Book Club

It’s back! We’re re-launching Prema’s book club – this time the group will be convened by avid reader Siobhán McCann. The book club is a great chance to get together and talk about the book – what worked for you, what didn’t, parallels you might have spotted to other writers’ works or perhaps a chance to ask questions (so often a novel can leave us with a number of thoughts and questions).

We’re taking the theme of the second novel as our focus for the next few books. It’s all very laid-back and you’re welcome to chip in with your thoughts or sit back and listen to the discussion. Each session lasts about 90 minutes and there’ll be a pot of tea and coffee on the go and some very comfy sofas! And it’s free! What could be nicer?

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Tue 24 May 7.30pm

When Elspeth dies she leaves her beautiful flat (overlooking Highgate Cemetery) to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshold. But until the solicitors’ letter arrives neither Julia nor Valentina knew of their Aunt’s existence. The twins feel that in London their own lives can finally begin but have no idea that they have been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, to unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn’t seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death. Niffenegger weaves a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity. A tasty second helping from the author who brought us the much beloved Time Traveller’s Wife.

So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor

Tue 28 Jun 7.30pm

David Carter cannot help but wish for more: that his wife Eleanor would be the sparkling Scottish girl he once found so irresistible; that his job as a museum curator could live up to the promise it once held; that his daughter's arrival could have brought he and Eleanor closer. But a few careless words spoken by his mother's friend have left David restless with the knowledge that his whole life has been constructed around a lie. Struggling to make sense of his past through an archive of letters, photos and artifacts, David searches for meaning and truth, but the story always comes back to him and Eleanor, to their quiet attempts to hold together something they began before they could even understand what it was. Here’s the exquisite second novel from the writer who was celebrated for his gorgeous “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things”.

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson

Tue 26 Jul 7.30pm Free

Deception—the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others—is the subject of this, Tove Jansson’s most unnerving and unpredictable novel. Here Jansson takes a darker look at the subjects that animate the best of her work, from her sensitive tale of island life, The Summer Book, to her famous Moomin stories: solitude and community, art and life, love and hate. Snow has been falling on the village all winter long. It covers windows and piles up in front of doors. The sun rises late and sets early, and even during the day there is little to do but trade tales. This year everybody’s talking about Katri Kling and Anna Aemelin. Katri is a yellow-eyed outcast who lives with her simpleminded brother and a dog she refuses to name. She has no use for the white lies that smooth social intercourse, and she can see straight to the core of any problem. Anna, an elderly children’s book illustrator, appears to be Katri’s opposite: a respected member of the village, if an aloof one. Anna lives in a large empty house, venturing out in the spring to paint exquisitely detailed forest scenes. But Anna has something Katri wants, and to get it Katri will take control of Anna’s life and livelihood. By the time spring arrives, the two women are caught in a conflict of ideals that threatens to strip them of their most cherished illusions.