This book club NOW meets one WEDNESDAY each month to talk books, socialize, and kick back with a cold one. Meetings take place at Arbor Brewing Plymouth Taproom located at 777 W. Ann Arbor Trail Plymouth, MI 48170 in Downtown Plymouth.
Books for the current month’s selection may be obtained from the Reader’s Advisory desk on the main level of the Library. New members are always welcome!
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Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer
257 pages, Hardcover
Published April 25, 2023 by Knopf
In this unflinching, deeply personal book, Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss?
She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other?
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
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