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 pm. We 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 27 July 2017

Censoring an Iranian Love Story — Shahriar Mandanipour

Book cover for Shahriar Mandanipour's Censoring an Iranian Love Story in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupShahriar, a writer, has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the “world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow”. He sets out instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be his greatest challenge yet.

Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favourite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against Social Corruption forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, internet cafés, and lush private gardens of Tehran.

Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara’s encounters, their desires, would put Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he’s crossed out or merely imagined, knowing they can never be published.

This week's book is Shahriar Mandanipour's Censoring an Iranian Love Story and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

Thursday 13 July 2017

Wuthering Heights — Ellis Bell

Book cover for Ellis Bell's Wuthering Heights in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book group‘It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands’, he answered. ‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes ! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours ! How can I ?’
This week's book is Ellis Bell's Wuthering Heights and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.