Reading Groups Collection
Educated |
The Enchanted April |
The End of the Affair |
The Essex Serpent |
Everything I Never Told You |
Exciting Times |
Exposure |
The Followers |
For Whom the Bell Tolls |
Foxlowe |
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis |
A Gentleman in Moscow |
The Girl with the Louding Voice |
Girl, Woman, Other |
The Giver of Stars |
The Glass Woman |
Godmersham Park|
Golden Hill |
The Grass is Singing |
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Educated by Tara Westover
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the
End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when
the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected. She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she'd never set foot in a classroom,
and no medical records because her father didn't believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn't exist. As she grew older, her father became more
radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents,
to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd travelled too far.
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The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A notice in
The Times addressed to ‘Those Who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine’ advertises a ‘small medieval Italian castle to be let for the month of April’.
Four very different women take up the offer: Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, both fleeing unappreciative husbands; beautiful Lady Caroline, sick of being ‘grabbed’ by
lovesick men; and the imperious, ageing Mrs Fisher.
On the shores of the Mediterranean, beauty, warmth and leisure weave their spell, and nothing will ever
be the same again.
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The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The love affair
between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off.
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The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
London 1893. When
Cora Seaborne's husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one, and she never suited the
role of society wife. Accompanied by her son Francis - a curious, obsessive boy - she leaves town for Essex, where she hopes fresh air and open space will
provide the refuge they need.
When they take lodgings in Colchester, rumours reach them from further up the estuary that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming
human lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled,
convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a previously undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter's vicar.
Like Cora, Will is deeply suspicious of the rumours, but he thinks they are founded on moral panic, a flight from real faith.
As he tries to calm his parishioners, he and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves inexorably
drawn together and torn apart, eventually changing each other's lives in ways entirely unexpected.
Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take.
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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill
the dreams they were unable to pursue. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of first-generation
Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting.When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless
path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is convinced that
local bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who observes far more than anyone realises and who may be the only one who knows what really
happened.
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Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong
from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children. Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when
she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than 'I like you a great deal'. Enter Edith, a lawyer. Refreshingly enthusiastic and unapologetically earnest, Edith takes Ava to the theatre
when Julian leaves Hong Kong for work. Quickly, she becomes something Ava looks forward to. And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong. Should Ava return to the easy
compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith?
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Exposure by Helen Dunmore
London, November 1960
The Cold War is at its height, and a spy may be a friend or neighbour, colleague or lover.
At the end of a suburban garden in the pouring rain, a woman buries a briefcase deep in the earth.
She believes that she is protecting her family.
What she will learn is that no one is immune from betrayal or the devastating consequences of exposure.
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The Followers by Rebecca Wait
On
the windswept moors of northern England, a small religious cult has cut itself off from society, believing they have found meaning in a purposeless world.
Led by their prophet, Nathaniel, they eagerly await the end times. But when the prophet brings in Stephanie and her rebellious daughter Judith, the group's
delicate dynamic is disturbed. Judith is determined to escape, but her feelings are complicated by a growing friendship with another of the children, the
naive and trusting Moses, who has never experienced the outside world. Meanwhile, someone else is having doubts, unleashing a horrifying chain of events that
will destroy the followers' lives.
In the aftermath, the survivors struggle to adjust to the real world, haunted by the same questions: if you've been
persuaded to surrender your individual will, are you still responsible for your actions? And is there any way back?
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For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway's classic portrayal of the Spanish Civil War, seen through the eyes of an American fighting on the Republican side, captures the excitement and danger of war in a way few other
works of fiction have been unable to do.
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Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg
A chilling, compulsive debut about
group mentality, superstition and betrayal - and a utopian commune gone badly wrong.
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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
Aristocratic,
rich and seemingly aloof, the Finzi-Contini family fascinate the narrator of
this tale, a young Jew in the Italian city of Ferrara. But it is not until he is
a student in the 1938, when anti-Semitic legislation is enforced on the eve of
the Second World War, that he is invited into their luxurious estate. As their
gardens become a haven for persecuted Jews, the narrator becomes entwined in the
lives of the family, and particularly close to Micol, their daughter. Many years
after the war has ended, he reflects on his memories of the Finzi-Continis, his
experiences of love and loss and the fate of the family and community in the
horrors of war.
'One of the great novelists of the last century.'
Guardian
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A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
In 1922
Count Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal. He is sentenced to house arrest in The Metropol, a grand hotel across the street
from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the
most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much
larger world of emotional discovery.
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The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
Adunni is a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. As the only daughter of a broke father, she is a valuable commodity. Removed from school and
sold as a 3rd wife to an old man, Adunni's life amounts to this: 4 goats, 2 bags of rice, some chickens and a new TV. When unspeakable tragedy swiftly strikes in her new home, she is secretly
sold as a domestic servant to a household in the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. No one but Adunni. As a yielding
daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless servant, 14-year-old Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing. But Adunni won't be silenced. She is determined to find her voice - in a
whisper, in song, in broken English - until she can speak for herself, for the girls like Rebecca who came before, and for all the girls who will follow.
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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Girl,
Woman, Other' follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends, and lovers, across the
country and through the years.
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The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
England, late 1930s,
and Alice Wright - restless, stifled - makes an impulsive decision to marry wealthy American Bennett van Cleve and leave her home and family behind. But stuffy, disapproving Baileyville,
Kentucky, where her husband favours work over his wife, and is dominated by his overbearing father, is not the adventure - or the escape - that she hoped for. That is, until she meets
Margery O'Hare - daughter of a notorious felon and a troublesome woman the town wishes to forget. Margery's on a mission to spread the wonder of books and reading to the poor and lost -
and she needs Alice's help. Trekking alone under big open skies, through wild mountain forests, Alice, Margery and their fellow sisters of the trail discover freedom, friendship - and a
life to call their own.
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The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea
Iceland, 1686.
The brutal, lava-scarred landscape can swallow a man without so much as a volcanic gasp. Jon Eiriksson has just married his second wife in a year. But Rosa's new home in the windswept
village of Stykkisholmur is terrifyingly isolated - the villagers are suspicious of strangers and fearful of something which they will not name. What is Rosa's new husband's secret, and
why does the spectre of his first wife Anna haunt them so?
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Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby
January 1804.
Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses.
But her mother has died and she desperately needs an independent income if she is to survive. For her new charge, twelve-year-old Fanny Austen, Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement.
But Anne is keenly aware that her new role is an awkward one - she is neither one of the servants nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the 'upstairs' and 'downstairs'
members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in her instant dismissal. She has just begun to settle into her position when dashing Henry Austen and his
younger sister Jane come to stay. Both take an immediate interest in the pretty, clever governess who quickly becomes drawn into the above stairs life of the Austen family.
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Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
One rainy evening in
November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat pitches up at a counting-house door in Golden Hill Street: this is Mr Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep
suspicion simmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge amount, and he won't explain why, or where he comes from, or what he can be planning
to do in the colonies that requires so much money. Should the New York merchants trust him? Should they risk their credit and refuse to pay? Should they befriend him, seduce him, arrest
him- maybe even kill him?
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The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Set in
Rhodesia, 'The Grass is Singing' tells the story of Dick Turner, a failed white farmer and his wife, Mary, a town girl who hates the bush and viciously abuses the black South Africans
who work on their farm. But after many years, trapped by poverty, sapped by the heat of their tiny house, the lonely and frightened Mary turns to Moses, the black cook, for kindness and
understanding.
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Page last updated: 21st December 2023