Hello, we’re the Brixton Book Group. We meet every 3-4 weeks in a pub in Brixton to talk about the book we chose last time, and to pick a new book to read for the next meeting. We’re not always great at replying to messages, but just assume you’re welcome and turn up. We are a friendly group and always happy to meet new people.
We usually meet at Effra Social in the Churchill Room (at the front), but sometimes they put us in the main room or on the stage. Just look for the people with books. During lockdown we did meetings on Zoom so we’ll do that again as and when it is necessary, but in general we prefer to be in the pub.
The conversation is lively, unstructured and informal. We vote on what we’re going to read next time using a diagrammatic voting doodle mechanism™ (a scribble in a sketchbook). Members bring along a suggestion of a book to read and pitch it to the rest of the group. You can vote for as many books as you like, and we always publish the full list for anyone who likes to read a lot or who really really disagreed with the winning book.
Ties are decided on the toss of a coin, or sometimes we pick two books to read.
We read almost everything and anything, from Sci-Fi to the classics, high-brow, low-brow, fiction and non fiction. The column on the right lists every single book and author we’ve ever read. A selection of the books we’ve read appear in the tag cloud on the blog, and we’re now adding to our list on Bookshop.org.
We’ve had authors turn up to meetings, been filmed for Japanese TV and featured in Time Out a few times.
There are no criteria or rules about joining apart from:
- Please bring a book to suggest
- If your book is successfully chosen, you have to attend the next meeting to face the music or revel in the genius of your choice
New year is always busy, but we never turn anyone away. There is also the Clapham Book Group or if you’re looking for something quieter give us a shout and we can help you get your own group started (we have lots of people on our lists!).
Alternatively if you’re just looking for book suggestions, subscribe using the form below and you’ll get a new book suggestion every 3-4 weeks!