Programmes for Each Group

Group A (Janet Powell) 📘

2025

2nd January - Elizabeth Strout - Olive Kitteridge - 2008

Through 13 different narratives, telling the triumphs and tragedies of those around her, Olive’s story emerges. (Shirley)

6th February - Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture - 2008

Nearing her 100th birthday, Roseanne’s journal recounts her longtime incarceration in a mental hospital and reveals an alternative history of Ireland. (Sarah)

6th March - Ruth Hogan - The Keeper of Lost Things - 2017

A tale of love and loss across dual timelines, and of finding unexpected stories hidden in a collection of small objects. (Yolande)

3rd April - Jessica Bruder - Nomadland - 2017

America has a growing number of older people adopting a transient life in search of seasonal work just to survive. Their stories reveal great resilience and creativity in the face of stark options. (Martin)

1st May - Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach - 2007

In 1962, a newly married couple arrive at a hotel for the first night of their honeymoon, but it will influence the rest of their lives (Jenny)

5th June - Doreen Cunningham - Soundings - 2022

Many years after reporting on the lives of Alaskan indigenous communities, Doreen embarks on an emotional journey with her toddler

son, following the grey whale migration from Mexico to the Arctic. (Shena)

3rd July - Barbara Kingsolver - Flight Behaviour - 2012

Dellarobia’s unhappy life will change when she discovers millions of roosting Monarch butterflies in the Appalachian Mountains, waylaid from their usual migration by unseasonal weather. (Sheila)

7th August - Colm Toibin - Brooklyn - 2009

In the 1950’s, Eilis emigrates to America from Ireland. Settled in her new life, news from home sees her return and while there she will be confronted with a terrible dilemma. (Jean)

4th September - Voltaire - Candide - 1759

Candide has been instilled with the belief that “all is for the best”, but his optimism will be sorely tested by an outrageous series of disasters. (Sue)

2nd October - Jeanine Cummins - American Dirt - 2020

When her journalist husband is murdered by a drug cartel, Lydia flees Acapulco with her son and heads north to the US border, a journey fraught with danger. (Margaret)

6th November - Tracy Chevalier - The Girl with the Pearl Earring - 1999

A captivating story about the Dutch artist Vermeer, and his enigmatic painting. (David)

4th December - Olive Collins - The Tides Between Us - 2017

In the early 1800’s, a young boy is deported from Ireland to a plantation in Jamaica. When a skeleton is unearthed in 1990’s Ireland, so too are the long-buried truths of family links to the slave trade. (Alison)

Group B (Anne Smith) 📗

2025

Pending

Group C (Sue Buchan) 📕

2025

23rd January - Laura Shepherd-Robinson - The Square Of Sevens - 2023

A fortune-teller in Georgian England, who uses an ancient Cornish method, is searching for her parents' history. (Amanda)

27th February - Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna - 2009

Boy grows up between Mexico and the US, works for the Riveras (Diego and Frida Kahlo), and for Trotsky, becomes a writer. (Sarah)

27th March - Jeanine Cummins - American Dirt - 2020

Mexican bookseller flees with son to the US, after journalist husband is murdered by drug cartel. (Carol)

24th April - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - The Leopard - 1958

There are changes in Sicily as Garibaldi's Redshirts invade and the old aristocracy has to embrace the new bourgeoisie. (Sue B)

22nd May - Italo Calvino - If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller - 1979

Postmodernist "frame" story, partly in the second person, about the reading experience, partly the stories that "you" are reading. (Hazel)

26th June - Kate Atkinson - Behind The Scenes At The Museum - 1995

A tale of four generations of women, up to Ruby Lennox, who is born in York in 1951. (Linda)

24th July - Rosamond Lehmann - The Echoing Grove - 1953

Lehmann's heartbreak at the end of her affair with Cecil Day-Lewis inspired this novel about two sisters who loved the same man until his death. (Alison)

28th August - Katy Hays - The Cloisters - 2023

In New York, the gothic Cloisters museum hosts a small cliqué of researchers: a mystery Tarot set is discovered. (Anne)

25th September - David Grann - The Wager - 2023

A story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a dramatic court martial. (Sally)

Group D (Sue Buchan) 📙

2025

20th January - Kate Atkinson - Normal Rules Don’t Apply - 2023

Short story collection: interconnected tales in a constantly changing multiverse. (Sian)

17th February - Peter Hoeg - The Quiet Girl - 2007

A clown wanted for tax evasion helps nuns safeguarding children with mystical abilities. When one girl runs away, he goes after her. (Margaret)

17th March - George Eliot - Middlemarch - 1872

One of the great English novels: set in a Midlands town, it follows intersecting stories with multiple characters. (Marion)

21st April - Samantha Downing - My Lovely Wife - 2019

Psychological thriller about a family that initially seems ordinary, set in Florida. (Geoff)

19th May - Emma Smith - Portable Magic - 2022

A book about books, their history, their readers, their impacts, in a series of essays. (Sue).

16th June - Khalid Hosseini - And The Mountains Echoed - 2013

Themes of loyalty, betrayal, guilt and gratitude among Afghan survivors and aid workers: told from nine different perspectives. (Jenny)

21st July - Nick Hayes - The Book Of Trespass - 2020

About our country, and the lack of access we have to most of it: in England we are excluded from 92% of the land and 97% of the waterways. (Peggy)