The Literary Center

About the Center
Literary Events
Adult Classes
Youth Classes & Camps
Event Information
Receive email notices
Book Club Program





Named Best Literary Magnet By Atlanta Magazine 2007

The Literary Center at the Margaret Mitchell House presents

Atlanta Burning Book Club

Get Lit!

Here are the books featured in past months by the Atlanta Burning Book Club:

June, 2008’s Selection:
Courtesans: Money, Sex, and Fame in the Nineteenth Century
by Katie Hickman

Synopsis:

During the course of the nineteenth century, a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence, and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives—and those of other people—and made the world do their will.

Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement

Review from Booklist:

Hickman has penned a collective biography of five of the nineteenth century's most intriguing and influential women. Though their names might not be readily familiar, Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl, and Catherine Walters wielded tremendous power during their heyday. In an era when men unquestionably dominated the spheres of business, education, and government, intelligent, desirable courtesans were able to rise above the restrictions placed on conventional women, reveling in their exceptional status as the most sought-after creatures in that curious shadow society, the demimonde. Exploiting their wit, their charm, and their originality, these women brokered their sexual, intellectual, and financial independence, bringing kings, artists, and power brokers to their knees without lifting so much as a finger. Serving as a microcosm of the courtesan phenomenon, these fascinating life stories provide a provocative slice of social history.

Biography from Bloomsbury • Background Information on Courtesans

Other Books by Katie Hickman:

Fiction
The Quetzal Summer
The Aviary Gate
Non-Fiction
Dreams of the Peaceful Dragon
Travels with a Circus
Daughters of Britannia
Courtesans

May, 2008 Selection:
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz

Synopsis:

The Civil War still rages across the South in ways both quirky and compelling. “Hardcore” re-enactors crash-diet to resemble starved Confederates and spoon in ditches to stave off frostbite. A Scarlett O’Hara impersonator lifts her skirts for Japanese tourists. And Sons, Daughters, and Children of the Confederacy gather to sing “Dixie” and salute the rebel flag.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Horwitz takes us on a ten-state adventure, from Gettysburg to Vicksburg, from Charleston graveyards to Tennessee taverns. Probing both the history of the Civil War and its potent echo in the present. Horwitz crafts an eloquent, fast-paced, and penetrating travelogue of the South.

Review from Amazon.com:

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush." Horwitz spent two years reporting on why Americans are still so obsessed with the war, and the ways in which it resonates today. In the course of his work, he made a sobering side trip to cover a murder that was provoked by the display of the Confederate flag, and he spoke to a number of people seeking to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Horwitz has a flair for odd details that spark insights, and Confederates in the Attic is a thoughtful and entertaining book that does much to explain America's continuing obsession with the Civil War.

Reading Guide • Interview with Tony Horwitz

Other Books by Tony Horwitz:

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
The Devil May Care: 50 Intrepid Americans
On the Road: An Outback Adventure
Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia

April, 2008 Selection:
The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Synopsis from Jacket:

Alice Hoffman’s graceful novel The Ice Queen tells the tale of a small town librarian who is haunted by a wish she made as a child. After she is struck by lightning, she goes in search of fellow lightning-strike survivors and finds Lazarus Jones, a man who has risen from the dead. An obsessive love affair begins between them, and both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets – secrets that turned one into ice and the other into fire.

Review from Publishers’ Weekly:

Starred Review. "Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes... burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back." Thus begins Hoffman's stellar 18th novel about healing and transformation. Blanketed in gloriously vivid prose and imagery, this life-affirming fable is ripe with Hoffman's trademark symbolism and magic, but with a steelier edge.

Reading Guide · Alice Hoffman’s Website

Other Books by Alice Hoffman:

Blackbird House
Blue Diary
Here on Earth
Illumination Night
Local Girls
Practical Magic
Property Of
Skylight Confessions
Seventh Heaven
The Foretelling
The River King
Turtle Moon
White Horses

March, 2008 Selection
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage

Synopsis from jacket:

“After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living among the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild – her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines is the end is, instead, a beginning. Because in the ten-pus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love.”

Review from Amazon:

In less assured hands, such a catalog of disasters would make for maudlin, melodramatic reading indeed. But Cleage, an accomplished playwright, has a way both with characters and with language that lifts this tale above its movie-of-the-week tendencies. In Ava she has created a character who not only effortlessly carries the weight of the story but also provides entertaining commentary on African American life as she goes.

HarperCollins Reading Guide · Pearl Cleage’s Website · Oprah’s Book Club

Other Books by Pearl Cleage:

Some Things I Thought I’d Never Do
I Wish I Had a Red Dress
Babylon Sisters
Baby Brother’s Blues