The Immortalists — Chloe Benjamin

It's 1969, and holed up in a grimy tenement building in New York's Lower East Side is a travelling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the date they will die. The four Gold children, too young for what they're about to hear, sneak out to learn their fortunes. The prophecies could be dismissed as trickery and nonsense, yet the Golds bury theirs deep. Over the years that follow they attempt to ignore, embrace, cheat, and defy the knowledge given to them that day — but it will shape the course of their lives forever.

This week's book is Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

Please note the change of book. We'll be reading the previous choice, Lady Chatterley's Lover on 18 April 2019.

Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. But after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face ?

This week's book is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.