Book Group | Steve Masover

News

Our most recent meeting was held on 1 February 2025, at Ron’s.

At our next meeting we’ll discuss Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar. “Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed. Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.” [Goodreads]

History

#	Date	Where	Book	Author
(-)	9/8/98	Beth’s	(preliminary discussion…)	n/a
1	10/20/98	Ron & Avi’s	Paradise	Toni Morisson
2	11/17/98	Steve’s	I Married a Communist	Philip Roth
3	12/15/98	Margaret’s	Balthasaar and Blimunda	Jose Saramago
4	1/26/99	Susan’s	The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver
5	3/2/99	Beth’s	The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle	Haruki Murakami
6	4/5/99	Joanie’s	The Farming of Bones	Edwidge Danticat
7	5/11/99	Ron & Avi’s	The Short History of a Prince	Jane Hamilton
8	6/22/99	Steve’s	Mistress of Spices	Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
9	7/27/99	Susan’s	Another Country	James Baldwin
10	8/30/99	Margaret’s	The Reader	Bernhard Schlink
11	10/4/99	Joanie’s	King Leopold’s Ghost	Adam Hochschild
12	11/9/99	Beth’s	A Light in August	William Faulkner
13	1/11/00	Ron & Avi’s	An Instance of the Fingerpost	Iain Pears
14	3/6/00	Steve’s	Regeneration	Pat Barker
15	4/11/00	Susan’s	Disgrace	J.M. Coetzee
16	5/25/00	Joanie’s	And The Rain My Drink	Han Suyin
17	6/27/00	Beth’s	The White Hotel	D.M. Thomas
18	8/15/00	Ron & Avi’s	A Gesture Life	Chang-rae Lee
19	9/19/00	Margaret’s	My Year of Meats	Ruth Ozeki
20	10/22/00	Steve’s	Mama Day	Gloria Naylor
21	12/5/00	Susan’s	Ali and Nino	Kurban Said
22	2/13/01	Dashka’s	I Know This Much Is True	Wally Lamb
23	3/13/01	Beth’s	Caucasia	Danzy Senna
24	4/17/01	Ron & Avi’s	Prodigal Summer	Barbara Kingsolver
25	6/5/01	Susan’s	Kavalier & Clay	Michael Chabon
26	7/17/01	Joanie’s	Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck
27	9/13/01	Margaret’s	The Hours	Michael Cunningham
28	10/30/01	Steve’s	The Bee Season	Myla Goldberg
29	12/11/01	Beth’s	Corelli’s Mandolin	Louis de Bernières
30	01/13/02	Desiree’s	The Intuitionist	Colson Whitehead
31	02/26/02	Leslie’s	The Archivist	Martha Cooley
32	04/02/02	Susan’s	Fugitive Pieces	Anne Michaels
33	05/07/02	Ron & Avi’s	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley
34	6/25/02	Margaret’s	Bel Canto	Ann Patchett
35	8/27/02	Steve’s	Girl with a Pearl Earring	Tracy Chevalier
36	9/30/02	Desiree’s	Austerlitz	W.G. Sebald
37	11/14/02	Margaret’s	The Death of Vishnu	Manil Suri
38	01/12/03	Beth’s	When We Were Orphans	Kazuo Ishiguro
39	03/04/03	Leslie’s	Dead Souls	Gogol
40	04/06/03	Susan’s	The Heart is a Lonely Hunter	Carson McCullers
41	05/31/03	Nancy’s	Atonement	Ian McEwan
42	07/19/03	Steve’s	Scoop	Evelyn Waugh
43	09/21/03	Desiree’s	The Last Gentleman	Walker Percy
44	11/11/03	Leslie’s	Middlesex	Jeffery Eugenides
45	01/25/04	Nancy’s	Huck Finn	Mark Twain
46	03/09/04	Susan’s	Dark Star	Alan Furst
47	05/02/04	Steve’s	Children of the Alley	Naguib Mahfouz
48	07/20/04	Margaret’s	Norwegian Wood	Haruki Murakami
(-)	n/a	(cancelled)	Shipping News	E Annie Prolux
(-)	05/01/05	Desiree’s	(revival discussion)	n/a
49	07/26/05	Margaret’s	Kafka on the Shore	Haruki Murakami
50	11/05/2005	Leslie’s	Snow	Orhan Pamuk
51	01/07/2006	Nancy’s	Shah of Shahs In the Walled Garden	Ryszard Kapuscinski Anahita Firouz
52	03/11/2006	Susan’s	Seven Pillars of Wisdom	T. E. Lawrence
53	06/10/2006	Joanie’s	Saturday	Ian McEwan
54	08/13/2006	Steve’s	Birds Without Wings	Louis De Bernieres
55	11/12/2006	Leslie’s	The Radetsky March	Joseph Roth
56	01/21/2007	Susan’s	The Road	Cormac McCarthy
57	03/18/2007	Margaret’s	The Company You Keep	Neil Gordon
58	05/06/2007	Desiree’s	Suite Francaise	Irene Nemirovsky
59	07/14/2007	Nancy’s Picnic	A Prayer for Owen Meany	John Irving
60	09/30/2007	Steve & Matt’s	Jude the Obscure	Thomas Hardy
61	12/02/2007	Leslie’s	Giraffe	J.M. Ledgard
62	02/03/2008	Susan’s	She Came to Stay	Simone de Beauvoir
63	03/29/2008	Nancy’s	Life Class	Pat Barker
64	05/11/2008	Steve & Matt’s	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad
65	08/09/2008	Leslie’s – Inverness	Mephisto	Klaus Mann
66	10/01/2008	Desiree’s	Midnight’s Children	Salman Rushdie
67	12/03/2008	Nancy’s	The Echo Maker	Richard Powers
68	02/24/2009	Susan’s	The Rings of Saturn	W. G. Sebald
69	05/12/2009	Steve & Matt’s	Falling Man	Don DeLillo
70	07/14/2009	Nancy’s office	The Confessions of Noa Weber	Gail Hareven
71	09/26/2009	Susan’s	The Discovery of Heaven	Harry Mulisch
72	11/21/2009	Desiree’s	The City and The City	China Mieville
73	01/13/2010	Leslie’s	Out Stealing Horses	Per Petterson
74	02/22/2010	Patrick’s	Gilead	Marilynne Robinson
75	05/02/2010	Steve & Matt’s	Birdsong	Sebastian Faulks
76	07/6/2010	Nancy’s	The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Milan Kundera
77	08/25/2010	Susan’s	Moon Tiger	Penelope Lively
78	10/25/2010	Leslie’s	Istanbul: Memories of a City	Orhan Pamuk
79	12/13/2010	Patrick’s	Crossing to Safety	Wallace Stegner
80	02/06/2011	Desiree’s	The Hungry Tide	Amitav Ghosh
81	03/20/2011	Beth’s	Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell
82	05/15/2011	Steve & Matt’s	The History of Love	Nicole Krauss
83	06/25/2011	Leslie’s	Ransom	David Malouf
84	09/18/2011	Nancy’s	Growth of the Soil	Knut Hamsun
85	11/09/2011	Susan’s	The Reluctant Fundamentalist	Moshin Hamid
86	01/08/2012	Patrick’s	The Wasp Factory	Iain Banks
87	03/04/2012	Desiree’s	City	Clifford D. Simak
88	05/06/2012	Amy’s	State of Wonder	Ann Patchett
89	07/29/2012	Steve & Matt’s	The Sea, The Sea	Iris Murdoch
90	09/16/2012	Beth’s	I Curse the River of Time	Per Petterson
91	11/01/2012	Leslie’s	The Marriage Plot	Jeffrey Eugenides
92	01/13/2013	Desiree’s	Home	Marilynne Robinson
93	03/10/2013	Amy’s	The Orphan Master’s Son	Adam Johnson
94	05/05/2013	Steve & Matt’s	Brooklyn	Colm Tóibín
95	10/06/2013	Beth’s	Open City	Teju Cole
96	11/17/2013	Leslie’s	The Light Between Oceans	M.L. Stedman
97	01/14/2014	Desiree’s	The Known World	Edward P. Jones
98	03/30/2014	Steve and Matthew’s	Tenth of December	George Saunders
99	06/08/2014	Patrick’s	The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov
100	09/14/2014	Beth’s	The Orchardist	Amanda Coplin
101	11/23/2014	Desiree’s	The Lowland	Jhumpa Lahiri
102	03/01/2015	Margaret’s	The Flamethrowers	Rachel Kushner
103	05/06/2015	Steve and Matthew’s	All the Light We Cannot See	Anthony Doerr
104	08/02/2015	Patrick’s	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Anthony Marra
105	09/27/2015	Beth’s	The Bone Clocks	David Mitchell
106	01/24/2016	Desiree’s	In the Light of What We Know	Zia Haider Rahman
107	04/17/2016	Leslie’s	The Signature of All Things	Elizabeth Gilbert
108	07/31/2016	Steve and Matthew’s	The Time of Our Singing	Richard Powers
109	10/02/2016	Patrick’s	Lila	Marilynne Robinson
110	12/18/2016	Beth’s	The Question of Bruno	Aleksander Hemon
111	03/19/2017	Margaret’s	Americanah	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
112	05/13/2017	Leslie’s	A Mercy	Toni Morrison
113	09/10/2017	Desiree’s	The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian	Sherman Alexie
114	12/03/2017	Steve and Matthew’s	Exit West	Moshin Hamid
115	02/11/2018	Patrick’s	The Great Glass Sea	Josh Weil
116	04/08/2018	Leslie’s	Lives of the Monster Dogs	Kirsten Bakis
117	06/03/2018	Desiree’s	Heretics	Leonardo Padura
118	09/22/2018	Beth’s	Swing Time	Zadie Smith
119	11/11/2018	Margaret’s	The Immortalists	Chloe Benjamin
120	02/03/2019	Steve & Matthew’s	Insurrecto	Gina Apostol
121	04/14/2019	Patrick’s	We Area All Completely Beside Ourselves	Karen Joy Fowler
122	09/28/2019	Leslie’s	Washington Black	Esi Edugyan
123	11/03/2019	Desiree’s	Go, Went, Gone	Jenny Erpenback
124	02/09/2020	Beth’s	The Overstory	Richard Powers
125	04/25/2020	Zoom (in lieu of Leah’s)	The Topeka School	Ben Lerner
126	06/07/2020	Zoom	Zone One	Colson Whitehead
127	08/15/2020	Zoom	Abagail	Magda Szabó
128	10/17/2020	Zoom	The Invisible Mountain	Carolina De Robertis
129	11/22/2020	Zoom	Signs Preceding the End of the World	Yuri Herrera
130	01/30/2021	Zoom	Warlight	Michael Ondaatje
131	03/13/2021	Zoom	News of the World	Paulette Jiles
132	05/15/2021	Zoom	All that is Solid Melts Into Air	Darragh McKeon
133	06/26/2021	Margaret’s (!)	The Mars Room	Rachel Kushner
134	08/15/2021	Patrick’s	The City We Became	N. K. Jemisin
135	10/16/2021	Desiree’s	The Eight Mountains	Paolo Cognetti
136	01/30/2022	Zoom	The Book of Form and Emptiness	Ruth Ozeki
137	04/24/2022	Patrick’s	Transit	Anna Seghers
138	08/14/2022	Leah’s	Klara and the Sun	Kazuo Ishiguro
139	10/23/2022	Ron’s	Arcadia	Lauren Groff
140	01/29/2023	Margaret’s	Bewilderment	Richard Powers
141	03/25/2023	Beth’s	The Sentence	Louise Erdrich
142	05/28/2023	Patrick’s	The Lazarus Project	Aleksandar Hemon
143	09/10/2023	Margaret’s	Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver
144	11/12/2023	Desiree’s	Moonglow	Michael Chabon
145	01/14/2024	Ron’s	The Song of the Cell…	Siddhartha Mukherjee
146	05/11/2024	Beth’s	Apeirogon	Colum McCann
147	09/29/2024	Leah’s	The End of Days	Jenny Erpenbeck
148	11/03/2024	Desiree’s	James	Percival Everett
149	02/01/2025	Ron’s	North Woods	Daniel Mason