Monthly Drop-in book club -- thursday, July 30, 2026 *Date Change*
The Trouble with Happiness, by Tove Ditlevsen
Join our book club!
Each month we read a book by an international author. Our hour-long Zoom chats are lively, thought-provoking, and reminiscent of our college days. You are welcome to join at any time!
Our next meeting is on Thursday, July 30th at 7:00pm
Our July book is:
The Trouble with Happiness, by Tove Ditlevsen
A short intro from Goodreads:
A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence, and despair, as women and men struggle to escape from the roles assigned to them and dream of becoming free and happy--without ever truly understanding what that might mean.
Tove Ditlevsen is one of Denmark's most famous and beloved writers, and her autobiographical Copenhagen Trilogy was hailed as a masterpiece on re-publication in English, lauded for its wry humor, limpid prose, and powerful honesty. The poignant and understated stories in The Trouble with Happiness, written in the 1950s and 1960s and never before translated into English, offer readers a new chance to encounter the quietly devastating work of this essential twentieth-century writer.
**If you have any trouble with the Zoom log in, please email lkaci@post.harvard.edu right away.**
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Here is a list of books the club has read so far:
Madonna in a Fur Coat, by Sabahattin Ali (Turkish writer)
A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami (Japanese writer)
Foreigner, by Nachid Rachlin (Iranian writer)
The Concert, by Ismail Kadare (Albanian writer)
This is Happiness, by Niall Williams (Irish writer)
Sweetness, by Torgny Lindgren (Swedish writer)
Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither, by Sara Baume (Irish writer)
Wickett’s Remedy, by Myla Goldberg (American writer)
Immortality, by Milan Kundera (Czech writer)
An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-British writer)
Cambridge, by Caryl Phillips (St. Kitts & Nevis/British writer)
Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who, by William Saroyan (Armenian-American writer)
Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck (American writer)
The Life of God (As Told by Himself), by Franco Ferrucci (Italian-American writer)
A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor (American writer)
Free, by Lea Ypi (Albanian writer)
A Short Tale of Shame, by Angel Igov (Bulgarian writer)
Nada, by Carmen Laforet (Spanish writer)
Double Negative, by Ivan Vladislavic (South African writer)
Blind Faith, by Sagarika Ghose (Indian writer)
A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry (Indian writer)
So Long a Letter, by Mariama Ba (Senegalese writer)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie (Chinese writer)
Raising Sparks, by Ariel Kahn (Israeli-American writer)
Giants in the Earth, by O. E. Rølvaag (Norwegian writer)
Kairos, by Jenny Erpenbeck (German writer)
Vi, by Kim Thúy (Vietnamese-Canadian writer)
On the Edge of Reason, by Miroslav Krleža (Croatian writer)
The Bad Girl, by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peruvian writer)
In the Country of Others, by Leila Slimani (French-Moroccan writer)
Queen Esther, by John Irving (American writer)
Fruit of the Drunken Tree, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Columbian writer)
A Heart So White, by Javier Marias (Spanish writer)
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, by Jose Saramago (Portuguese writer)
I Do Not Come To You By Chance, by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (Nigerian writer)
Three Comrades, by Erich Maria Remarque (German writer)