Berk Worms 2026 - Dystopian novel

Welcome to our Berk Worms 🐛 book club. Each month we all aim to read the same book from a particular genre and then meet to discuss it. We also then talk about other books we are reading and sometimes exchange books with one another. All are welcome!

Our book for discussion in October is a Dystopian novel entitled When There Are Wolves Again, written by E J Swift. This novel was first published in October 2025 in the UK and has received a lot of praise and a number of awards, including WINNER of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, WINNER of the Best Novel Award from the British Science Fiction Association and it was a Guardian best science fiction book of 2025.

The novel runs at approximately 304 pages, depending on the edition you read. It is also available on Kindle and Audiobook.

About the novel for discussion:

Waterstones says: ‘A spellbinding novel that mines human connection, the environment and the importance of hope, When There Are Wolves Again is an immersive, urgent tale of a young activist in near-future Britain and a filmmaker with a personal connection to the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.’

Decades from now, two women sit beside a campfire and reflect on their life stories.

Activist Lucy's earliest memories are of living with her grandparents during the 2020 pandemic and discovering her grandmother's love of birds. Filmmaker Hester was born on the day of the Chornobyl explosion and visits the site years later to film its feral dogs in the Exclusion Zone. Here she meets Lux, the wolf dog who will give her life meaning.

Over half a century, their journeys take them from London to the Highlands to Somerset, through protests, family rifts, and personal tragedy. Lucy joins the fight to restore Britain's depleted natural habitats and revive the species who once shared the island, whilst Hester strives to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.

Both dream of a time when there are wolves again

Critical views:

“A remarkable work. Beautifully written and sensitively observed, it demonstrates how great speculative fiction can speak to our present and prepare us for the future. Swift has written a powerful and necessary novel, one that beautifully captures the precarity of our current times whilst anticipating and preparing us for the struggles that will inevitably come ahead. It confirms Swift as one of modern speculative fiction's key visionaries, and as one of our most engagingly human writers. “ - Fantasy Hive

'EVOCATIVE AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN'
THE GUARDIAN

Reading Ahead:

November: we will be reading a Family Saga novel entitled a Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

December is our Christmas 🎄 meal where we reflect on our year of books and choose our genres for 2027. We will also be reading

Happy reading, 🐛Cazza