Third Thursday Book Club: Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Confucius reckoned an educated woman was a worthless woman. Tan Yunxian became a doctor anyway.

The Third Thursday Book Club meets on the third Thursday of each month in the Rimer Room. January's selection is Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See, a historical novel built on the true story of a woman physician in fifteenth century China.

Yunxian is born into an elite family and raised by her grandparents to be of use, despite a childhood marked by death, separation and loneliness. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine: the Four Examinations of looking, listening, touching and asking, the last of which a man could never carry out with a female patient.

Good to know. Free, in the Rimer Room. Registration is recommended, online or by calling 203-762-6334, and closes at 4pm on the day.