Philosophical Fiction Book Club

This event is supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Local Partners Programme.

N.B.: this meeting will be held online via Google Meet There is also an in-person session being held on Wednesday in the Prince of Wales pub near Covent Garden.

Charisma, predestination, education, sexuality and a love for Mussolini all mix together in a 1930s Edinburgh girls' school. Continuing our 'Crisis of Values' theme, this short novel takes us to the 'Brodie' set, six girls under the charm of the eponymous teacher and a betrayal that will be her downfall.

The meeting starts at 7pm with drink breaks at 8 and 9. The discussion will end around 10pm but leave whenever you need to.

Here's the blurb from GoodReads:

Romantic, heroic, comic and tragic, unconventional schoolmistress Jean Brodie has become an iconic figure in post-war fiction. Her glamour, unconventional ideas and manipulative charm hold dangerous sway over her girls at the Marcia Blaine Academy - 'the crème de la crème' - who become the Brodie 'set', introduced to a privileged world of adult games that they will never forget.

This event is supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Local Partners Programme.

N.B. this meeting will be held in person in the Prince of Wales pub near Covent Garden. There is also an online session held on Thursday if you are not in London or are not able to attend in person for any other reason.

Friendship and antagonism, community and individuality, loyalty and betrayal - just some of the themes in Sula by Toni Morrison. Continuing our 'Crisis of Values' year, we join childhood friends Sula and Nel after the former returns home after 10 years of a vagabond life and tests the boundaries of acceptability in a small Ohio town in the 1920s.

The meeting starts at 7pm with drink breaks at 8 and 9. The discussion will end around 10pm but leave whenever you need to.

Here's the blurb from GoodReads:

Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, **Sula **is a work that overflows with life.

This event is supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Local Partners Programme.

N.B.: this meeting will be held online via Google Meet There is also an in-person session being held on Wednesday in the Prince of Wales pub near Covent Garden.

Friendship and antagonism, community and individuality, loyalty and betrayal - just some of the themes in Sula by Toni Morrison. Continuing our 'Crisis of Values' year, we join childhood friends Sula and Nel after the former returns home after 10 years of a vagabond life and tests the boundaries of acceptability in a small Ohio town in the 1920s.

The meeting starts at 7pm with drink breaks at 8 and 9. The discussion will end around 10pm but leave whenever you need to.

Here's the blurb from GoodReads:

Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, **Sula **is a work that overflows with life.

This event is supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Local Partners Programme.

N.B. this meeting will be held in person in the Prince of Wales pub near Covent Garden. There is also an online session held on Thursday if you are not in London or are not able to attend in person for any other reason.

For the culmination of our 'Crisis of Values' year, we return to Russian nihilist philosophy and its consequences in the eyes of Dostoevsky. We join poverty-stricken protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov as he schemes to commit a 'justified' murder, and the moral and spiritual crisis that haunts him afterwards.

The meeting starts at 7pm with drink breaks at 8 and 9. The discussion will end around 10pm but leave whenever you need to.

Here's the blurb from GoodReads:

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.