South Manchester Book Group

We're a friendly and open reading group, and we share a love of books and discussing them with other people. We meet every fortnight, but you don't have to come to them all. It's dead simple; choose a book you like the sound of, read it (or even part of it) beforehand and turn up with a few ideas and money for beer / wine / flirtinis. It's very informal, and we're quite a friendly bunch. We meet at a pub in Didsbury around 8.30 pm, and can usually be found on the table with the books and flirtinis.

We've become rather popular recently so unfortunately aren't accepting new members just at the moment. But please drop us a line on the Contact Us form and we'll add you to our mailing list.

Our reading list, past, present, and future, appears here and a short version of what we’re reading next is here.

Thursday, 12 June 2025

Karla’s Choice — Nick Harkaway

Book cover for Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway Karla’s Choice in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans.

A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened.

Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy.

Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway's Karla's Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carré.

This week's book is Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 29 May 2025

Mr Loverman — Bernadine Evaristo

Book cover for Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo Mr Loverman in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather — but he is also secretly lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.

His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away ?

This week's book is Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 15 May 2025

The Wall — John Lanchester

Book cover for The Wall by John Lanchester The Wall in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall-an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being put to sea and made an Other himself. Beset by cold, loneliness, and fear, Kavanagh tries to fulfill his duties to his demanding Captain and Sergeant, even as he grows closer to his fellow Defenders. A dark part of him wonders whether it would be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if he had to fight for his life.

This week's book is The Wall by John Lanchester and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 1 May 2025

Piranesi — Susanna Clarke

Book cover for Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Piranesi in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways. When this world becomes too much for me, when I grow tired of the noise and the dirt and the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself; then I name a hall.

This week's book is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

As we're coming to the end of our reading list, we'll be pitching books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

Thursday, 17 April 2025

The Mad Woman’s Ball — Victoria Mas

Book cover for The Mad Woman’s Ball by Victoria Mas The Mad Woman’s Ball in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group The Salpêtrière asylum, 1885. All of Paris is in thrall to Doctor Charcot and his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad or hysterical, outcasts from society. But the truth is much more complicated — for these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives or strong-willed daughters. Once a year a grand ball is held at the hospital. For the Parisian elite, the Mad Women's Ball is the highlight of the social season; for the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.

This week's book is The Mad Woman’s Ball by Victoria Mas and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 3 April 2025

The Three Body Problem — Liu Cixin

Book cover for The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin The Three Body Problem in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.

This week's book is The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 20 March 2025

Intermezzo — Sally Rooney

Book cover for Intermezzo by Sally Rooney Intermezzo in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty—two—year—old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude — a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

This week's book is Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 6 March 2025

Judgment on Deltchev — Eric Ambler

Book cover for Judgment on Deltchev by Eric Ambler Judgment on Deltchev in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group I did not even blunder into the danger; I strayed into it as if it were an interesting-looking tangle of streets in an old town. Certainly I had been warned that they were dangerous; but only to those who warned, I thought, not to me. When I found out that I was mistaken and tried to get out, I found also that I was lost.

Foster’s dramatic skill is well-known in London’s West End theaters. So perhaps it wasn’t so surprising when he was hired by an American newspaper publisher to cover the trial of Yordan Delchev for treason. Accused of membership in the sinister Officer Corps Brotherhood and of masterminding a plot to assassinate his country’s leader, Delchev may in fact be a pawn and his trial all show. But when Foster meets Madame Delchev, the accused’s powerful wife, he suddenly become enmeshed in more life-threatening intrigue than he could have imagined.

This week's book is Judgment on Deltchev by Eric Ambler and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Statistical warning. This book is likely to be moved.

Thursday, 20 February 2025

Parable of the Sower — Octavia Butler

Book cover for Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time.

America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal.

Then, one terrible night, everything alters beyond recognition, and Lauren must make her voice heard for the sake of those she loves.

Soon, her vision becomes reality and her dreams of a better way to live gain the power to change humanity forever.

This week's book is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 6 February 2025

My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante

Book cover for My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante My Brilliant Friend in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group At that moment I knew what the plebs were, much more clearly than when, years earlier, she had asked me. The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer. They were all laughing, even Lila, with the expression of one who has a role and will play it to the utmost.

This week's book is My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 23 January 2025

The Wasp Factory — Iain Banks

Book cover for The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks The Wasp Factory in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.

This week's book is The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 9 January 2025

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & James — Mark Twain & Percival Everett

Book cover for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & James by Mark Twain & Percival Everett Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & James in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Huckleberry Finn escapes the civilized society of the strict Widow Douglas, who’s aim it is to care and educate the young boy, only to find himself at the hands of his drunken and abusive father.

After giving his Pap the slip in a mischievous and clever hoax, Huck sets out on his adventures down the Mississippi River on a raft, accompanied by his friend Jim, an escaped slave from the town. In their quest for freedom, these two characters form a strong bond whilst they encounter thieves, murderers, family feuds, con-artists, and tricksters along their trip downriver. Eventually, Huck and Jim’s friendship is put to the ultimate test when Jim is re-captured.


Book cover for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & James by Mark Twain & Percival Everett Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & James in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he flees to nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.

So begins a dangerous and transcendent journey along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most life-changing odyssey of them all ...

This week's books are Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and James by Percival Everett and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Please note this is the first meeting of the year.