The Athenaeum Blog

I don’t know why I haven’t shown this earlier because we are very proud of how the new table top looks. From the very early days the Athenaeum hosted the Dunedin Chess Club and as a homage to that history the replacement top has two chess or checker boards inlayed in wood. We think that… Read More

For the second year the Athenaeum was the venue for these readings.

We are half way through the year and I have just realised that I haven’t posted anything about the ABC’s selections for 2023. We have already discussed We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and tonight in our third meeting we are doing A Gentle Radical: The Life… Read More

As part of the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival 2021 a plaque to Essie Summers was added to the Writers Walk in the Octagon.  The Essie Summers plaque is situated at the foot of the Robbie Burns statue in the upper Octagon.  The was a good turn out and most people then moved to the… Read More

We have made our book selections for 2021 13 May 7pm – Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi 17 June 7pm – The Messenger by Markus Zusak 8 July 7pm – The Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell 12 August 7pm – The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde 9 September 7pm… Read More

Our lightning talks celebrating 150 years for the Dunedin Athenaeum Library in the Athenaeum Building.

The feature article in the Star Community Newspaper about our plans to celebrate the 150th year of the Athenaeum Building

The Covid 19 lockdown really mucked up the ABC schedule but we have finished all the books we chose in 2019 and have selected five news books to take us through to 2021. We are skipping July this year and start again on the 13th of August at 7pm with Woman, Girl, Other by Bernardine… Read More

It is always lovely to get a compliment.  The ABC has been going a few years now and has settled into a small but dedicated band.  After our last meeting I received the following lovely email from one of our members. Just  wanted  you to know  how much  I  enjoy  book club.  Pretty  well all… Read More

We started weekly readings of Janet Frame’s To The Is-land in June last year and steadily worked our way through all three volumes.  In total it took us about nine months and we ended up with a small but passionate group who adored getting to know Janet Frame in this way.  We all agreed that… Read More