Each member chooses a book in turn so the topics are quite varied, though most of them are relatively recent and are often chosen from newspaper reviews or book prize lists. Our discussions are lively and sometimes encompass pertinent issues linked indirectly to the book we’ve read.

To give you a flavour of our choices, some of the books we have read in the last year include: ‘Great Circle’ by Maggie Shipstead, which follows the lives of two women, one is an early aviator and the other an actress in the early 21st century; ‘The Nightingale’ by Kristin Hannah, two sisters in France become involved in resistance activities during WW2;  ‘Excellent Women’ by Barbara Pym, a story of ordinary single women who had to adapt their lives following  WW2; ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier, a classic romance and thriller about which we felt differently in the light of modern views; ‘Lincoln Highway’ by Amor Towles,  three unlikely friends who travel across the US; ‘The Plant Hunter’ by T L Mogford, Victorian adventures in search of plants in China. Looking over our recent choices, I would say that we tend towards books about people, their relationships and their lives, rather than thrillers or crime stories, although we do occasionally read these too.

Our group meets each month excluding August and December. We meet in the café and have a catch up before moving upstairs for our meeting. We now have 11 members and therefore no vacancies at the minute.