Short Classics Book Club Facebook Group

Tuesday, September 28^th at 4:30 p.m. | Link to Zoom Discussion Group

 

Author Bio: Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most.

 

Play Description: The tragedy is based on the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, and their punishment by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus's cousin). The god Dionysus appears at the beginning of the play and proclaims that he has arrived in Thebes to avenge the slander, which has been repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. In response, he intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, and he intends to demonstrate to the king, Pentheus, and to Thebes that he was indeed born a god. At the end of the play, Pentheus is torn apart by the women of Thebes and his mother Agave bears his head on a pike to her father Cadmus.

 

Schedule: Chapters posted Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00 a.m.

Author Bio: Barbara Kingsolver (1955-) grew up in rural Kentucky.  She was named by Writer’s Digest as one of the most important writers of the 20th century.  She has received numerous awards including the National Humanities Medal in 2000 for her service to the arts.  The Poisonwood Bible was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize.  It won the national book award for South Africa and was an Oprah Book Club selection.   Her other novels have won numerous awards including the prestigious Orange Prize in 2010 for Lacuna.  In 2011, Kingsolver won the Daytona Peace Prize for her complete works.

 

Book Description: Poisonwood Bible is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a Baptist evangelical minister who takes his family on a mission to the Congo in 1959.  This suspenseful tale is set over the course of 3 decades as it highlights the family’s tragic undoing and reconstruction.  It is set in the dramatic backdrop of the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, highlighting the difficulties of the fledgling African nation.  It is told in alternating voices of the wife, Orleanna Price and her four daughters: Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May.  Having been uprooted from their home in Georgia, the group arrives with 1950s ideals.  Each character handles this move and the events that happen to them in different ways.  The story intertwines dark humor with the possibilities of human hope.  This novel, with it’s lush prose, promises to captivate the imagination.