Join the NOMA Book Club! Each month Book Club reads art-related fiction and non-fiction, and engages in discussion groups, curatorial programs and field trips correlating with each book.

Most Book Club programs start promptly at noon, but please come at 11:30 if you wish to bring a sack lunch and meet with friends. NOMA provides water and soft drinks. Please RSVP for the meetings you wish to attend.

Book Club members may buy their reading selections at the NOMA Museum Shop at a 20% discount. Call the Shop at 504.658.4133 for more information.

To join NOMA Book Club or for more information, contact 504.658.4117 or at bookclub@noma.org.

October’s Selection

Masks by Fumiko Enchi

‘Clear and powerful’ (Kirkus), Masks is perhaps Fumiko Enchi’s finest work and her first to be translated into English. In this stunning and subtle novel about seduction and infidelity in latter-day Japan and about the destructive force of feminine jealousy and resentment, Mieko Togano, a handsome and cultivated woman in her 50s, manipulates–for her own bizarre purposes–the relationship between her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko, and the two men in love with her. (Overview available on barnesandnoble.com)

AND/OR

The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan by Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa

 Fifteen of the most celebrated plays of the Noh theatre repertory are given here in their entirety and five more are presented in synopsis. The translations are grounded in a critical discussion of the Noh theatre, its history and place in the court life of Japan, a description of the stage on which it is performed, its music, costumes, and masks, and the dance which is usually the high point of the performance. Both Pound and Fenollosa discuss the special elements of Noh poetry, and Pound’s poetic organization of Fenollosa’s authoritative translation and notes creates a fortunate collaboration. (Summary available on amazon.com)