Join host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses A Chance Meeting by Rachel Cohen; a selection by club member Chris Stacey. Rachel Cohen’s A Chance Meeting is a dazzling group portrait that offers a striking new vision of the making and remaking of the American mind and imagination from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. How does the happenstance of daily life become history? Cohen shows us, describing a series of, now boldly, now subtly, transformative encounters between a wide and surprising range of Americans.

Date: Thursday, October 30, 2025

Times: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. For those in Europe the time is 12:30AM in London on October 31.

Location: Zoom Video Conference

Cost: Free

Reviews

Strange, beautiful and unclassifiable. . . . The portraits, or sketches, which [Cohen] offers are subtle, intimate, and persuasive . . . not only a significant study of a century of American culture, but a fascinating entertainment.

—John Banville, The Guardian

The book’s collisions take place in restaurants and libraries, publisher’s offices and crowded parties. … All prove memorable. … Ms. Cohen, with discernment and infectious enthusiasm, connects these characters, their work and their influence, leaving us with a volume that provokes the desire to share it with a friend.

—Alex Belth, The Wall Street Journal

Photo Credit: New York Review Books, Promotional Material, Public Domain