Existentialism

[close] This a book club for anybody interested in reading existentialist literature and fiction. Every month I'll be putting up a new text either by an existentialist author or containing existentialist themes. I encourage you to read the text along with other people and engage in a discussion at the end of each month, however feel free to use the group to discover existentialist literature at your leisure. MONTHLY READS ARE AS FOLLOWS: May - The Boxer and the Goalkeeper by Andrew Martin June – The Rebel by Albert Camus July – The Awakening by Kate Chopin Aug/Sep/Oct - Being and Nothingness by JP Sartre November – The Nose by Nikolai Gogol December - Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville I am by no means an expert in existentialism and welcome contributors and suggestions for upcoming reads. This group is not just for those well-read in the area but for people like myself who are open to discovering it.

[close] In here we analyze literature and cinema from an existential and psychoanalytic perspective.

[close] A book club for visionary ladies who like to read and broaden their thinking.

[close] The rarest of rare, a book that makes you aware that reality is gossamer. A story that bears down on your moorings like an existential 18-wheeler with a thick-gauge bullbar. One that degloves your sense of security like that semi degloves a deer. Most often found in the horror genre. I like to call it a 'sense of cosmic dread'. It can be found in any genre, but it almost certainly invites a perception within the reader of the supernatural or the inexplicable. Fears about social games are scary indeed but not the object of this group's search. This group is searching for those rarest types of stories. It is typically only a few moments within a novel or short that offers this unsettling, eerie, spooky experience. For me: Stephen King The Shining - topiary scene IT - several moments; best I've found so far The Mist The short story about the oil patch on the lake (I think?) Crichton - Sphere House of Leaves VanderMeer's Area X trilogy Most of Lovecraft's stories Algernon Blackwood's Willows and Wendigo William Sloane's The Rim of Morning etc. What is perhaps more helpful is what *doesn't* unsettle. Let's not waste time with that--it's quite fine to be blunt and highly-selective in here. King wrote many good books that never rose to the level of 'Actually Unsettled Me'.