Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Caucasian struggle against
the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling imam, Shamil. Hoping to
protect his family, he joins the Russians, who accept him but never put their trust in him — and so
Murat must find another way to end the struggle.
This week's book is Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“Time is limited and some opportunities never repeat themselves.”
Belle couldn't find a job after University. Her impressive degree was not paying her rent or buying
her food. But after a fantastic threesome with a very rich couple that gave her a ton of money,
Belle realized that she could earn more than anyone she knew — becoming a call girl. The rest is
history.
Appropriately, our saturnalia, the celebrated Spath-o-thon, will take place at the same time, with a contrastingly puritanical policy of not turning up a random house. Probably.
This week's book is The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle du Jour and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
Please note change of book. This is our last book this year, and we meet next on 08 January 2026 for Hadji Murat.
“The Essex earth had bucked as if trying to shake off all its towns and villages; for twenty
seconds, no more, a series of convulsions that paused once as if breath were being drawn and then
began again.”
This week's book is The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s Saigon comes CIA agent Alden Pyle, a young idealistic
American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious Third Force.
As Pyle's naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign
correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as Fowler intervenes he wonders why:
for the greater good, or something altogether more complicated ?
This week's book is The Quiet American by Graham Greene 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.
“So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein — more, far more, will I achieve; treading
in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the
world the deepest mysteries of creation.”
This week's book is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of
suffering, and that I was human after all.”
This week's book is I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at least the
wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and
Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not
seen for years.
They expect to face many hazards — some strange and other-worldly — but they cannot yet foresee how
their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.
This week's book is The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct
scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they
watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling
through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of
oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the
death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers
over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth,
they have never felt more part — or protective — of it. They begin to ask, what is life without
earth ? What is earth without humanity ?
This week's book is Orbital by Samantha Harvey and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she
recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a
lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to
the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial
powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s
housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America — but faces an unthinkable hardship that
threatens all she has worked to achieve.
This week's book is Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
Elio — 17 years old, precocious, the son of an academic — finds himself falling for the older
Oliver, a postdoctoral scholar completing his manuscript on Heraclitus at the beautiful home of
Elio’s family. Oliver is worldly, handsome, a seductive contrast to Elio’s own naivety. Both are
bright and questioning; the hook of desire is soon caught fast.
This week's book is Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“What is the meaning of life ? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one
with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did
come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the
dark; here was one.”
This week's book is To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“Reality is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality
having nothing to do with the average ‘reality’ perceived by the communal eye.”
This week's book is Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's
existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and
left a large hole in my heart.”
This week's book is The Bone People by Keri Hulme and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
“I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is
leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.”
This week's book is Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war
with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with
his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little
scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans.
A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill
in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview
Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his
absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened.
Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come,
and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy.
Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came
in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway's Karla's Choice is an extraordinary,
thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carré.
This week's book is Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local
character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a
husband, father and grandfather — but he is also secretly lovers with his great childhood friend,
Morris.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their
marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a
lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away ?
This week's book is Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.
This week's book will not in fact be Mr Loverman but The Madwomen's Ball which we were going to read on 17.04.25, and to which date other parts of this site cleave to, but are in fact going to read now.
Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall-an enormous
concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to
protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising
seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being
put to sea and made an Other himself. Beset by cold, loneliness, and fear, Kavanagh tries to fulfill
his duties to his demanding Captain and Sergeant, even as he grows closer to his fellow Defenders. A
dark part of him wonders whether it would be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if
he had to fight for his life.
This week's book is The Wall by John Lanchester and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.