Tuesday evenings from 7pm EST to 8:30pm EST on:
February 22
March 22
April 19
May 17
June 14
CLASS COST & LOGISTICS:
LOCATION: via Zoom; link to be provided to participants.
COST: $200
Books are not included in the cost.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Special Offer: If you’re new to the program and want to try out a class, contact lynn@lynnrosen.com and we’ll arrange that for you.
CLASS READING SCHEDULE:
February 22
The Promise by Damon Galgut
Winner of the 2021 Booker Prize
A modern family saga from South Africa. Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country—an atmosphere of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history.
March 22
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
Winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction
In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and urgent: since Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
As these characters’ stories build and build and converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America.
April 19
Selection to be announced.
May 17
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a “sibling novel” to her Pulitzer Prize- and NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad—an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private.
The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. It’s 2010. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious”—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.
In spellbinding interlocking narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades.
June 14
Selection to be announced.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Hot Off the Press Fall 2021
Join the new session, launching September 21, 2021!
If you love a book conversation that’s lively and engaging, where we talk about the book thoroughly and thoughtfully, then this class is for you. Led by long-time teacher and publishing professional Lynn Rosen, this class tackles brand new literary fiction.
Class conversations include analysis of the book as well as background information provided by Lynn about the author and the book’s path to publication. We talk serious book talk, but have a lot of laughs too!
The 2021 session of HOTP includes five class meetings in which we will be reading some new books by authors some of whose past works we’ve enjoyed and which have won great acclaim.
CLASS DATES/TIME:
Class meets virtually via Zoom on Tuesday evenings from 7pm EST to 8:30pm EST on:
September 21
October 19
November 16
December 14
January 11
CLASS COST & LOGISTICS:
LOCATION: via Zoom; link to be provided to participants.
COST: $200
Books are not included in the cost.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Special Offer: If you’re new to the program and want to try out a class or two, contact lynn@lynnrosen.com and we’ll arrange that for you.
CLASS READING SCHEDULE:
September 21
Wayward by Dana Spiotta
An engrossing, interior mother-daughter story that expands into a sharp social commentary. — Kirkus Reviews
It’s time for us to discover a new writer, the highly regarded Dana Spiotta. The New York Times calls her work “quietly subversive.” In her newest book, Wayward, she tells the story of a mother and daughter, Sam and Ally, both of whom who are pivotal moments in their lives. As the book opens, Sam decides to buy a house, which she then realizes means that she has decided to leave her husband. The ramifications follow as we watch the characters muddle through midlife and early life crises. In the course of the book, we’ll take deep looks at social media, politics, and the many other things about which Spiotta’s characters are passionate. This book is sure to inspire throughtful discussion about a range of topics, all of which feel close and important to Spiotta’s readers.
October 19
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Time, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vulture, The Guardian, and more.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie’s vision be bulwark enough?
Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
November 16
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory, a powerful new book that asks an essential question: What are we doing to our children? They are our hope for the future, yet we seem to be leaving it up to them to figure out how we all survive.
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend’s face with a metal thermos.
What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, even while fostering his son’s desperate campaign to help save this one.
December 14
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki created an unforgettable world in her earlier book, A Tale for the Time Being (what’s your supapowa?), and she returns with more magic.
One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn’t understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world.
With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki—bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.
January 11
Selection to be announced.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Hot Off the Press Winter/Spring 2021
Our Hot Off the Press book discussion class is celebrating its tenth year!
Join the new 2021 session, launching January 13th!
If you love a book conversation that’s lively and engaging, where we talk about the book thoroughly and thoughtfully, then this class is for you. Led by long-time teacher and publishing professional Lynn Rosen, this class tackles brand new literary fiction.
Class conversations include analysis of the book as well as background information provided by Lynn about the author and the book’s path to publication. We talk serious book talk, but have a lot of laughs too!
The 2021 session of HOTP includes five class meetings in which we will be reading some recent award winning new books.
CLASS DATES/TIME:
Class meets virtually via Zoom on Wednesday evenings from 7pm EST to 8:30pm EST on:
January 13
February 10
March 10
April 7
May 5
CLASS COST & LOGISTICS:
LOCATION: via Zoom; link to be provided to participants.
COST: $165
Books are not included in the cost.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Special Offer: If you’re new to the program and want to try out a class or two, contact lynn@lynnrosen.com and we’ll arrange that for you.
CLASS READING SCHEDULE:
January 13
Shugie Bain by Douglas Stuart
WINNER OF THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE
Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love,
February 10
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
One of the New York Times‘ Ten Best Books of the YearPulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet’s new novel follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group’s ringleaders—including Eve, who narrates the story—decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
March 10
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year
A bold feat of imagination and empathy, this novel gives flesh and feeling to a historical mystery: how the death of Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596, may have shaped his play “Hamlet,” written a few years later. A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time.
April 7
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
A powerful masterwork from one of Japan’s most brilliant outsider writers, Tokyo Ueno Station is a book for our times and a look into a marginalized existence in a shiny global megapolis. This book won the National Book Award for literature in translation. This deft translation is a welcome and necessary addition to the translated Japanese canon, which unfolds in the memories of a deceased narrator occupying the eponymous train station. The book is an observation of Japan at the gateway of its capital, at multiple thresholds of shifting eras, told in the bardo of a mourning father and compatriot, reciting his surroundings and circumstances as if a prayer, a mantra.
May 5
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.
Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to register. Payment can be made by check or Venmo.
Get Lit with Lynn
A bi-weekly conversation about books and publishing from @lynnreadsabook
Free!
Meeting dates (program begins at 7pm):
May 10
May 24
June 7
July 21
Location: Barnes & Noble, 4209 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE 19803
Join bookseller and publishing industry professional Lynn Rosen for Get Lit with Lynn for a conversation about literary and publishing news. Tuesday is the day that publishers release new titles, and Lynn will highlight notable new books. She’ll share publishing and bookselling news and trends, and engage attendees in discussions about their recent reading and literary likes and dislikes.
Lynn is the store manager at Barnes & Noble in Wilmington, Delaware. Throughout her publishing career, she has been an editor, a literary agent, a professor of publishing, and an author. For a complete bio, click HERE.
You can also read Lynn’s book blog on this website, follow her on Instagram and Facebook @lynnreadsabook, and watch Lynn’s video book reviews on her Lynn Reads a Book YouTube channel. Watch and subscribe HERE.
How to Join Get Lit with Lynn
Attendance is free. Regular attendance is not required – join us when your schedule permits. And bring friends!
Want to join via Zoom? Email lynn@lynnrosen.com to sign up and get the Zoom link.
Hot Off the Press Summer 2020
Join a special three-class summer session of Hot Off the Press!
In this lively monthly book discussion class led by Lynn Rosen, participants read and discuss new literary fiction. Class conversations include a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the book as well as background information provided by Lynn about the author and the book’s path to publication. We talk serious book talk, but have a lot of laughs too!
CLASS DATES/TIME:
Class meets virtually on Wednesday evenings from 7pm EST to 8:30pm EST on:
July 15
August 12
September 9
LOCATION: via Zoom
Sign up HERE.
CLASS READING SCHEDULE:
July 15
Red At The Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
A spectacular novel that only this legend can pull off.” -Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, in The Atlantic
“An exquisite tale of family legacy….The power and poetry of Woodson’s writing conjures up Toni Morrison.” – People
An unexpected teenage pregnancy pulls together two families from different social classes, and exposes the private hopes, disappointments, and longings that can bind or divide us from each other, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming.
Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.
Note: Hot Off the Press typically features brand new fiction. Our original selection was The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (an author whose earlier work, The Mothers, we read in this class when it first came out). However, the publisher is out of stock of the book, so I made a last minute change. Although Woodson’s book is no longer brand-new, it’s a powerful read from an important writer.
August 12
Some Go Home by Odie Lindsey Norton
“… incandescent debut novel… This is a consummate portrait of human fragility and grim determination.” — Publishers Weekly
An Iraq war veteran turned small town homemaker, Colleen works hard to keep her deployment behind her—until pregnancy brings her buried trauma to the surface. She hides her mounting anxiety from her husband, Derby, who is in turn preoccupied with the media frenzy surrounding the long-overdue retrial of his father, Hare Hobbs, for a civil rights–era murder.
September 9
Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
“McCorkle weaves a powerful narrative web, with empathy for her characters and keen insight on their motivations. This is a gem. ” — Publishers Weekly
Lil and Frank married young, launched into courtship when they bonded over how they both—suddenly, tragically— lost a parent when they were children. Over time, their marriage grew and strengthened, with each still wishing for so much more understanding of the parents they’d lost prematurely. In her deeply layered and masterful novel, Jill McCorkle deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be a father or a mother, and what it means to be a child piecing together the world around us, a child learning to make sense of the hieroglyphics of history and memory.
COST: $100
Sign up HERE.
BUY THE BOOKS:
Books are not included in the cost. A special discounted package of the books is available for $75 for all three books, tax inclusive, and can be purchased by class members at a discount from Open Book Productions.
Buy the books HERE.
Note: if you can’t take the class but still want to purchase the book package, we can accomodate that. Just make your purchase through the link above!