HAMNET, by Maggie O'Farrell

To wrap up 2025, we're reading the New York Times bestseller HAMNET, by Maggie O'Farrell—the story of Shakespeare's inspiration for Hamlet—and right on the heels of the film adaptation's theatrical release at the end of November!

We will meet in our usual spot: the Piano Craft Gallery at 793 Tremont Street in Boston's South End. The doors will open at 6:45. Bring whatever you would like to share (optional). I'm planning to provide a few bottles of wine and some appetizers. We'll socialize 6:45–7:15 (-ish), then talk about the book starting around 7:15.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a luminous portrait of a marriage, a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time. • “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor (Will)—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

See you there!
Diane