August 2025 - Intermezzo - Sally Rooney

For our eighth book of 2025, we are reading the latest book by bestselling author Sally Rooney.

'Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

This book is available on Kindle. For international delivery you can find it from Blackwells and it may also be available at the library or an English language book store.

We are a "real" book club, which means we do read the book before the meet-up and discuss it. New members are always welcome.

We need to notify the venue about how many will attend, so please make sure your RSVP status is accurate.

Hope to see you there!