Cheltenham PABC: Julia by Sandra Newman (400 pages)

As voted on in the April session, in June we will read Julia by Sandra Newman.

There is a nominal fee of £2 for each session from January 2025 onwards. This is to contribute to the cost of hosting the group on Meetup.com.

The payment link for June is here: https://monzo.me/devonedwards-joseph/2.00?d=June%20book%20club%20%F0%9F%93%9A&h=m0-iif

Feel free to arrive from 6.30pm if you'd like to meet people, get a drink, and have a chat before we start the book discussion at 6.45pm.

The expectation is that you will buy, borrow, or stream the book and read or listen ahead of the session, and then we will discuss it together.

You do not have to have finished the whole thing to attend, as long as you don't mind spoilers. :)

How to find us:
I have booked a table for us at The Swan under my name (Devon) - the bar staff will be able to direct you to it.
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Book description:

"
London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive.

But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
"