South Manchester Book Group

We're a friendly and open South Manchester pub-based 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 and present, appears below. Our upcoming schedule of what we’re reading next is here.

Showing posts with label Cormac McCarthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cormac McCarthy. Show all posts

Blood Meridian — Cormac McCarthy

Book cover for Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group “The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”

This week's book is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and we'll not be meeting at The Didsbury 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.

For continuity purposes we'll also be discussing Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit, the utility of time travel in addressing the problems of inchoate totalitarianism, and the wisdom of superimbibation

The Crossing — Cormac McCarthy

Book cover for The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy The Crossing in the South Manchester, Chorlton, Cheadle, Fallowfield, Burnage, Levenshulme, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey, Heaton Norris, Heaton Chapel, Northenden, and Didsbury book group 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.

Blood Meridian — Cormac McCarthy

Book cover for Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupThe truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.

An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended the westward expansion of the United States, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into a nightmarish world.

This week's book is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

For continuity purposes we'll also be discussing Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit, the utility of time travel in addressing the problems of inchoate totalitarianism, and the wisdom of superimbibation.

All The Pretty Horses — Cormac McCarthy

Book cover for Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupJohn Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet cruelly civilized; a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

This week's book is Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

Blood Meridian — Cormac McCarthy

Book cover for Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian in the South Manchester, Chorlton, and Didsbury book groupIt makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

This week's book is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and we'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy



No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy