Fall 2026 Book Club Dates and Titles
Join The Center for German and European Studies this fall as we explore three distinct European novels which tell stories of identity, belonging, memory, and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing world.
Our fall book club will read In the Eye of the Wild by Nastassja Martin, a reflection on the boundary between humans and nature on the remote Kamchatka Peninsula; Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, an incisive portrait of millennial life in a changing European landscape, and Dark Bloom by Eva Menasse, a novel examining memory, silence, and the lasting impact of history on a small community in Austria.
As always, CGES book club gathers on Fridays from 4 - 5:30 pm on the third floor of the Social Sciences Building (267 19th Ave S). Snacks and drinks provided by the Center. Please RSVP for the book club here.
Friday, September 18: In the Eye of the Wild by Nastassja Martin
In August 2015, the French writer and anthropologist Nastassja Martin was on a two-week expedition in eastern Russia when she met a Kamchatka brown bear. Captivating and eminently readable, In the Eye has sold tens of thousands of copies in France. We meet Martin as she lies alone, severely injured in the taiga, hemmed in by volcanoes and awaiting evacuation by Russian army helicopter. Divided into the four seasons of the year to come, her narration roams peripatetically to relate her treatment and recovery, analyze her dreams, and retrace the steps that led to the expedition that led to the encounter—“the crisis of my life.”
Friday, October 30: Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored. An attempt to put their politics into action fizzles in embarrassed self-doubt. Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, "the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same."
Friday, December 11: Dark Bloom, Eva Menasse
It’s 1989, and in a small town on the Austria–Hungary border, nobody talks about the war; the older residents pretend not to remember, and the younger ones are too busy making plans to leave. The walls are thin, the curtains twitch, there is a face at every window, and everyone knows what they are not supposed to say.
But as thousands of East German refugees mass at the border, it seems that the past is knocking on Darkenbloom’s door.
