Saturday Samplers to Discuss Philip Roth Book

Bernardsville Library’s book group, Saturday Samplers, will meet on Saturday, April 11 at 3:30 pm to discuss “The Human Stain” (2001) by Philip Roth. [The author will not be present.] The novel takes place in 1998, the year in which America was whipped into a frenzy by the impeachment of a president, and, in a small New England town, an aging Classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Sam Tanenhaus, of The Wall Street Journal described the book as, “A master novelist’s haunting parable about our troubled modern moment.”

Philip Roth is a prolific, award-winning American author. In 1997 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, “American Pastoral.” In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and, in 2002, the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction. He has twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has also won the PEN/Faulkner Award three times and received PEN’s two most prestigious awards: in 2006, the PEN/Nabokov Award and in 2007, the PEN/Bellow Award for achievement in American fiction. In 2011, he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize.

Led by Program/PR Assistant Evelyn Fischel, Saturday Samplers is a book discussion group dedicated to sampling various kinds of literature, including short stories, nonfiction, new and old novels, and even teen fiction. Its goal is to search out interesting, noteworthy, and sometimes overlooked books. Readers can find information about the group and about the books and authors on the reading list at http://saturdaysamplers.blogspot.com. No sign-up is needed to join the discussion. Call the library at 766-0118 for more information.