Join co-hosts Anne Moore and Chris Stacey for an innovative, exciting, and passionate approach to world literature. Our current country is Spain during the “Golden Age”. Our first selection is Incomparable Realms: Spain during the Golden Age, 1500–1700 by Jeremy Robbins. The cultural history is described by Edwin Williamson as: “A brilliant account of the Spanish Monarchy in its 'Golden Age', when it was the foremost power in Europe and ruled a global empire. This is an exceptional achievement by one of the very best cultural historians in the field, combining the art, architecture, literature, social values, political ideas, religious practices, and especially, the thought of Renaissance and Baroque Spain in a coherent and convincing synthesis…Destined to become a classic of European cultural history."

Club Member Registration: The book club is exclusively for club members. Here is a list of club members: CUCC Club Members. If you are not a club member, join and we'll see you at the book club: Become a Club Member.

Available Seats: There are 7 seats available as of November 6, 2026.

Date: Thursday, March 4, 2027

Social Hour: 5:00pm

Book Club: 6:00PM Central

Location: Private room. Club on Michigan Avenue.

Non-Club Members Wait List: All registrants who are not club members are placed on a wait list. You are contacted if any seats are available after club member registration. 

Reviews

"The book offers a superb introduction to a period of imperial brutality . . . handsomely illustrated with colour reproductions of stunning works. Incomparable Realms is a testament to the imbrication and the incommensurability of the earthly and sublime." - Times Literary Supplement

"In this admirable and learned study Professor Jeremy Robbins reassesses the Spain of popular imagination – "angels and austerity, morality and morbidity; Habsburg power and discrete opulence" – to examine afresh its culture and society, its art, literature, mystical theology, its ideology, doctrine and "moral polemic" . . . One of the book's significant strengths is the author's close and revealing reading of the paintings, never less than fascinating, illuminating and authoritative. The book includes 39 colour plates and numerous black-and-white images embedded in the text that immeasurably add to the reader's understanding."- Catholic Herald

"There’s a great deal to ponder in this book: the ties between monarchy and Church, which legitimated a non-Spanish dynasty; Spanish artists’ preoccupation with mirrors (Velázquez’s Las Meninas) and illusion; how the tension between heavenly and earthly realms defines Golden Age culture . . . The illustrations alone make Robbins’s book worth purchasing, but it is also a defining study of a seminal period in the history of Western art." - Library Journal

Photo Credit: Reaktion Books Ltd, Promotional Material, Public Domain.