Short story, book, play, film, and television discussion classes are scattered throughout the year to give you ample time for pleasure reading and viewing between each one. Pick a course or two to suit your literary tastes and register today!

February also includes two special literary events!

Author Visit: Beena Kamlani

The English Problem (2025)

Wednesday, February 5 • 7:00pm-8:15pm • Scarsdale Public Library • Course 13049 • $30

Meet Beena Kamlani, whose extraordinary debut novel The English Problem is due out on January 29, 2025. Set against the backdrop of the Indian independence movement, protagonist Shiv Advani is selected by Mahatma Gandhi to travel from western India to study law in England for the purpose of returning home better equipped to drive the British colonialists out. Before leaving, his family insists on his betrothal in an arranged marriage. Once in London, Advani's allegiances -- to his family, culture, and politics -- are tested. Beautifully written in understated prose, this tender saga illustrates one man's personal liberation as it also shows the multifaceted relationship between British and Indian culture and the impact of Gandhi's nonviolent resistance.

Books will be available for sale and signing. 

BEENA KAMLANI is a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer whose work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, World Literature Today, several short story anthologies, and other publications. She received the Yeovil Fiction Award (Somerset, England), for a novel in progress in 2017. She has been awarded fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ledig House/Writers Omi, Hawthornden Castle, Jentel Arts, and Hedgebrook. She has worked as a senior editor at the Penguin Group and taught book editing at New York University for nearly two decades, earning their award for teaching excellence. The English Problem is her first novel.

Author Visit: Daniel M. Lavery

Women's Hotel (2024)

Monday, February 10 • 1:00pm-2:15pm • Zoom • Course 12980 • $30

Meet Daniel M. Lavery in conversation with Anna Katsavos as they discuss Lavery’s debut novel, Women’s Hotel (2024), a comic yet poignant series of vignettes about the denizens of a waning, second-rate women’s hotel in 1960s New York City. The Biedermeier is home to a charming cast that includes a cynical manager, a party girl, a freeloader, a failed hairdresser, a typesetter, a daytime elevator operator, and others. The period prose narrates every quirky backstory and misadventure as it brings these characters living in a transitory home to life. Delightfully offbeat, this slice-of-life comedy is infused with satirical commentary.

DANIEL M. LAVERY co-founded and co-edited the editorial site The Toast from 2013 to 2016, served as Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice columnist from 2016 to 2021, and currently publishes a biweekly literary newsletter “The Chatner” at Substack. His first book, Texts from Jane Eyre (2014) was a New York Times bestseller. He has also written The Merry Spinster (2018), Something that May Shock and Discredit You (2020), and Dear Prudence (2023). Women’s Hotel is his first novel.

ANNA KATSAVOS, PhD, is an experienced book group facilitator. A SUNY Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women’s Studies, she has received numerous awards for teaching, and her scholarship has been published in a variety of literary journals. She has interviewed many best-selling authors and has presented interactive programs focusing on a wide range of women’s issues. Additionally, she conducts writing, editing and publishing workshops.

Scarsdale Adult School | 914-723-2325 | P.O. Box 205, Scarsdale, NY 10583 | www.ScarsdaleAdultSchool.org

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