A novel group

Young Chang

Forget symbolism and themes and debates about a novel’s metaphors.

When members of the Newport Beach Public Library’s Manuscripts

Book Discussion Group read a book, they’ve been known to burst into

both tears and song.

It happened once during an emotional discussion of “Captain

Corelli’s Mandolin.”

Charlie Alexander read numerous passages from the text, including

one about Italian soldiers in the early stages of World War II being

taken away on flatbed trucks to get killed by Germans.

Sara Barnicle, a librarian who was also moderating the session,

meanwhile played a tape of an aria from “Madame Butterfly,” which is

what the soldiers in the scene hum on the way to their deaths.

“The whole place was in tears,” Alexander said. “Isn’t that

lovely?”

It is this sort of communal reading experience, one that

transcends habits learned in the halls of academia, that keeps

members of the Manuscripts group coming back.

“It gives us a chance to savor the style of the words of the

various authors,” said Ruth Poole, a longtime member and Newport

Beach resident. “Certainly one can savor alone too, but it’s like

anything else we do in life -- when we share it, it simply adds to

the enjoyment and we get insights we may not have seen or thought

about.”

This year’s Manuscript series, which will begin Sept. 11 with a

discussion of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” includes 12

books to be read and talked about over 11 months. A small committee

of voracious readers decides on the titles after talking about books

they’ve read, heard about or heard that other groups are doing.

The reading group includes about 35 people who share the bond of

being “passionated about literature and reading,” said Tracy Keys,

executive director of the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation.

“The Grapes of Wrath” coincides with a nationwide celebration of

the Steinbeck Centennial, which the Newport Beach library is

observing also with a photo exhibit that will open Sept. 15 called

“Steinbeck, His Life and Times.”

“It’s politically not Newport’s ticket,” Alexander said. It’s

about “the poor and disenfranchised, in a community that is neither

poor nor disenfranchised.... A book like “Grapes of Wrath” makes you

think of people who have no options. And we -- God, we can’t

imagine-- and the only way we will know is through reading.”

Edward W. Said’s “Out of Place,” a memoir about living in

Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, is October’s book. Alice Sebold’s “The

Lovely Bones,” a fictional novel about a girl who was raped and

killed, follows in November.

“I was totally blown away by the beauty of this writing and the

importance of the writing,” said Alexander, who said “Bones” is the

rare hardcover bestseller to get discussed in the book. “Because it’s

fiction, even though one is emotionally involved, the writing is a

little further away. [Sebold] says absolutely beautiful things ...

some of the prose actually becomes poetry by accident.”

Adam Gopnik’s “Paris to the Moon,” about an American family in

Paris in the late 1900s, will be read in December. Nancy Milford’s

“Savage Beauty” follows in January with a biography about poet Edna

St. Vincent Millay.

Two books will be read in February -- Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall

Apart” and Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” -- because both deal

with colonialism and the Belgian Congo, and because both are fairly

short in length.

March will bring Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto,” which was inspired by

the takeover of a Japanese ambassador’s home in Lima, Peru, and looks

at the bonds formed between the terrorized and the terrorizer. Manil

Suri’s “The Death of Vishnu,” about what happens in a houseboy’s head

as he dies, will be read in April. Martha Zamora’s “Frida Kahlo, the

Brush of Anguish,” an illustrated work about Kahlo, will follow in

May. Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited,” about British aristocracy

during the period between the Great Wars, will be read in June.

And Steven Gaines’ “Philistines at the Hedgerow,” about real

estate, the rich and famous and about simpler people, will close out

the series in July.

Some area bookstores carry all the titles to be read by the group.

The stores include Lido Book Shoppe in Newport Beach and Borders

Books, Music & Cafe on Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa.

“This is a hugely diverse and interesting list,” said Alexander,

who has moderated 57 of the 62 books discussed since 1995. “We give

[members] an excuse to read things they would not have read. They

come together in a group where no one makes them feel small or

stupid... where they can speak or not speak and be comfortable.”

The moderator remembers one woman who never missed a meeting, and

then actually missed one.

Alexander asked her where she had been.

“Oh, I had this little heart attack,” the woman had said.

As a moderator, Alexander reads the book of the month at least

twice. Then she goes back and studies the pages she’s folded or

underlined. Barnicle usually researches the author and starts every

discussion with some background.

“The words on paper mean the universe to me,” Alexander said. “I

know so many people whose childhoods were really saved by reading

‘Heidi,’ some book, somewhere, that kept them growing and what they

would become ... If I can infect other people with that same love of

reading, cool.”