The Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association holds the monthly community book club, the Bixby Knolls Literary Society, at various venues in Bixby Knolls. The Society will focus on current releases as well as American classics. Special guest discussion leaders and authors will participate in the group discussions. The Society meets the second Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm. Coffee and dessert are provided.

September Selection:

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammet

Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypically tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment. Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed. Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master.

Special Guest Discussion Leader: Julie Rivett

Julie Rivett is one of four grandchildren of Dashiell Hammett. Although her only memories of her grandfather stem from a weeklong visit to Martha's Vineyard in 1960, her famous grandfather continues to play an important role in her life. Working with Hammett scholar Richard Layman, she helped to edit both Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett 1921-1960 and her mother's memoir, Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers. Both books were nominated for Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America. To celebrate the publication of Selected Letters in 2001, she also curated Dashiell Hammett: A Life in Letters, one of the most successful exhibits ever held at the San Francisco Public Library. In 2005, she co-organized national recognition for the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon and created a library exhibit and program, The Maltese Falcon at 75, which traveled to four California public libraries under the auspices of the California Center for the Book. She and co-organizer Richard Layman teamed with Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Library of Congress, and Friends of the Library USA to celebrate the anniversary with a variety of events and programs. In addition, her essay, "On Samuel Spade and Samuel Dashiell Hammett: A Granddaughter's Perspective" was published in the special Hammett edition of Clues: A Journal of Detection. The NEA's Big Read program allows her to continue to support her grandfather's literary legacy with lectures, interviews, exhibits, and more. Julie Rivett lives with her husband in southern California, where she raised two daughters and graduated from California State University, Long Beach.

Next Society Meeting:

Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 7:00pm

Location TBD

Refreshments will be provided

Click here to check library availability of The Maltese Falcon

The Richard Goad Theater home of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company and the Bixby Knolls Literary Society

Monthly books selections are available at the Dana Branch Library, 3680 Atlantic Ave., LB 90807

562-570-1042