Last chance for Ernest Hemingway

We're discussing two of his best short stories at book club on Saturday

Hate him all you want — the guy’s a genius. A troubled genius. A handsome genius. Isn’t this portrait by Kathryn Rathke incredible?

The Hemingway club starts Saturday!

I’m leading this club with Rebecca Brown, and we sat in her backyard yesterday writing our discussion questions for Saturday’s club, and re-reading the stories we’re going to be talking about, going, “Wow, just… wow.”

Because the writing is incredible.

And Rebecca is a radical feminist lesbian who has no time for the bullshit of men, and who’s made better works of art than you ever will.

And yes, both of us are aware it’s not cool to like Hemingway. It’s not on trend. In fact it’s on trend to want to push him off a cliff and pretend he never existed.

But a literary masterpiece is a literary masterpiece, and he made more than one — and he changed the world.

And the ways he changed the world could change your life — your inner life.

If you’re interested in what makes his work so fucking good,¹ or even if you just want to hang out with Rebecca and me and a couple dozen insanely brilliant and funny book club friends, I hope you’ll join us.

To join the club, just buy a ticket.

After you join the club, make sure you get copies of the books we’re reading.

The discussion questions and reading assignment will be included with your receipt and confirmation.

These are the books we’re reading.

Recommended editions

These are the editions we recommend:

• A Farewell to Arms with the author’s drafts and discarded endings

• The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway with the author’s drafts and edits

If you prefer to read other editions, that’s fine too.

1. Some of his work. He wrote a lot. But we’re only reading what we believe to be is his best stuff.