Riverstone Around the Globe - Squirrel Hill

Riverstone Around the Globe is a new book club at Squirrel Hill which centralizes global literatures, works in translation, and highlights from the Booker and International Booker prizes. Whether you’re looking to broaden your literary horizons, or otherwise want to read novels you wouldn’t normally find all over social media, this book club is a great introduction to books outside the States.

This book club is led by Riverstone bookseller, Sarah.

The January pick is Greek Lessons by Han Kang. Want to order a copy of the book? You can do so .

About the book:

In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight.
Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence.
Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity—their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression.
Greek Lessons is the story of the unlikely bond between this pair and a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection—a novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive.

Host or Publisher Riverstone Books