Mon, Aug 10 · 7:00 PM BST
Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding at the July meetup as we were decanted into the open space next to our usual haunt. The venue asks me to pass on their apologies for the booking error and have already confirmed our bookings through to December (I have the confirmation emails!).
Anyway, we got to enjoy two books with some similar themes, leastways both having morally dubious leads, written nearly a hundred years apart. Yellowface was particularly well received scoring 76 (2nd place in our 2026 scoreboard) while The Custom of the Country scored 66 (mid table!).
For August we have two great reads; the Waterstones Book of the Year 2025 and a sci-fi classic.
Please note, with thanks, we appreciate attendees making a contribution of £1.50 at the meeting to help cover meetup charges.
Happy Reading.
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (nominated by Nuala)
PROVENCE, 1920
Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle's artistic genius possible.
But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers. Over this sweltering summer, everyone's true colours will be revealed.
Even if it means setting her world on fire.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (nominated by Jo)
Genly Ai is an ethnologist observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in winter.
The people there are androgynous, normally neuter, but they can become male ot female at the peak of their sexual cycle. They seem to Genly Ai alien, unsophisticated and confusing.
But he is drawn into the complex politics of the planet and, during a long, tortuous journey across the ice with a politician who has fallen from favour and has been outcast, he loses his professional detachment and reaches a painful understanding of the true nature of Gethenians and, in a moving and memorable sequence, even finds love...
Other books nominated were:
Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
