Reading Group meets on the 4th Thursday of the month at 2:30pm. Members decide the programme of books for the following year at our November meeting. At the moment our focus is on contemporary novels, though we have also regularly read non-fiction or revisited classics. Our discussions are relaxed and informal and we meet in each other's houses.
The group is now in its fifteenth year and we have in the past discussed a wide range of books, from Lionel Shriver's challenging ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ at our first meeting in January 2011 to Madeline Miller’s ‘Circe’, our choice for December 2021. Among our favourite reads have been Edmund De Waal's biographical history 'Hare with Amber Eyes', Barbara Demick's eye-opening book on North Korea, 'Nothing to Envy' and Sebastian Barry’s moving ‘Days without End’. The books that generated particularly interesting discussions last year were Niall Williams’ ‘This is Happiness’ and Ayaan Hirsi Ali‘s ‘The Infidel’, and the one that provided sheer light-hearted pleasure was Sandi Toksvig’s ‘Between the Stops’. This year's book list is shown below.  

Our group is necessarily small and usually full, but enquiries from potential new members are always welcome – should there be enough interest it might be possible to form a second group.

June Tove Jansson The Summer Book
July Pat Barker The Voyage Home
Aug Kirsten Hannah The Nightingale
Sept Lyse Doucet The Finest Hotel in Kabul
Oct William Boyd Gabriel’s Moon
Nov Elif Shafak There are Rivers in the Sky

2026 Programme

Jan	Susie Dent	Guilty by Definition
Feb	Elizabeth Bowen	The Heat of the Day
Mar	Yasunari Karawata	The Rainbow
Apr	Tracey Chevalier	The Glass Maker
May	Jane Gardam	The Man in the Wooden Hat
June	Tove Jansson	The Summer Book
July	Pat Barker	The Voyage Home
Aug	Kirsten Hannah	The Nightingale
Sept	Lyse Doucet	The Finest Hotel in Kabul
Oct	William Boyd	Gabriels Moon
Nov	Elif Shafak	There are Rivers in. the Sky

For further information please contact Frances