Date: Tuesday 15 December 2020
Time: 5.15-6pm
The Really Popular Book Club is the new reading group hosted by Cambridge University Library. Everyone is invited to join our guest author to discuss a really popular book, one that we all know and perhaps or perhaps not love.
On Tuesday 15 December will be discussing the 2003 mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. It’s a book about a coded message, with a preposterous view of academic research, a mangling of bible history, and has been called an attack on the Catholic church. And yet it was a massive hit. It’s sold over 100 million copies worldwide, was adapted into a Hollywood film starring Tom Hanks, and will be hitting the London stage in 2021.
We’ve chosen it because it marks the antithesis of our next exhibition Ghost Words: Reading the Past, an exploration of palimpsests – documents, often biblical texts, often 1000 years old or more, that were scraped clean and then written over. Ghost Words is about the meticulous reconstruction of these faint outlines, often combining painstaking academic research with advanced photographic techniques; the exact opposite of Brown’s pacy imaginings.
The guest author joining us to discuss the book will be Dr Sarah Dillon, Reader in Literature and the Public Humanities in the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of English. Sarah teaches and researches contemporary fiction and film, and has published and edited a number of books, including her first, The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (2007) and her most recent, Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning (2021).
As well as hearing from Sarah about her thoughts and observations on The Da Vinci Code, we will once again be opening the floor up to you, our club members, to share your own observations and remarks.
Registration is required. Please click here to register:
How to become a member
Each of our club meetings is completely free to join, and is open to everyone including students and staff of the University, and members of the public.
To attend one of our club meetings, simply follow the registration details above. You will then receive an email confirmation containing a joining link.
You will need to register for each club meeting you want to attend. Keep an eye out on our What’s On page for all scheduled club meetings.
FAQ
Q: Do I need to download any software to join a club meeting?
A: No. Each club meeting is being held via Zoom Meetings which does not require that you download any software, or even register an account, to take part. When you click on the link (issued to you via email following registration), you will be taken to your web browser and be prompted to download Zoom. Ignore this and scroll to the bottom to where it reads "If you cannot download or run the application, join from your browser” and select the hyperlinked text, "join from your browser". For those who already have the Zoom application on their computer or device, the link will open the club meeting automatically through the application.
Q: Do I need to have read the book to attend?
A: While we hope that you are as passionate about the book as we are, it is not a requirement that you must have read the book beforehand. You may wish to use our club meetings for inspiration, but beware of plot spoilers!
Q: What can I expect when I join the club meeting?
A: Upon ‘entering’ the club meeting using the link issued to you when you registered, you will arrive in the virtual room with the other club members and the week’s hosts. If you have your webcam on (which we encourage to give the meeting the more personal touch), we will see you, but we will keep all your microphones muted. Individual microphones can be turned on by yourselves or our behind-the-scenes producer should you want to talk to the ‘room’.
Q: How do I share my own comments or questions at the club meeting?
A: Club members are asked to share their own reflections or questions relating the book via the Chat function, or to raise their virtual hand using the Raise Hand function in Zoom.
Q: What if my question isn’t answered during the club meeting?
A: We will be limiting the number of people who can attend each meeting, however we fully expect to not be able to answer everyone’s question or respond to everyone’s comments. Feel free to contact events@lib.cam.ac.uk after the event and we will work with the author and facilitator to respond to as many of you as possible.