The major event of the year for the Great Books Council of San Francisco is the spring weekend at the Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey, California. During the weekend there are four discussions of reading selections, including poetry, a play, fiction and nonfiction. The beauty of the area and comfort of the accommodations are conducive to stimulating discussions and convivial parties.
The next Asilomar retreat will be held on April 20-22, 2012. This year's event will feature discussions of Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, James Joyce's "The Dead" (from Dubliners), and selected poetry.
Please click here for a downloadable flyer and registration form.
During retreats in recent years we've discussed plays such as Caesar and Cleopatra, Copenhagen, Antigone, Painting Churches, Anna in the Tropics, The Price, The Sea Gull and Death of a Salesman; novels such as Mrs. Dalloway, Beloved, Disgrace, The Scarlet Letter, The Bell, Madame Bovary, The Great Gatsby and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; and nonfiction works by Plato, Francis Bacon, Twain, Machiavelli, Stephen Jay Gould, de Tocqueville, Hoffer and Aristotle; as well as selected poetry.
The Asilomar event coordinator is Rob Calvert. He can be reached via email at rob@rob-calvert.com.