The Wilton Historical Society is once again hosting a reading group that focuses on books with a historical bent. The next book to be discussed on Friday, Jan. 27 is Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff.
Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography and hailed by critics as both “monumental” (The Boston Globe) and “utterly romantic” (New York Magazine), Stacy Schiff’s Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) brings to shimmering life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time. Vladimir Nabokov–the émigré author of Lolita; Pale Fire; and Speak, Memory–wrote his books first for himself, second for his wife, Véra, and third for no one at all.
“Without my wife,” he once noted, “I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” Set in prewar Europe and postwar America, spanning much of the century, the story of the Nabokovs’ 52-year marriage reads as vividly as a novel. Véra, both beautiful and brilliant, is its outsized heroine–a woman who loves as deeply and intelligently as did the great romantic heroines of Austen and Tolstoy. Stacy Schiff’s Véra is a triumph of the biographical form.
Other praise for Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov):
“A sensitive rendering of one of the century’s great love stories.” –Mirabella
“I am truly in love with this book. Schiff’s sentences are magnificent, deceptively complex, full of insight and fact and distance and wry humor, so that every page is a kind of mini feast.” –Anita Shreve
“An absorbing story, illumined by Schiff’s flair for the succinct insight.” –The New York Times Book Review
The book club meets on Friday, Jan. 27 from 12:30-2 p.m.. Participants bring a brown bag lunch, and the Society provides a beverage and dessert. There is no charge to participate, but readers are asked to register for this program. To register, email the Historical Society or call 203.762.7257.
The Wilton Historical Society is located at 224 Danbury Rd./Rte. 7.