Read (and Watch) Banned Books

RFH 2010, Arts

Sat, Oct 15, 2011

The Colgate Bookstore and Hamilton Theater announce the Fall 2011 season of the Hamilton Book & Movie Club, beginning on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 5:30 p.m. The theme of the season is “Banned Books” – featuring novels that have been censored, banned, or challenged and the movies inspired by them. For more information about this season’s selections or to join the club, please visit www.colgatebookstore.com/bookmovie.

The selected books/movies for the Fall 2011 (October-December) season are as follows:

October 27 – Maurice – Novel by E.M. Forster; 1987 film starring James Wilby & Hugh Grant
Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, the novel tells the story of Maurice Hall, a conventional young man in almost every way, "stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him": except that he is homosexual. Written in 1913-14 – when the subject of homosexual love was considered unmentionable and sex between adult males was illegal – the novel remained unpublished until after the author’s death in 1970.

November 17 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Novel by Ken Kesey; 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson & Louise Fletcher
A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the dictatorial rule of Big Nurse.

December 8 – Fahrenheit 451 – Novel by Ray Bradbury; 1966 film starring Julie Christie & Oskar Werner
Titled after the temperature at which book paper burns, this short novel is set in a future when ‘firemen’ burn books forbidden by the totalitarian ‘brave new world’ regime. The hero is "a book burner who suddenly discovers that books are flesh and blood ideas and cry out silently when put to the torch."

Members are encouraged to read the book in advance and then meet on the selected date at the Hamilton Theater to view the film based on that book. Club members have the opportunity to discuss the book and the movie at a dinner in the Colgate Bookstore immediately following the film screening.

The Book & Movie Club offers two subscription plans. Full Members will receive their own copy of all three books for the season, free admission to the screening of all three films, and dinner during the three after-movie discussions, for a one-time fee of $48/season. Basic Members receive free admission to the film screenings, and dinner during the after-movie discussion, for a one-time fee of $24/season.