Spring 2017 OLLI Catalog (Interactive)

PEER-LED CLASSES (Omnilore)
(JCH) The Short Stories of John Cheever
It is said that “John Cheever was a grumpy old man who wrote
like an angel.” His stories, often set in New York City and its
suburbs is the milieu in which he writes. Leafy suburbs, summer
houses, commuter trains, boarding schools and cocktail parties are
all fodder for Cheever’s imagination. No one is better than Cheever
in character descriptions, Some of his more recognizable stories are
The Enormous Radio (used on Twilight Zone), The Swimmer (made
into a movie with Burt Lancaster), The Reunion which begins
“the last time I saw my father was in Grand Central Station.”
Enter his world and you’ll be hooked.
Common Reading:
The Stories of John Cheever
by John Cheever
(Vintage Publications, reprint
May 2000)
(LBR) Libraries: A World Tour For Book Lovers
Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved,
but also shaped, inspired, and even obliterated knowledge.
Now they are in crisis. Travel through time with us from Boston to
Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries and on
to the Information Age. We’ll explore how libraries are built and
how they are destroyed: from the scroll burnings in ancient China
to the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia to the latest
revolutionary upheavals of the digital age. We’ll think about what
role libraries play today and into the future after visiting libraries
of the Vatican, Vienna’s Jewish ghetto, and ancient Rome.
Our text is written by a Harvard rare books historian and the
NYT says it is “engrossingly saturated with fascinating lore,
colorful anecdotes and deft portraits.”
Common Reading:
Library: An Unquiet History,
by Matthew Battles (July 2015)
Spring 2017 | www.csudh.edu/olli | (310) 243-3208 41