Reading list – subject to change and improvement!!!
What would you like to read? We are in the process of drawing up a list. Please email your suggestions to ME4Writers@gmail.com or post on the Facebook page.
For examples of what we’ve read – see below:
23 January – ‘Drood’ by Dan Simmons – Speculative fiction about what might really have caused the inspiration for Charles Dickens’ last novel ‘The mystery of Edwin Drood’ and Wilkie Collins’ ‘The moonstone’. Set around Rochester!
20 February – ‘The suspicions of Mr Whicher’ by Kate Summerscale. The real life story of a murder that fascinated the Victorians and the detective, Mr Whicher, who inspired Dickens and Collins’ detectives. Also discussed and highly recommended ’The moonstone’ by Wilkie Collins. Dickens’ contemporary and rival (if ‘Drood’ is to be believed!) invents the genre of the detective novel with this gripping story.
27 March – in association with 17percent a new organisation to support and promote female playwrights we will be discussing several plays. ‘Top girls’ by Caryl Churchill; ’4:48 Psychosis’ by Sarah Kane and ‘Gone too far!’ by Bola Agbaje.
24 April – ‘Generation A’ by Douglas Coupland. In the near future bees are extinct – until five unconnected individuals, in different parts of the world, are stung. Immediately snatched up by ominous figures in hazmat suits, interrogated separately in neutral Idea-like chambers, and then released as 15-minute-celebrities into a world driven almost entirely by the internet, these five unforgettable people endure a barrage of unusual and highly 21st-century circumstances.
22 May – ‘The girl with the dragon tattoo’ by Stieg Larsson. See the film of the novel first on 6 May at The Other Cinema! Shady secrets of a wealthy family and an exposure of the murky dealings of a famous businessman. Mikael Blomkvist, a recently convicted journalist, is hired to investigate the disappearance of a woman almost 40 years ago. Along the way, Blomkvist meets Lisbeth Salander, the eponymous heroine of the trilogy.
19 June – ‘The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite’ by Beatrice Colin. As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. Born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned in a scandalous double murder, Lilly finds refuge at a Catholic orphanage, coming under the wing of the, at times, severe Sister August, the first in a string of lost loves.
24 July – ‘The most beautiful woman in town and other stories’ by Charles Bukowski. Surfacing from the literary underground, Bukowski’s wild and immortal stories have become cult favourites. This collection of anecdotal short stories demonstrates Bukowski’s compelling semi-autobiographical style and his mastery of visceral language and the depiction of seamy underworlds. Focusing on themes that recur throughout his work, from Los Angeles and bar culture to alcoholism, gambling, sex and violence, these pieces also introduce unexpected elements of fantasy and surrealism.
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