Daughters of Mary Shelley Book Club

A Monthly Book Club Discussing Speculative Fiction by Women Writers

This is our second series of yearlong celebrations of women authors and their influence: in 2021 we read and discussed works by Jane Austen and other writers who examined issues of family, male-female relationships, the institutions that enforce gender roles, and the ability of individuals to bend or break the rules of those institutions.

For our Daughters of Mary Shelley group, we started in April with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, one of the first great science fiction novels, and each month thereafter we've discussed another work of speculative fiction by a woman writer.  In addition to talking about the unique aspects of each work (the characters, the conflicts, the keys to the plot, and whatnot), we look at overarching issues such as "the Other," the making of monsters (figurative and literal), the natural and the supernatural, power, love, fear, time, myth, sex and gender.

Here's our reading schedule:

2022
April - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
May - Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
June - Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
July - The Female Man by Joanna Russ
August - Fledgling by Octavia Butler
September - The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
October - The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
November - Circe by Madeline Miller
December - The Power by Naomi Alderman

2023
January - The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
February - Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
March - The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
April - Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

The meetings are held on the third Tuesday of every month at 6pm.

If you'd like to receive announcements about Daughters of Mary Shelley, please send an email to adultservices.dcpl@dc.gov.
 

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