On The Beach

We had a slightly smaller group to discuss Alice Munro, and I think the consensus was that it’s not always ideal to try and read through a book of short stories one after another, and it makes discussion a little disjointed if people have read different ones. But the more we talked about the stories the more threads there were to unpick and there was a lot to talk about. There were also some good suggestions for other short stories to check out.

I don’t have the full list of nominations, but the winner for next time is On The Beach by Nevil Shute, because why not read about an apocalypse as a distraction from living through one? Anyone is welcome to join, it’s an open group.

We’ll be meeting on Zoom on May 13th from 7.30 pm, though we may take tentative steps back to the pub in a month or two once it is allowed. A few of us went to investigate the newly refurbed Effra Social last week and can report it is still standing with a nice new outdoor space, but seems to be clearing out all our favourite junk from the back room, and the secret door is no longer a secret.

We also voted on a long read and the winner for that is ALL FOUR BOOKS in the Ali Smith Seasonal Quartet – starting with Autumn through to Summer. We’ll set a date for this later in Summer, possibly a real life meet up somewhere in London relevant to the books.