February Meetup

Our first meeting for 2026 had a fantastic turnout so huge thanks to all of you who made it out on a cold dark winters night. As ever, there was plenty of good talk about both books with The Outrun being particularly well received scoring 78 while The Dead of Winter scored 61.

For February we are entering the world of AI with the winner of the 2025 Arthur C. Clarke Award and one of the most published and translated books in the world first published in 1943

Please note, with thanks, we appreciate attendees making a contribution of £1.50 at the meeting to help cover meetup charges.

Happy Reading.

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer (nominated by Jenn)

Annie is the perfect girlfriend. She has dinner ready for Doug every night, wears the outfits he buys for her, and caters to his every sexual whim. Maybe her cleaning isn’t always good enough, but she’s trying really hard.

She was designed that way, after all.

Because Annie is a robot. But what happens when she starts to rebel against her stifled existence and imagine the impossible – a life without Doug?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (nominated by Orest)

The Sahara desert is the scenery of Little Prince's story. The narrator's plane has crashed there and he has scarcely some food and water to survive. Trying to comprehend what caused the crash, the Little Prince appears.

The serious blonde little boy asks to draw him a sheep. The narrator consents to the strange fellow's request. They soon become friends and the Little Prince informs the pilot that he is from a small planet, the asteroid 325, talks to him about the baobabs, his planet volcanoes and the mysterious rose that grew on his planet. He also talks to him about their friendship and the lie that evoked his journey to other planets.

Often puzzled by the grown-ups' behavior, the little traveler becomes a total and eternal symbol of innocence and love, of responsibility and devotion. Through him we get to see how insightful children are and how grown-ups aren't.

Other books nominated were:

All The Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Year of the Rat by Harry Shukman
My Name is Maame by Jessica George
Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah