Anne Sexton’s Transformations is the January selection for the Mondavi Center’s BackStage Book Club. In this 2001 book, the confessional poet takes on several mythological transformations, including Cinderella’s.

The reading coincides with a pair of Mondavi Center events:

• Forum@MC—“Fables, Fairy Tales and the Arts,” 5 p.m. Jan. 29, Studio Theatre. Free and open to the public, not just BackStage Book Club members. The Mondavi Center lists the panelists as theater and dance professor Della Davidson, who set Transformations to dance; Lucy Corin, assistant professor of English, whose fiction is touched by fable; and comparative literature professor Brenda Schildgen, co-editor of The World of Fables.

• State Ballet Theatre of Russia—Cinderella, with live orchestra, 8 p.m. Feb. 6, Jackson Hall. Tickets: (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or www.mondaviarts.org (ticket availability limited). Preperformance lecture by Ruth Rosenberg, the Mondavi Center’s professional development programs coordinator, 7 p.m. Feb. 6,
AGR Room, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center.

The BackStage Book Club switched to a more informal set-up this year, with people invited to form their own groups and still take advantage of related events at the Mondavi Center.

Book club registration is free and can be accomplished online. After you are registered, the Mondavi Center will send study guides and more, including discount coupons for the suggested books.