Who’s ready to exchange ideas? Connect with other members through discussion groups that foster conversations about literature, history, culture, art, and every topic under the sun. You must be a member to join any of the discussion groups.
To join a discussion group or suggest starting your own, contact Reader Services at (617) 227-0270 or discussion@bostonathenaeum.org.
Groups can meet remotely, in person, or through a hybrid solution. Please check the group listings for specifics. This information is subject to change and will be updated as needed.
The Art & Artists Group will meet on Second Mondays from 6:00 to 7:30 pm in a hybrid format, beginning in January 2024.
When you look at art do you want to know more about the painting, the artist, the period? Do you enjoy reading books about the art world, about famous artists’ lives, about art thievery, about art around the world? If so, this group may be for you!
This group will launch in January 2024!
Meeting Dates
Jan. 8
Feb. 12
Mar. 11
Apr. 8
May 13
The Based On The Book discussion group meets the fourth Tuesday of every month from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
Each month this group discusses a book of fiction and a movie based on the book. Each discussion is moderated by one of the group members. The book and movie pairs are selected by the discussion group. Some examples of book and movie pairs are Jane Austen Emma (1815) and the 1995 movie Clueless with Alicia Silverstone; Pierre Boulle, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1952) and the 1957 movie with Alec Guinness; Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (1976) and the 1992 movie with Brad Pitt; Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969) and the 1972 movie with Marlon Brando; Ian Fleming, Casino Royale (1953) and the 2006 movie with Daniel Craig; Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001) and the 2007 movie with Keira Knightley.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
What We’re Reading
The Civil War Discussion Group meets the fourth Wednesday of every month at 6:00 p.m. as a remote only group.
The group meets to discuss themes of the war broadly, such as leadership, battles, military matters, civilian and home front people and events, slavery, and pre-war and post-war politics. Come and enjoy a group that welcomes new members. Everybody learns something every time: a group of members, by the members, for the members.
What We’re Reading
The Ancient Greco-Roman Classical Literature Reading Group (“Classics”) will meet the second Tuesday of every month from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
The group will focus on Greek and Roman Literature in Translation and the Classical Tradition. Greco-Roman Literature encompasses epic poetry, love elegiacs, odes, dramatic works, historical narratives, etc.
Participants must sign up in advance for the year. There is an annual fee of $100.
What We’re Reading
The Dickens discussion group will meet the first Thursday of every month from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
Taking its keynote from the memorable Nabokov introduction in which he announced, ‘We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to embrace Dickens. We are now ready to bask in Dickens,’ the group seeks to create a welcoming literary space where members may tackle, embrace, and bask in Dickens for years to come.
The group is open to all levels of experience and interest in Dickens, from those who have never had the pleasure of meeting him at all, to those who had a brief acquaintance with him in school, to those many for whom he has become an old and very dear friend.
What We’re Reading
The Drama discussion group will meet the first Wednesday of every month from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This group meets in person. No background familiarity with dramatic works is required to partake.
Each meeting we will read a play aloud, rotating parts among participants and pausing between scenes to discuss what we have read. Some plays may require more than one session to complete. A group member serves as “play leader” and pre-circulates any background readings and the expected scenes to be read. Everyone has a chance to read, although anyone who would prefer not to is free to pass. Discussions are guided by the play leader and group moderator.
To get us started, the moderator has chosen the initial set of plays. Future plays will be chosen collectively by the members of the discussion group.
Prior to beginning our first play we will read the story of Pygmalion, as published in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. We will then explore how themes of the Pygmalion story have been treated over the centuries by various English-speaking playwrights, in the following plays:
Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw (1913)
The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare (1610/11)
Educating Rita, by Willy Russell (1980)
Meeting Dates:
The Fiction Discussion Group meets on the first Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely. Titles are suggested by members and then chosen to obtain a variety of authors, publication dates, themes, and lengths.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
What We’re Reading
The James Joyce Discussion Group will meet the second Thursday of every month from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. remote only.
James Joyce wrote criticism and essays but is best known for his modernist works of fiction, which have a reputation for being difficult reads. A group recently completed a year-and-a half-long project to read and discuss Ulysses. We think we know many readers who are up to another challenge!
This group is starting with Dubliners and decides what they are reading from month to month.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
What We’re Reading
This thriving, 25-year old discussion group meets at 6:00 p.m. on the third Monday of each month to discuss works of literature selected by the group, from the ancient classics to contemporary best sellers. Members take turns leading the discussions and engage in active e-mail correspondence about the book currently being read. Our Literary Conversations continue at a local restaurant following the meeting, and all members are invited. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
What We’re Reading:
Oct. 16: Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Nov. 20: Jung Chang, Wild Swans
Dec. 18: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
Jan. 15: Italo Svevo, Zeno’s Conscience
Feb. 19: Thomas Mann, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man
Mar. 18: Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
Apr. 16 (N.B. this is the third Tuesday): Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
May 20: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Jun. 17: Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Join Waitlist Now!The Mathematics, Technology & Society discussion group will meet the first Saturday of every month from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and will consider mathematics and technology topics from historical and social perspectives. This group is remote only.
Participation is encouraged by anyone interested in the history and impact of technology — no mathematics or computing expertise is required. Each meeting will focus on a different topic and background reading.
What We’re Reading
Unless otherwise specified, the Mystery Discussion Group meets the last Monday of the month at 5:30 p.m. This group meets hybrid. Titles are democratically selected and range from popular thrillers to quiet country investigations to literary prizewinners with a mystery element.
What We’re Reading
The New England Seminar meets on the first Monday of the month at 6:00 p.m. This group is remote only. The Group reads fiction and non-fiction written about Boston and New England. Past selections include Santayana’s The Last Puritan, Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, Dorothy West’s The Living Is Easy, William Dean Howells’, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Collected Short Stories.
What We’re Reading
The Philosophy Group meets on the third Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m. unless otherwise specified. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
This discussion group is for people who wish to step back from their daily routines and take some time to examine the whys and hows in life. We will cast a wide net, from the Classics to current politics, and participants will be invited to suggest authors and topics of interest.
What We’re Reading
The Poetry Study Group meets from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely. . A selection of poems will be distributed prior to each meeting.
What We’re Reading
Oct. 18: Edgar Allan Poe
Nov. 15: Poems by Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson, set to music by Bruno Faria
Dec. 20: Patrick Kavanagh
Jan. 17: Jane Hirshfield
Feb. 21: John Milton’s shorter poems
Mar. 20: Octavio Paz
Apr. 17: Conrad Aiken
May 15: Hart Crane
Jun. 18 (N.B. this is the Third Tuesday): Alexander Pushkin
Join Now!Boston Athenæum members who are already Proust enthusiasts, and those who are aficionados-in-the-making, are invited to join The Proust Reading Group. Meetings generally take place on the last Tuesday afternoon of each month, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
In September 2023, we will review The Fugitive and then begin Time Regained. Listed below are the pages in both the Modern Library translation and in the Yale University Press translation. The Yale edition of Time Regained has not yet been published.
The Modern Library Edition for The Fugitive is volume 5 of the series, and Time Regained is volume 6. The text is translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, and revised by D. J. Enright.
The group is led by Proust scholar Dr. Hollie Markland Harder, who is the director of language programs and Associate Professor of French at Brandeis University. Her work on Proust includes articles on Françoise’s cooking (“Proust’s Novel Confections: Françoise’s Cooking and Marcel’s Book,” which appeared in Modern Language Studies) and the function of humor in Proust’s novel (“Proust’s Human Comedy,” published in The Cambridge Companion to Proust).
Participants must sign up in advance for the year. There is a fee of $100 per year. Anyone interested should contact the Circulation Desk at (617) 227-0270 x279 or email harder@brandeis.edu.
What We’re Reading
Join Now!
Boston Athenæum members who are already Proust enthusiasts, and those who are aficionados-in-the-making, are invited to join The Proust Selected Studies Group. The group typically meets the second Tuesday of some months, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
The group is led by Proust scholar Dr. Hollie Markland Harder, who is the director of language programs and Associate Professor of French at Brandeis University. Her work on Proust includes articles on Françoise’s cooking (“Proust’s Novel Confections: Françoise’s Cooking and Marcel’s Book,” which appeared in Modern Language Studies) and the function of humor in Proust’s novel (“Proust’s Human Comedy,” published in The Cambridge Companion to Proust).
Participants must sign up in advance for the year. There is a fee of $100 per year. Anyone interested should contact the Circulation Desk at (617) 227-0270 x279 or email harder@brandeis.edu.
This group is on hiatus for the current 2022/2023 season but will likely return for the 2023/2024 season.
Join Now!Reading Recap is a new series of occasional discussion groups offered in connection to Athenæum events, anniversaries, etc. No need to make a long-term commitment! Choose which topics suit you and your schedule.
The happenings will be listed here, on the Events calendar, and announced in our newsletter. We will meet in different spaces, depending on the subject.
These are free to members, but registration is required in order to prepare.
Have suggestions? Please let us know: warnement@bostonathenaeum.org.
Reading Recap: Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life
April 4, 2023 at 6:00 p.m.
Join us Tuesday, April 4, at 6pm in the Gordon Room to discuss Lydia Moland’s biography Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life. As part of our Salon Series, Ms. Moland spoke March 20 about her compelling biography of Lydia Maria Child, one of nineteenth-century America’s most courageous abolitionists.
Whether you were able to attend the author’s talk or not, now you’ve had a chance to read the book, come and discuss the subject in greater depth with your Athenæum community.
Keep an eye on the Program calendar to register!
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In-person Event: The Boston Globe’s 150th anniversary
March 10, 2022, 6:00–7:30 p.m.
The Boston Globe first appeared in print on March 4, 1872 at a cost of 4 cents. Join us in the Gordon Newspaper Reading Room at 6 pm for a conversation moderated by Dan Breen about its history, impact on Boston, and what it means to you. Francis Storrs, editor of the Globe Magazine, will be on hand to offer insights, or should we say the Globe’s two cents!
Send Suggestions Now!All fiction presents imagined people, places, and plots. Science fiction imagines broader realms than we experience day-to-day. Come every fourth Saturday at 2 pm to explore those worlds and how they touch upon our encounters.
This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
What We’re Reading
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Group meets on Second Saturdays from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m, in-person only.
This is a hands-on writers group for seriously invested speculative fiction writers of science fiction, fantasy, or horror. The group is meant to support the writing of novels, providing feedback and brainstorming writing techniques.
Meeting Dates
Nov. 11
Dec. 9
Jan. 13
Feb. 10
Mar. 9
Apr. 13
May 11
The Scrabble Group meets semi-monthly, on the First and Third Wednesdays of the month from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., for a friendly game of Scrabble. Due to the nature of this group, they only meet in-person.
Game Dates
Sep. 6
Sep. 20
Oct. 4
Oct. 18
Nov. 1
Nov. 15
Dec. 6
Dec. 20
Join Now!The Shakespeare Discussion Group meets the second Wednesday of the month at 6:00 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
Every year we select a range of plays, each of which is read over two months. A play leader pre-circulates background readings, talking points, and questions, as well as the scenes to be read in plenary. Everyone has a chance to read, although anyone who would prefer not to is free to pass. Reading aloud helps to take us off the page and breathes life into the words themselves. Discussions are guided by the play leader and group moderator and generally flow organically.
There is no requirement of familiarity with Shakespeare’s works in order to join our discussions. We recommend the Arden edition if you are acquiring a new text.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
What We’re Reading
Short & Sweet meets remote only the fourth Thursday (with exceptions noted below) of each month at 6:00 p.m.
“If I had more time, this would be shorter.” Just because something is a quick read does not mean it can be easily appreciated.
During the stay-at-home advisory, we initiated a new weekly discussion group, Short & Sweet, to connect via videoconference with readers while respecting social distancing. Now that we move toward a “new normal,” we’ll plan to meet once a month, on the fourth Thursday of the month when possible, via videoconference for the foreseeable future.
What We’re Reading
The Thought for Food group meets on the Fourth Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. Because the group may opt to enjoy a meal or drinks outside Athenæum grounds after the meeting is over, meetings will only be in-person so that all attendees have the option of the full communal experience.
Literature for Thought for Food could include both modern and historical literature and recipes based on the members’ current interests. We plan to focus on not just current food science and literature but also on historical recipes and literature and their impact on the food we eat today. Our discussions will involve a topic of the group’s choosing with each member choosing material that relates to the topic and sharing it with the group.
What We’re Reading
Aug. 24: Pairings: when good things come together
Sep. 28: Modern Consumer Appliances: Any invention that has modernized the kitchen such as the microwave or fridge
Oct. 26: Candy
No November meeting. Happy Thanksgiving!
Dec. 14 (N.B. this is the second Thursday): Our holiday party. We may pick up a theme but may just keep it open ended for now and discuss in upcoming meetings.
Join Now!The Trollope Discussion Group meets the first Tuesday of every month at 6:00 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely. Over the past several years, Boston Athenæum Trollope enthusiasts have completed all of Trollope’s novels, yet many have decided to read them all over again. Sometimes the group complements their reading list with another contemporary novelist or a biography.
What We’re Reading
This discussion group was established in honor of the centenary of the August 1914 outbreak of World War I. Titles will be chosen democratically by group members. The group will meet the first Saturday of each month from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. This group meets using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely.
What We’re Reading
Oct. 7: Rupert Brooke’s 1914, and T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and The Hollow Men, and any other poems members wish to bring
Nov. 4: C. S. Forster, The General
Dec. 2: Ronald Grigor Suny, They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else
Jan. 6: Giles Foden, The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika
Feb. 3: Jonathan Wyrtzen, Worldmaking in the Long Great War: How Local and Colonial Struggles Shaped the Modern Middle East
Join Now!On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland and set the world ablaze. World War II would bring destruction, terror and death to millions. However, the world would also be a witness to incredible bravery, fortitude and brilliance. Today, we read and exchange ideas about the events, people, and strategies so we may learn from the past and be a bit wiser in our every day life.
The group meets on the third Saturday of the month at 10:30 a.m. using a hybrid solution. You can attend in person or connect remotely. Afterwards, at noon, we go to lunch and share some laughter and friendship. Please join us.
What We’re Reading
The Writers’ Workshop meets the second Saturday of every month from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. remote only.
How are things? That latest piece talking to you yet? Or perhaps you’re talking to yourself? It gets lonely in that writing corner after a while with nobody to bounce ideas off of. Maybe it’s time to come up for air, commune with other writers, and discuss the work in an informal and encouraging atmosphere. Writers of all stripes are welcome!
Each season is divided into trimesters, allowing members to join in September, January, or May, with the understanding that they will be committed to the group for the following four months. Sign-ups are on the first day of each trimester, and we will receive submissions from members in the previous group for that first meeting.
Thank you for your interest in this group! Unfortunately they are currently at capacity, but if you’d like to be contacted once space becomes available, please join our waitlist.
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