Mister Dickens

Our book group chioce for February 2023 is Auē by Becky Manawatu. Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s.

Our book group choice for January 2023 is The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller. A working father whose life no longer feels like his own discovers the transforming powers of great (and downright terrible) literature in this laugh-out-loud memoir.

Our book group choice for December 2022 is Nutshell by Ian McEwan. Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. It is a reinterpretation of the classic William Shakespeare play Hamlet as told by a fetus.

Our book group choice for November 2022 is Toto Among the Murderers by Sally J. Morgan. It is 1973 and Jude – known to her friends as Toto – has just graduated from art school and moves into a house in a run-down part of Leeds.

Our book group choice for October 2022 is The Offing by Benjamin Myers. One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay.

Our book group choice for September 2022 is Widowland by C.J. Carey. It’s London, 1953. Thirteen years have passed since England surrendered to the Nazis and formed a Grand Alliance with Germany.

Our book group choice for July 2022 is Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah. While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops.

Our book group choice for June 2022 is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. This book creates an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov.

Our book group choice for May 2022 is The Khan by Saima Mir. A successful lawyer, her London life is a long way from the grubby Northern streets she knew as a child, where her father headed up the Pakistani community and ran the local organised crime syndicate.

Our book group choice for April 2022 is Regeneration by Pat Barker. The first in Pat Barker’s series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, Regeneration focuses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight.