Piper Online Book Club is back – with a new format

<p>The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing’s Online Book Club has changed formats – and direction – but the emphasis will still be on good reading and lively discussion.</p><separator></separator><p>Beginning with September’s book – “Velocities” by Stephen Dobyns – the club will switch from an e-mail based list to a blog format. The moderator will post initial discussion questions and then ask for response. Because the list will be moderated, there will be no advertising or spam.</p><separator></separator><p>Discussion will take place during a designated period of time, with the first to occur at the end of September.</p><separator></separator><p>Books will be available for purchase at the ASU Bookstore, with a 20-percent discount to Book Club members.</p><separator></separator><p>The books have been chosen for each month through March, and they will correspond with Piper Center’s Distinguished Visiting Writers Series and additional events, so Book Club members will have the opportunity to meet the authors each month.</p><separator></separator><p>The books for the coming year are:</p><separator></separator><p>September – “Velocities” by Stephen Dobyns, poetry. (Discussion dates: Sept. 21 -25.) Dobyns has an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa and has published 12 books of poetry, 20 novels, a book of essays on poetry and a book of short stories. Dobyns has written many detective stories about a private detective named Charlie Bradshaw who works out of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. His novel “Cold Dog Soup” (1985) has been made into two films: the American “Cold Dog Soup” and the French “Doggy Bag.”</p><separator></separator><p>October – “The Narrow Road to the Interior,” by Kimiko Hahn, poetry. (Discussion dates: Oct. 5-9.)</p><separator></separator><p>November – “The Devil’s Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century,” by Harold Schechter, nonfiction. (Discussion dates: Nov. 16-20.)</p><separator></separator><p>December – no discussion.</p><separator></separator><p>January – “A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison,” by Reginald Dwayne Betts, nonfiction. Discussion dates TBA.</p><separator></separator><p>February – “Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife,” by Francine Prose, nonfiction; and “This Clumsy Living,” by Bob Hicok, poetry. Discussion dates TBA.</p><separator></separator><p>March – “The Dead Fish Museum” by Charles D’Ambrosio, fiction. Discussion dates TBA.</p><separator></separator><p>For more information about the Piper Online Book Club contact the Piper Center for Creative Writing at (480) 965-6018 or visit <a href="http://www.asu.edu/piper">www.asu.edu/piper</a>.</p&gt;