Scheduled Meetings

Our meetings are open to the public at no charge, although donations to help cover the costs are appreciated.

---- 2012 ----

January 25, 2012

• Guest/program: Award winning writers Dani & Eytan Kollin
  
  
  
  The Kollin Brothers, are the 2010 winners of the Prometheus - Year's Best Novel Award for their book: "The Unincorporated Man."
  
  And in 2011 they published two sequels "The Unincorporated War" and "The Unincorporated Woman"
  
  Dani is an advertizing executive and Eytan is a teacher (history, government and economics.) Sometimes referred to as the "The Smothers Brothers of SF" Dani and Eytan are sure to offer an entertaining evening as our guests.
  
  The following is an example from an interview they did with each other:
  
  Eytan: How the hell are we going to do this?
  
  Dani: The same way we’ve done everything—we’ll wing it.
  
  Eytan: Um…shouldn’t they be asking us the questions?
  
  Dani: Technically they did—they asked us to interview each other.
  
  Eytan: You’ve got to be kidding. Isn’t that like them buying a book from us and us asking them to write it?
  
  Dani: Yes, that’s what’s it’s like but at this point we’re in the “thank you, sir—may I have another” phase of our career.
  
  Eytan: Well, since we’re in the bend over stage, let’s get this over with.
  
  Dani: Don’t say “over with;” it will sound like we’re ungrateful.
  
  Eytan: For this, I’m ungrateful.
  
  Dani: There are no “for this”s for us, bonehead.
  
  Eytan: All right. I’ll be good…Gee whillikers, Dani. This is a great opportunity.
  
  Dani: Don’t push it, butthead.
  
  Eytan: Why’d we write this book, again?
  
  Dani: Hair.
  
  Eytan: Oh yeah. Dear reader; Along with all the other reasons one writes books, and there are some really great ones—fame, accomplishment, adulation, actually being one of the guys in your social group who’s successful—I miss my hair.
  
  Dani: And you somehow think this book will get you your hair back?
  
  Eytan: Well, maybe not just this one. But c’mon, dude. I had really great hair.
  
  Dani: Yeah, you did.




• READING ORBIT- OCSFC Book Club:
  This month's book is "Blackout" by Connie Willis
  
  Polly Churchill is transported to London in the midst of the Blitz. It's her task to observe the lives of shopgirls working in department stores by becoming one herself. Mike Davies intends to pass himself off as an American journalist covering the Dunkirk evacuation efforts. And Eileen O'Reilly lands a job among the servants at a wealthy estate in Warwickshire, in order to observe the hordes of evacuee children being sent from London in droves. Everything seems routine, but from the start we can sense something ominous. Schedules for time travelers are being shifted at the last minute. A young friend of Polly's with a desperate crush on her is deeply worried about something. And once the historians arrive at their various destinations, they notice an unusual degree of "slippage," missing their target dates not by hours (which is normal) but days. It isn't long before something potentially disastrous is made plain. Both are available cheaply on Amazon and should be in your local library.
  
  Availability: Cheaply on Amazon and should be in your local library.
  
  
  
  512 pages
  Pub. 2010.
  
  
  
  

February 29, 2012

• Guest/program: Publisher Roy Robins
  
  
  
  




• READING ORBIT- OCSFC Book Club:
  This month's book is "All Clear" by Connie Willis
  
  Polly Churchill is transported to London in the midst of the Blitz. It's her task to observe the lives of shopgirls working in department stores by becoming one herself. Mike Davies intends to pass himself off as an American journalist covering the Dunkirk evacuation efforts. And Eileen O'Reilly lands a job among the servants at a wealthy estate in Warwickshire, in order to observe the hordes of evacuee children being sent from London in droves. Everything seems routine, but from the start we can sense something ominous. Schedules for time travelers are being shifted at the last minute. A young friend of Polly's with a desperate crush on her is deeply worried about something. And once the historians arrive at their various destinations, they notice an unusual degree of "slippage," missing their target dates not by hours (which is normal) but days. It isn't long before something potentially disastrous is made plain.
  
  Availability: Cheaply on Amazon and should be in your local library.
  
  
  
  256 pages
  Pub. 1951.
  
  
  
  

March 28, 2012

• Guest/program: TBD
  
  




• READING ORBIT- OCSFC Book Club:
  This month's book is "Never Let me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
  
  "The elegance of Ishiguro's prose and the pitch-perfect voice of his narrator conspire to usher readers convincingly into the remembered world of Hailsham, a British boarding school for special students. The reminiscence is told from the point of view of Kathy H., now 31, whose evocation of the sheltered estate's sunlit rolling hills, guardians, dormitories, and sports pavilions is imbued with undercurrents of muted tension and foreboding that presage a darker reality. As an adult, Kathy re-engages in lapsed friendships with classmates Ruth and Tommy, examining the details of their shared youth and revisiting with growing awareness the clues and anecdotal evidence apparent to them even as youngsters that they were different from everyone outside."
  
  Availability: AMZ-U Braille-RC+DB AnaPL-a FulPL LAPL-cd OCPL-e+cd.
  
  
  
  304 pages
  Pub. 2005.
  
  
  
  

April 25, 2012

• Guest/program: TBD




• READING ORBIT- OCSFC Book Club:
  This month's book is "The City & The City" by China Mieville
  
  "The city is Beszel, a rundown metropolis on the eastern edge of Europe. The other city is Ul Qoma, a modern Eastern European boomtown, despite being a bit of an international pariah. .. His detective is Inspector Tyador Borlu, a cop in Beszel whose investigation of the murder of a young foreign woman takes him back and forth across the highly policed border to Ul Qoma to uncover a crime that threatens the delicate balance between the cities and, perhaps more so, Borlu's own dissolving sense of identity."
  
  Availability: AMZ-U AnaPL LAPL OCPL-e+cd
  
  
  
  336 pages
  Pub. 2009.
  
  
  
  

Note: We do not meet in December

See you at a meeting soon!