AWC Going Dutch March 2020

Ongoing Activities
Book Clubs
The AWC Book Clubs are open to all readers,
and new Members are especially welcome!
There are no requirements that you
must attend every meeting or lead a discussion.
Snacks are provided by a different
Member each month. There are two Book
Clubs hosted by AWC Members: One in the
daytime and one in the evening. Questions?
Teresa Mahoney organizes the daytime
group and can be reached at bookclubday@
awcthehague.org. Dena Haggerty handles
the evening meetings and can be reached
at bookclubevening@awcthehague.org.
Happy reading!
Daytime Book Club
March Selection: Normal People by Sally
Rooney
Connell and Marianne
grew up in the same
small town, but the similarities
end there. In high
school, Connell is popular,
while Marianne is
a loner. When the two
strike up a conversation,
something life changing
begins. A year later,
they’re both studying at Trinity College in
Dublin. She has found her feet in a new social
world while he hangs at the sidelines.
They circle one another, straying toward
other people and possibilities, but always irresistibly
drawn back together. As she veers
into self-destruction and he begins to search
for meaning elsewhere, each must confront
how far they are willing to go to save
the other.
Thursday, March 26
10 a.m.
AWC Clubhouse
FREE
14 GOING DUTCH
Daytime Book Club Recap – December
Some of the native Dutch speakers read it in
the original Dutch. Some read the English
translation. One English speaker read the
Dutch text as she listened to the Dutch audiobook.
The book was De Amerikaanse
Prinses/The American Princess by Annejet
van der Zijl, a biography of beautiful and
rich American socialite Allene Tew (1872-
1955). This book was, we decided, basically
fleshed out journalism. Think “really
detailed long-form magazine piece,” which
makes sense since popular Dutch writer
van der Zijl began as a journalist and specializes
in non-fiction. Allene Tew was a
woman of America’s Gilded Age and a survivor.
She lost two of her children within
one week in 1918 but persevered, navigating
diverse social spheres with an open
and giving heart. She took Dutch Princess
Juliana under her wing, negotiating a husband,
Prince Bernard, for her and elevating
Juliana’s fashion sense. In return, Tew was
one of several godmothers to Juliana’s oldest
daughter, Beatrix. The book touched on
almost a century of turbulent American history,
which was new to some of our Book
Club Members and a reminder to others
of what they’d learned in high school and
mostly forgotten. We don’t want to damn
this book with faint praise but, helaas, faint
praise is all it deserves. It is a routine, innocuous
enough biography.
Daytime Book Club Recap – January
Boza! Boza! The main character of Orhan
Pamuk’s novel A Strangeness in My Mind is
a humble boza seller. It’s a drink sold by the
kilo in Turkey and now we know why. Our
moderator made us boza topped with cinnamon
and crunchy chickpeas. Fermented,
therefore lightly alcoholic, bulgur is lightened
with sugar and vanilla. Think liquid
porridge, in the same way that vla is liquid
pudding. That was one cool thing about our
meeting. The other was that the discussion
Daytime Book Club Reading List:
Thursday, April 23: If Only I Could Tell You by
Hannah Beckerman
Thursday, May 28: Long Bright River by
Elisabeth Egan
was lively. But was the book itself cool?
Those who finished the book—and only two
out of five attendees did—had to agree to
disagree. At 624 pages, this is an ambitious
attempt to tell the story of a poor villager
in the big city to support his extended family,
all against the backdrop of the changes
Istanbul underwent between the 1960s and
2010s. The one finisher who liked the book
felt it well conveyed the currents of time and
change and family life that flowed through
a moving story. The other finisher felt the
book was an utter failure which told a boring
story of an uninteresting lead and didn’t
capture the essence of Istanbul’s metamorphosis.
Better to call it A Banality of My
Mind, she said. Most telling is the majority
of our group either did not read the book
at all or felt no desire to finish the book.
Pamuk is a Nobel Prize winning author. You
can trust the committee or you can trust us,
but block out some long chunks of time in
your schedule if you plan to read this book.
AWC Guest Policy
Guests are welcome to participate in AWC
activities and tours on a limited basis. As
a nonmember, a guest is limited to attend
two functions per calendar year and will
be charged an additional nonmember
fee. Only Members are entitled to use
babysitting services.
Evening Book Club
March Selection: The Signature of All
Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Spanning the globe
from London to Peru to
Amsterdam, this novel
tells the tale of enterprising
botanist Henry
Whittaker, who makes a
great fortune in the South
American quinine trade,
and his gifted botanist
daughter, Alma. When
scientist Alma falls for
the utopian artist, Ambrose, everything each
of them thinks they know about the workings
of the world is challenged. This fastpaced
novel is full of unforgettable, engaging
characters from all walks of life who
bear witness to the dawn of the Industrial
Revolution and beyond, narrating what happens
when “dangerous” new ideas clash
with old assumptions.
Wednesday, March 11
7:30 p.m.
Location TBA
FREE
Evening Book Club Recap – December
This choice was something a bit different:
a memoir from a woman whose husband >> 16
Evening Book Club Reading List:
April 15: The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
May 13: Normal People by Sally Rooney
June 10: Lost Children Archive by Valeria
Luiselli
July 15: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by
Gail Honeymoon
MARCH 2019 15