30-12-2026, Ellecom.
16:00 doors open, 18:00 dinner, 20:00 book talk.
Every alumni is welcome to join, so please invite as many of your fellow Cals alumni as you like. You can vote for one the themes below by contacting me through your preferred medium or via the contact page, where you can also let me know you’ll be attending and if should put you on the mailing list or in the Signal group.
I look forward to another marvelous get-together with lovely people.
Option 1: The Shapes of Love
Love comes in many forms in many contexts, ranging from the deeply intimate and personal to the ritualised, psycho-analysed or widely displayed. Feelings of love and thoughts about love are shaped by their environment. People model the romantic ideals of media and understand love through the relationships they see around them, but ultimately, feeling, communicating and acting on love occurs between individuals. For this book club, let’s explore how different representations of love inform, challenge and broaden the shape of love.
Required reading: none.
Short read: Kurt Vonnegut – Who Am I This Time?
Long read: Virginia Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway.
Additional reading: James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room. E. M Forster – A Room with a View, William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet.
Option 2: Shared Beliefs and Private Religions
When people say there is more to life, they often allow tiny glimpses of the spiritual world inside. In the Netherlands of now, religion is a personal affair and shared beliefs are under pressure. Finding language for faith and spirituality is always a challenge, but when social discourse is primed for division, it becomes even harder to discuss what people experience inside themselves. Fortunately, writers can help with language and feeling, so let’s read and talk about texts that investigate how personal and shared religions interact.
Require reading: none.
Short read: William Blake’s The Lamb and The Tyger.
Long read: Equus by Peter Shaffer.
Additional reading: James Baldwin – Go Tell It On the Mountain. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter. Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God. Salman Rushdie – Shame. Craig Thompson – Blankets.