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In-person Arts & Culture Community

Book Clubs of EPL: My Brilliant Friend

Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025
7:00pm to 8:00pm

Edmonton Public Library (Abbottsfield - Penny McKee)

books book clubs

Free

More Information

Organized by: Edmonton Public Library

Jan.
16

Love reading? Love to talk about books you've read? Come join us for lively discussions on all types of fiction and non-fiction. We'll feature different titles and authors each month. Come and share your impressions, thoughts and interpretations of a book we have all read.

My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante (Fiction, 331 pages, translated from Italian)

In a poor, midcentury Italian neighborhood, two girls, Elena and Lila, exhibit remarkable intelligence early in school, at a time when money is scarce and education a privilege, especially for girls. Only Elena is allowed to continue in school, and she devotes herself to her studies, while Lila redirects her own talent toward her family's business. The girls use each other, sometimes as crutches, sometimes as inspiration, but as they approach adolescence, their friendship is challenged by their changing bodies and attitudes toward the world. Elena increasingly turns toward education as a means of escaping, while Lila looks to her burgeoning beauty as a means of altering the violence and bitterness that threaten their neighborhood. The first book in a prospective trilogy, My Brilliant Friend is a compelling and moving coming-of-age story set in an impoverished neighborhood struggling to come into its own in a rapidly shrinking world.

Edmonton Public Library (Abbottsfield - Penny McKee)

3210 118 Avenue
Edmonton, AB, T5W 4W1