Sunday, January 24, 2021

Book Club Update

Our group is small, but hanging in there. We picked Machievelli's The Prince for our first selection. It has turned out to be a fascinating springboard for discussing current events (which do come into our meetings, as well).

The virtual framework has worked fairly well (although I have not been able to get Zoom working with my headphones for some idiot reason - they work fine with other apps). It's nice to know that we were able to manage the meetings, despite the issues of distance and isolation.

And, the opportunity to meet, socialize, and network is a wonderful secondary aspect to this activity. We've gotten to know each other fairly well, in this limited time and framework.

One thing we discovered is how important knowing about the politics and culture of the time is for these older books. Fortunately, we all have different areas of knowledge, and have been able to share that with each other, which has made this a rewarding experience.

We're currently about 1/4 of the way through the book; we'd have made more progress, but we decided to take the holidays off. We should finish by Easter.

1 comment:

John in Indy said...

The culture and politics of the time and place of both the author and the scene of the writing are vital to understanding the work.
That is why I think that the Progressives' elimination of history is so evil.
John in Indy