All Spring Classes Now Online!

We have just completed our Community Classroom schedule up until the end of May! All winter and spring classes are now listed here (and we've even started posting a few fall classes too!).

Dozens of new classes in a variety of subjects are starting every month, each taught by an experienced, knowledgeable and passionate educator. Click on the categories below to browse by subject area.

• Art
• Arts & Culture
• Chocolate & Food
• Crime & Justice
• Design & Decor
• Film & Television
• Games & Recreation
• Health & Psychology
• History & Issues
• Local History
• Languages
• Music
• Nature (and Gardening!)
• Reading
• Retirement
• Spirituality
• Writing
• Wine Tastings

Stay up to date on all of our classroom listings by checking mcnallyrobinson.com/classes on a regular basis or by subscribing to our email list. 

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February's Author of the Month: CAROLINE MOOREHEAD

Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France; A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France; and Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An acclaimed biographer, Moorehead has also written for the New York Review of Books, the Guardian, the Times, and the Independent. She lives in London and Italy.

A House in the Mountains, Moorehead's latest offering, is the extraordinary story of four courageous women who helped form the Italian Resistance against the Nazis and the Fascists during the Second World War.

In the late summer of 1943, when Italy changed sides in WWII and the Germans, now their enemies, occupied the north of the country, an Italian Resistance was born. Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca were four young Piedmontese women who joined the Resistance, living secretively in the mountains surrounding Turin. Between 1943 and 1945, as the Allies battled their way north, thousands of men and women throughout occupied Italy rose up and fought to liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made the partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women in its ranks.

The bloody civil war that ensued across the country pitted neighbour against neighbour, and brought out the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together as a coherent fighting force. And the women’s contribution was invaluable. They would prove, to themselves and to the world, what resolve, tenacity and above all exceptional courage could achieve.

Canada Reads 2020 contenders

The contenders for this year's Canada Reads competition have been selected!

Hosted annually by the CBC, Canada Reads is a series of debates to determine which is the one book Canadians should read right now, based on current events. This year, the competition seeks to find the "one book to bring Canada into focus."

In no particular order, the 2020 finalists and their defenders include:

• Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles, defended by Alayna Fender
• Radicalized by Cory Doctorow, defended by Akil Augustine
• We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib, defended by Amanda Brugel
• Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson, defended by Kaniehtiio Horn
• From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle, defended by George Canyon

The debates will take place March 16 to 19, and you can watch or listen by TV, radio, or streaming. For more information on the competition, visit the Canada Reads website.

What Do You Want to Learn About this February?

February is a month of many meanings—I Love to Read, Black History, Valentine's Day—and our Community Classroom has dozens of new classes that will help you get the most out of this short, but busy month. Click on the titles below to read more and/or register. Or, visit our Community Classroom page to view all classes starting in February!

I Love to Read

• Aspects of Plath—Looking at new material, consider Plath as a hopeful and complex figure who produced some of the most important poetry from the second half of the 20th century. (Starts Saturday, February 15)

Black History Month

• Slavery: From the Transatlantic Trade to the Contemporary World—Examine the concept of slavery, the Transatlantic Slave Trade and how slavery has transformed itself in our contemporary world. (Starts Thursday, February 6)
• Preaching to the Choir: The Life and Works of R. Nathaniel Dett—Discover the music of this Canadian-born black composer who combined his musical gifts with an endless thirst for knowledge. (Wednesday, February 12)

Valentine's Day

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