With a successful launch in May, the AMA Art Lovers Book Club will have its second meeting at 6 pm on Tuesday, July 16, 2019. K.K. Snyder will lead the conversation on Tracy Chevalier’s novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring.
 
The meetings are held in the Willson Auditorium of the Albany Museum of Art, 311 Meadowlark Drive.
 
“We had a really good turnout for our first book club meeting,” Annie Vanoteghem, director of education and public programming for the AMA, said. “We’re hoping to have even more join us for our second one.”
 
Chevalier, an American-British historical novelist, is best known for Girl With a Pearl Earring. A New York Times bestseller, the book, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, was adapted in 2003 into a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.
 
Inspired by the 17th century painting of the same name, Chevalier’s novel is a fictional account of painter Johannes Vermeer, the model for his painting, and the painting. She is said to have bought a poster of the painting when she was a teenager.
 
The complex expression on the model’s face captured her imagination, and she wrote the novel—the second of eight she has penned—after researching the time period, studying the work of Vermeer and his contemporaries, and spending time in Delft, Holland, where Vermeer lived and the novel is set.
 
“It’s a fascinating book and there’s still plenty of time to get a copy and read it—or reread it—before the club meeting,” Vanoteghem said.
 
There is no cost to attend the club meetings, which are set for the third Tuesday of alternating months, and you may attend as many or as few as you like. Those who plan to attend the July 16 meeting are asked to RSVP by noon that day so that seating accommodations can be set up at the AMA. Club members also are encouraged to bring a favorite beverage. You can RSVP to [email protected] or by calling 229.439.8400.
 
If you would like to read ahead for future club meetings, these are the future dates for the 2019-20 series. All club meetings start at 6 pm:

-  Sept 17: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Candace Franklin will lead the conversation;

-  Nov 19: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton;

-  Jan 21: An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro;

-  March 17: I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino.