OUR LATEST BOOK LIST April 2015 – March 2016

April 11th Skellig David Almond
May 9th Emma Jane Austen
June 6th The Bell Iris Murdoch
July 4th The Narrow Road to the deep North Richard Flanagan
NO MEETING IN AUGUST
September 5th Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey
October 3rd An Experiment in Love Hilary Mantel
November 7th East of Eden John Steinbeck
December 5th Why be Happy when you could be normal? Jeanette Winterson
January 9th Travelling to Infinity Jane Hawking
February 6th Ulverton Adam Thorpe
March 7th Testament of Mary Colm Toibin

PREVIOUS BOOK LISTS

6th September 2014 And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini
4th October 2014 On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
1st November 2014 Regeneration by Pat Barker
6th December 2014 Goodbye to all that by Robert Graves
10th January 2015 Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
7th February 2015 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adh2. iche

MAY 11th 2013 Disgrace, by JM Coetzee
JUNE 1st 2013 The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller
JULY 6th 2013 Flight Behaviour, by Barbara Kingsolver
AUGUST 3rd Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, by Robert O’Brien
SEPTEMBER 7th 2013 Have the Men had Enough, by Margeret Forster
OCTOBER 5th 2013 So Long See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell
NOVEMBER 2nd 2013 A Life of One’s Own, by Marion Milner/Joanna Field
DECEMBER 7th 2013 A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
JANUARY 11th 2014 Howard’s End, by EM Forster
FEBRUARY 8th 2014 Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese

Our book group meetings take place on Saturdays from 4.30 – 6.00pm. It’s normally the first Saturday of the month though that can be varied to avoid Bank Holiday weekends. We usually meet in the library of the Quaker Meeting House.

You do NOT have to …

• be a Quaker to come
• have read the book in advance
• ask anyone or tell us you are coming
• come every month
• have lots of great or intelligent things to say/prepared in advance

Every month a different person from the group facilitates the session. We start off by sharing any thoughts we might have about the book or themes (we just speak for a minute or two and go in a round where nobody resposnds initially). Then we may read out “best bits” and have a discussion. We end with a round about what has struck us about the conversation we have just had or thoughts about the book now.

The books we selected are specifically not “Quaker-ly”. They range from classics to books that were written last year by men, women, teenagers, and people older than that of all sorts of orientations and from cultures that seem familiar and ones that do not, on all sorts of topics both imagined and “true” and in-between. The threads that tie the books we choose together are the following:

• does this book tell us a story that will help us explore or have a conversation about the world, ourselves or others in a new or different way?
• does this book explore themes that are somehow spiritual or connected to the Quaker testimonies?

2012 – 2013 book list

The Dispossessed, Ursula Leguin
Impossible Saints, Michelle Roberts
Selected poems, UA Fanthorpe
Fringe of Leaves, by Patrick White

2011 – 2012 book list

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
Darkness Visible by William Golding
Silas Marner by George Elliot
Progress of Love (first story) by Alice Munro
Quarantine by Jim Crace
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
Unless by Carol Shields
Nine Lives by William Dalrymple

and once a year…. a book choosing party – ie. for our next year’s programme.