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 24 January 2019

The Magician's Nephew — C S Lewis

Book cover for C S Lewis's The Magician's Nephew in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupThe Magician's Nephew is a prequel to the Narnia series and is set a thousand years before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The frame story is set in England and features two children ensnared in experimental travel via ‘the wood between the worlds’. Thus, the novel shows Narnia and our middle-age world to be only two of many in a multiverse, which changes as some worlds begin and others end. It also explains the origin of foreign elements in Narnia, not only the lamp-post but also the White Witch and a human king and queen.

This week's book is C S Lewis's The Magician's Nephew and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

Thursday 10 January 2019

The Terror — Dan Simmons

Book cover for Dan Simmons's The Terror in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupA fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to locate the Northwest Passage. In the novel, while Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and illness, and forced to contend with mutiny and cannibalism, they are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by a monster.

This week's book is Dan Simmons's The Terror and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

The Franklin Expedition is well worth reading about, and you may like to consider Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by John G. Geiger and Owen Beattie, or Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson.