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 8.30 pm, and 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, 19 December 2024

Saturnalia ! — The Lord of Misrule

Book cover for Saturnalia ! by The Lord of Misrule Saturnalia ! in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Great gods above, that horrible and cursed little book !

Surely you sent it to your Catullus, so that he might die, again and again, on that day, during the Saturnalia too, the best of days !

It won't end like this for you, oh no, my clever one.


We head to the fleshpots of the Neues Berlin to celebrate the mid-winter.

Please note this is the last meeting of the year.

Thursday, 12 December 2024

The Wood at Midwinter — Susannah Clarke

Book cover for The Wood at Midwinter by Susannah Clarke The Wood at Midwinter in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees — and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst — and the path of her life is changed forever.

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

Thursday, 28 November 2024

The Bell Jar — Sylia Plath

Book cover for The Bell Jar by Sylia Plath The Bell Jar in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.

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

Please note change of changed book.

Thursday, 14 November 2024

The New York Trilogy — Paul Auster

Book cover for The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster The New York Trilogy in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose.

Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this uniquely stylized triology of detective novels begins with City of Glass, in which Quinn, a mystery writer, receives an ominous phone call in the middle of the night. He’s drawn into the streets of New York, onto an elusive case that’s more puzzling and more deeply-layered than anything he might have written himself. In Ghosts, Blue, a mentee of Brown, is hired by White to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. Once Blue starts stalking Black, he finds his subject on a similar mission, as well. In The Locked Room, Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and nothing but a cache of novels, plays, and poems.

This week's book is The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 31 October 2024

Dracula — Bram Stoker

Book cover for Dracula by Bram Stoker Dracula in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the Master and his imminent arrival.

This week's book is Dracula by Bram Stoker 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 pitching books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

This meeting falls on All Hallows' E'en where the appropriate rituals will be undertaken, and correct dress is to be observed.

Thursday, 17 October 2024

The Glutton — A K Blakemore

Book cover for The Glutton by A K Blakemore The Glutton in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Because of time and all it has torn down and robbed from him. The gilt rubbed from the surface of the world. Because of time and all it has borne away, beyond his reach.

Sister Perpetue is not to move. She is not to fall asleep. She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient's room.

She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed.

But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon. Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means.

The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it's not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.

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

Thursday, 3 October 2024

Empire of the Sun — J G Ballard

Book cover for Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard Empire of the Sun in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group It's at the beginning and end of war that we have to watch out. In between, it's like a country club.

Shanghai, 1941 — a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war ... and the dawn of a blighted world.

This week's book is Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 19 September 2024

See Saw — Timothy Ogene

Book cover for See Saw by Timothy Ogene See Saw in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Until the lion learns to speak, the tale will always be the hunter's.

A ‘recovering writer’ — his first novel having been littered with typos and selling only fifty copies — Frank Jasper is plucked from obscurity in Port Jumbo in Nigeria by Mrs Kirkpatrick, the wife of an American professor, to attend the prestigious William Blake Program for Emerging Writers in Boston.

This week's book is See Saw by Timothy Ogene and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 5 September 2024

In Memoriam — Alice Winn

Book cover for In Memoriam by Alice Winn In Memoriam in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group It was the Hell you’d feared in childhood, come to devour the children. It was treading over the corpses of your friends so that you might be killed yourself. It was the congealed evil of a century.

In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood. They're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle — an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood — not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been.

When Gaunt's mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches. Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

This week's book is In Memoriam by Alice Winn and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 22 August 2024

Home Fire — Kamila Shamsie

Book cover for Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie Home Fire in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group For girls, becoming women was inevitability; for boys, becoming men was ambition.

After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she is finally studying in America, resuming a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London — or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream: to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew.

This week's book is Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Please note change of book.  You may wish to also read Sophocles' Antigone on which Home Fire is based.

Thursday, 8 August 2024

Tender Is The Night — F Scott Fitzgerald

Book cover for Tender Is The Night by F Scott Fitzgerald Tender Is The Night in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Strange children should smile at each other and say, “Let's play”.

Rosemary Hoyt is a young actress in the south of France in the late 1920s, with a complicated relationship with the alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth pushed him into a glamorous lifestyle, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's decline.

This week's book is Tender Is The Night by F Scott Fitzgerald and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 25 July 2024

Butter — Asako Yuzuko

Book cover for Butter by Asako Yuzuko Butter in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

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

Thursday, 11 July 2024

The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro

Book cover for The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past.

This week's book is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 27 June 2024

Cloud Atlas — David Mitchel

Book cover for Cloud Atlas by David Mitchel Cloud Atlas in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

This week's book is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchel and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 13 June 2024

Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold — Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Book cover for Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Seasons flow in a cycle.
Life too, passes through difficult winters.
But after any winter, spring will follow.

This week's book is Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 30 May 2024

Titus Groan — Mervyn Peake

Book cover for Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake Titus Groan in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.

This week's book is Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake 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.

Thursday, 16 May 2024

All Quiet on the Western Front — Erich Maria Remarque

Book cover for All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.

This week's book is All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 2 May 2024

The Mist — Stephen King

Book cover for The Mist by Stephen King The Mist in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group When rationality begins to break down, the circuits of the human brain can overload. Axons grow bright and feverish. Hallucinations turn real: the quicksilver puddle at the point where perspective makes parallel lines seem to intersect is really there; the dead walk and talk; a rose begins to sing.

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

Thursday, 18 April 2024

Steppenwolf — Herman Hesse

Book cover for Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse Steppenwolf 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 reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.

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

Thursday, 4 April 2024

Invisible Man — Ralph Ellison

Book cover for Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Invisible Man in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible because people refuse to see me ... When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me.

This week's book is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 21 March 2024

The Ballad of the Sad Café — Carson McCullers

Book cover for The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad Café in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved.

This week's book is The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 7 March 2024

The Code of the Woosters — P G Wodehouse

Book cover for The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse The Code of the Woosters in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, ‘Do trousers matter ?’
The mood will pass, sir.

This week's book is The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 22 February 2024

Lessons in Chemistry — Bonnie Garmus

Book cover for Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Lessons in Chemistry in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group “Sometimes I think,” she said slowly, “that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn't make it past noon.”

This week's book is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 8 February 2024

The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century — Olga Ravn

Book cover for The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Why do I have all these thoughts if the job I’m doing is mainly technical ? Why do I have these thoughts if the reason I’m here is primarily to increase production ? From what perspective are these thoughts productive ? Was there an error in the update ? If there was, I’d like to be rebooted.

This week's book is The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 25 January 2024

Sea of Tranquility — Emily St John Mandel

Book cover for Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel Sea of Tranquility in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group Pandemics don’t approach like wars, with the distant thud of artillery growing louder every day and flashes of bombs on the horizon. The arrive in retrospect, essentially. It’s disorienting. The pandemic is far away and then it’s all around you with seemingly no intermediate step.

This week's book is Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Thursday, 11 January 2024

Villette — Charlotte Brontë

Book cover for Villette by Charlotte Brontë Villette in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean ? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.

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