The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

Metting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday November 13, we will be discussing Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library.

London 1983. A public toilet. William Beckwith rescues Lord Nantwitch, after the old man has collapsed. The event leads William into recording the Lord's memoirs. The memoirs show a hidden history of homosexuality, love, loss and prejudice - from the 1930s to the pre-AIDS gay world.

The Swimming-Pool Library is about 350 pages long. Hard copies are available from The Bookshop, 207 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst and soft copies from Amazon. Contact dalemills (at) cantab.net for a free pdf or Kindle-compatible file.

The Shakespeare Hotel is a busy inner-city pub, but we meet in a semi-private room upstairs, conducive for discussion. Many of us arrive around 6.00pm for drinks or food, and the meeting starts at 7.00pm. The format is that we have a focused discussion on the book till about 8.00pm, and then the meeting formally closes. Almost everyone stays back to chat about the book or anything else.

The Shakespeare is a 10 min walk from Central train station, almost opposite Surrey Hills Light Rail and local parking is reasonable. Access to the room requires walking up two small flights of stairs.