Ghost Stories — M R James

Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment.

This week's book is Ghost Stories by M R James and we'll be meeting at The Portico Library on Mosley Stree in Manchester, and then to Sam's Chop-House — contact us for details.

The Double — Fyodor Dostoevsky

These, gentlemen, are my rules: if I don't succeed, I keep trying; if I do succeed, I keep quiet; and in any case I don't undermine anyone. I'm not an intriguer, and I'm proud of it. I wouldn't make a good diplomat. They also say, gentlemen, that the bird flies to the fowler. That's true, and I'm ready to agree: but who is the fowler here, and who is the bird ? That's still a question, gentlemen !

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

White Fang — Jack London

To man has been given the grief, often, of seeing his gods overthrown and his altars crumbling; but to the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to crouch at man's feet, this grief has never come. Unlike man, whose gods are of the unseen and overguessed, vapors and mists of fancy eluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodness and power, intangible outcroppings of self into the realm of spirit — unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come into their fire find the gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence. No effort of faith is necessary to believe in such a god; no effort of will can possibly induce disbelief in such a god. There is no getting away from it. There it stands, on its two hindlegs, club in hand, immensely potential, passionate and wrathful and loving, god and mystery and power all wrapped up and around by flesh that bleeds when it is torn and that is good to eat like any flesh.

This week's book is White Fang by Jack London and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Treacle Walker — Alan Garner

Ragbone ! Ragbone ! Any rags ! Pots for rags ! Donkey stone !

Joe looked up from his comic and lifted his eye patch. There was a white pony in the yard. It was harnessed to a cart, a flat cart, with a wooden chest on it. A man was sitting at a front corner of the cart, holding the reins. His face was creased. He wore a long coat and a floppy high-crowned hat, with hair straggling beneath, and a leather bag was slung from his shoulder across his hip.

Joe Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. He reads his comics, collects birds' eggs and treasures his marbles, particularly his prized dobbers. When Treacle Walker appears off the Cheshire moor one day — a wanderer, a healer — an unlikely friendship is forged and the young boy is introduced to a world he could never have imagined.

This week's book is Treacle Walker by Alan Garner and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Hyperion — Dan Simmons

It is the 29th century and the universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.

On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.

This week's book is Hyperion by Dan Simmons 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 choosing books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

Woman at Point Zero — Nawal El Saadawi

All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up.

So begins Firdaus' story, leading to her grimy Cairo prison cell, where she welcomes her death sentence as a relief from her pain and suffering. Born to a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside, Firdaus suffers a childhood of cruelty and neglect. Her passion for education is ignored by her family, and on leaving school she is forced to marry a much older man. Following her escapes from violent relationships, she finally meets Sharifa who tells her that 'A man does not know a woman's value the higher you price yourself the more he will realise what you are really worth' and leads her into a life of prostitution. Desperate and alone, she takes drastic action.

This week's book is Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Portnoy's Complaint — Philip Roth

Doctor, do you understand what I was up against ? My wang was all I really had that I could call my own ...

The frank revelations of his shame and humiliation told by Alexander Portnoy — a sexually-obsessed, mother-fixated bachelor — told to his psychoanalyst, Dr Spielvogel, leave no stone unturned ...

This week's book is Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

The Crossing — Cormac McCarthy

Sixteen-year-old Billy Parham and his younger brother Boyd are ascinated by an elusive wolf that has been marauding their family's property, Billy captures the animal — but rather than kill it, sets out impulsively for the mountains of Mexico to return it to where it came from.

When Billy comes back to his own home he finds himself and his world irrevocably changed. His loss of innocence has come at a price, and once again the border beckons with its desolate beauty and cruel promise.

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

A Clockwork Orange — Anthony Burgess

Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn't just like ultra-violence — he also enjoys rape, drugs and Beethoven's ninth. He and his gang of droogs rampage through a dystopian future, hunting for terrible thrills. But when Alex finds himself at the mercy of the state and subject to the ministrations of Dr Brodsky, and the mind-altering treatment of the Ludovico Technique, he discovers that fun is no longer the order of the day ...

Baffled by our Tone's cant ? Confused by his argot ? Then why not consult our NADSAT — A Malenky Guide for Oomny Droogs ?

This week's book is A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

King Solomon's Mines — H Rider Haggard

This faithful but unpretending record of a remarkable adventure is hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator to all the big boys and little boys who read it. I offer apologies for my blunt way of writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to handling a rifle than a pen. This is the strange history of our journey into the heart of Kukuanaland; a trek into the interior of the dark continent to find a lost friend and discover the diamond mines of King Solomon. In the course of a long life of close shaves, I never had such shaves as those which I have recently experienced.

— Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman

This week's book is King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Yellow Face — R F Kuang

Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song. But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault ...

This week's book is Yellow Face by R F Kuang and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Normal People — Sally Rooney

Marianne is the young, affluent, intellectual wallflower; Connell is the boy everyone likes, shadowed by his family’s reputation and poverty. Unlikely friends, and later lovers, their small town beginnings in rural Ireland are swiftly eclipsed by the heady worlds of student Dublin. Gradually their intense, mismatched love becomes a battleground of power, class, and the falsehoods they choose to believe.

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

On Green Dolphin Street — Sebastian Faulks

With two young children she adores, loving parents back in London, and an admired husband, Charlie, working at the British embassy in Washington, the world seems an effervescent place of parties, jazz, and family happiness to Mary van der Linden. But the Eisenhower years are ending, and 1960 brings the presidential battle between two ambitious senators: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. But when Frank, an American newspaper reporter, enters their lives Mary embarks on a passionate affair, all the while knowing that in the end she must confront an impossible decision.

This week's book is On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

An Officer and a Spy — Robert Harris

Paris, 1895: an army officer, Georges Picquart, watches a convicted spy, Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of a baying crowd.

Dreyfus is exiled for life to Devil's Island; Picquart is promoted to run the intelligence until that tracked him down.

But when Picquart discovers that secrets are still being handed over to the Germans, he is forced to confront the dangerous truth that Dreyfus may be innocent.

Soon Picquart is being drawn into a labyrinth of deceit and corruption that threatens not just his honour but his life ...

This week's book is An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — Stephen King

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old. Lost in the woods.

Trisha has only veered a little way off the trail. But in her panic to get back to her family, she takes a turning that leads deeper into the tangled undergrowth.

At first it's just the bugs, midges and mosquitoes. Then comes the hunger. For comfort she tunes her Walkman into broadcasts of the Red Sox baseball games and the performances of her hero Tom Gordon.

But as darkness begins to fall, Trisha realises that she is not alone. There's something else in the woods — watching. Waiting ...

This week's book is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King 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 choosing books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

Real Tigers — Mick Herron

Nobody left Slough House at the end of a working day feeling like they'd contributed to the security of the nation. They left it feeling like their brains had been fed through a juicer.

Slough House is the Intelligence Service outpost for failed spies, former high-fliers now dubbed the slow horses. Catherine Standish, one of their number, worked in Regent's Park long enough to understand treachery, double-dealing and stabbing in the back, and she's known Jackson Lamb long enough to have learned that old sins cast long shadows. And she also knows that chance encounters never happen to spooks, even recovering drunks whose careers have crashed and burned.

What she doesn't know is why anyone would target her.

So whoever's holding her hostage, it can't be personal. It must be about Slough House. Most likely, it's about Jackson Lamb. And say what you like about Lamb, he'll never leave a joe in the lurch.

He might even be someone you could trust with your life.

This week's book is Real Tigers by Mick Herron 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 choosing books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

Persuasion — Jane Austen

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope ... I have loved none but you.

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Her family moves to lower their expenses and reduce their debt by renting their home to an Admiral and his wife, whose brother, Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank.

Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth ...

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

Haroun and the Sea of Stories — Salman Rushdie

Haroun's father is the greatest of all storyletters. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But one day something goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father. So he flies off on the back of the Hoopie bird to the Sea of Stories — and a fantastic adventure begins.

This week's book is Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Bravo Two Zero — Andrew McNab

Their location: Iraq. Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero.

When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They escape on foot to the Syrian border. Three men die. One escapes. But four men are captured. For them, the worst is yet to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they are tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training has prepared them ...

This week's book is Bravo Two Zero by Andrew McNab and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

The Mayor of Casterbridge — Thomas Hardy

Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

Drunk and bitter at the world, the young Michael Henchard sells his wife to a sailor at Weydon Priors fair. The next morning he vows to give up drink and mend his terrible ways. Twenty years later he is mayor of Casterbridge, a rich and important figure who little suspects the past is about to rear up and attack him ...

This week's book is The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Half of a Yellow Sun — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy English writer, is in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Biafran War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined.

This week's book is Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Hawksmoor — Peter Ackroyd

There is no Light without Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe.

So proclaims Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment. But Dyer plans to conceal a dark secret at the heart of each church — to create a forbidding architecture that will survive for eternity. Two hundred and fifty years later, London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches — crimes that make no sense to the modern mind ...

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

The Island of Missing Trees — Elif Shafak

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows.

In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break apart.

Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets, separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home.

This week's book is The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Atonement — Ian McEwan

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.

Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever, as Briony commits a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

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

A Pale View of Hills — Kazuo Ishiguro

Etsuko is a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter.

Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko — a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy — the memories start to take on a disturbing cast.

This week's book is A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

The Manningtree Witches — A K Blakemore

In Manningtree, depleted of men since the Civil War began, the women are left to their own devices and Rebecca West chafes against the drudgery of her days. But when Matthew Hopkins arrives, asking bladed questions and casting damning accusations, mistrust and unease seep into the lives of the women.

Caught between betrayal and persecution, what must Rebecca West do to survive ?

This week's book is The Manningtree Witches by A K Blakemore and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.