Proxima — Stephen Baxter

The very far future: The Galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous Galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light ...

The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun and the nearest to host a world, Proxima IV, habitable by humans. But Proxima IV is unlike Earth in many ways. Huddling close to the warmth, orbiting in weeks, it keeps one face to its parent star at all times. The substellar point, with the star forever overhead, is a blasted desert, and the antistellar point, its antipode, is under an ice cap in perpetual darkness. How would it be to live on such a world ?

Yuri Jones, with 1,000 others, is about to find out ...

This week's book is Proxima by Stephen Baxter and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

The Lamplighters — Emma Stonex

They say we'll never know what happened to those men. They say the sea keeps its secrets ...

Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.

What happened to those three men, out on the tower ? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves ?

Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface ...

This week's book is The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

Miss Marley — Vanessa Lafaye

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister that to-morrow will be better and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price.

And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart ...

This week's book is Miss Marley by Vanessa Lafaye and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Nota Bene We've changed the book from our original wildcard choice City of the Dead: A Claire DeWitt Mystery to something more seasonal.

A Confederacy of Dunces — John Kennedy Toole

A monument to sloth, rant, and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern — this is Ignatius J Reilly of New Orleans; noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity, and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprize in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission — and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to go it with ...

This week's book is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

Nota Bene A Confederacy of Dunces refers to the book the South Manchester Book Group will be reading, not the group itself.

The Big Sleep — Raymond Chandler

I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

Los Angeles Private Investigator, Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is blackmailing him. A broken, weary old man, Sternwood just wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. However, with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out. And that's before he stumbles over the first corpse.

This week's book is The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

The Dollmaker — Nina Allan

Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive, but graceful, unique and with surprising depths. Perhaps that's why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector's magazine.

Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped; and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.

On his journey through the old towns of England he reads the fairytales of Ewa Chaplin — potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice — to remain alone with their painful pasts or break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.

This week's book is The Dollmaker by Nina Allan and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury — contact us for details.

Klara and the Sun — Kazuo Ishiguro

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

This week's book is Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

The Starless Sea — Erin Morgenstern

When Zachary Rawlins stumbles across a strange book hidden in his university library it leads him on a quest unlike any other. Its pages entrance him with their tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities and nameless acolytes, but they also contain something impossible: a recollection from his own childhood.

Determined to solve the puzzle of the book, Zachary follows the clues he finds on the cover — a bee, a key and a sword. They guide him to a masquerade ball, to a dangerous secret club, and finally through a magical doorway created by the fierce and mysterious Mirabel. This door leads to a subterranean labyrinth filled with stories, hidden far beneath the surface of the earth.

When the labyrinth is threatened, Zachary must race with Mirabel, and Dorian, a handsome barefoot man with shifting alliances, through its twisting tunnels and crowded ballrooms, searching for the end of his story.

This week's book is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

Circe — Madeline Miller

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Yet, in the golden halls of gods and nymphs, Circe stands apart, as something separate, something new. With neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and scorned and rejected by her kin Circe is increasingly isolated. Turning to mortals for companionship, she risks defying her father for love, a path that leads her not to the marriage bed but to a discovery of a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

Banished by Zeus to the remote island of Aiaia, Circe refines her craft, fate entwining her with legends: the messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home. As her power increases and her knowledge grows, so Circe must make the ultimate choice: to decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

This week's book is Circe by Madeline Miller and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

As we're coming to the end of our reading list, we'll be once again attempting to choose books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.

I am Sovereign — Nicola Barker

Charles, a forty-year-old teddy bear maker, is trying to sell his late mother's house, helped by his estate agent Avigail (who thinks Charles is an imbecile). The prospective buyers: the fearsome Wang Shu — who has no desire to make idle chit-chat — and her downtrodden daughter, Ying Yue.

This week's book is I am Sovereign by Nicola Barker and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — 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.

Shuggie Bain — Douglas Stuart

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.

Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

This week's book is Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens

For years, rumors of the Marsh Girl have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say.

Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life — until the unthinkable happens.

This week's book is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.

Imperium — Robert Harris

When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history.

The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium — supreme power in the state despite his low birth and implacable opposition from the republic's elites. This case will be his way in.

This week's book is Imperium by Robert Harris and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.