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 21 February 2019

The Immortalists — Chloe Benjamin

Book cover for Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupIt'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.


Thursday 7 February 2019

Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Book cover for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupAs 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.