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 30 March 2023

The Mayor of Casterbridge — Thomas Hardy

Book cover for The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy The Mayor of Casterbridge in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group 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.

Thursday 16 March 2023

Half of a Yellow Sun — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Book cover for Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group 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.

Thursday 2 March 2023

Hawksmoor — Peter Ackroyd

Book cover for Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd Hawksmoor in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group 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.