Reading

**The Talbot Room at the George Inn** The George provides the room free of charge (they are awesome), and we encourage you to purchase drinks (and food – the burgers are great!). As it’s a pub and not a picnic area, please don’t consume your own food and drink there. We usually meet in the Talbot room which is on the top floor on the left hand side of the pub as viewed from the courtyard. If lost please send a message here shortly before the meeting starts. **We are sorry to say that there is no step-free access to the Talbot room, and it is at the end of three flights of stairs.** **Format** We start at 7pm and run until 9pm. We hear approximately six readings of 10 minutes (\~2000 words), then discuss the piece for 10 minutes. Email your work to: london60transmitter@emailitin.com as an attachment (It must be an attachment). A link for access to googledocs will be given at the start of each session to enable people to read along, which in turn enables more considered feedback. Work submitted will be automatically deleted after 10 days. We decide on readers/pieces at the beginning of each session. **Safe and respectful space** The group is run by volunteers, and we don’t have the capacity to read submitted work in advance. If there is anything in your work that might distress or disturb some readers, for example concerning any kind of abuse, please give a trigger warning before you read. Be specific and concise. If it becomes apparent during a reading that a piece is inappropriate, the moderator will stop the reading. In discussing others’ work, please be mindful of how you express yourself and do not use discriminatory language, even if such language features in the piece.

A fortnightly Monday evening play-reading group, led by a professional and experienced actress-directress-coachess, Downstairs at Megan's in Richmond upon Thames. You don't have to have any stage experience - only the love (suppressed or expressed) of reading out loud; and an interest in joining a friendly group of drama buddies, over a drink and some fun, poignant, poetic, expressive and interactive thoughts, against the beautiful backdrop of the cosy and private downstairs at Megan's. I will select the play a few days before the meet-up, according to how many members we have, confirmed, making sure that everyone gets to take part. Copies of the play / script will be provided and there is no minimum spend, curtesy of Megan's - the proud and generous supporters of the local community activities. (I'll be well up for a drink though.) When you get to the door, just say that you're there for the Play-reading Group, downstairs. Can't wait to read with you! Adna

In these sessions, we will start to cultivate a relationship with our breath, so that we are able to work WITH it and USE it day to day, developing an inner sense of presence, self connection and resilience so that we are better equipped to navigate 'life'. We will also explore techniques to deepen and expand our relationship with our selves, others and with our past through our breath, and experience a guided conscious connected breathwork journey to release emotional blockages and tap into our inner wisdom for clarity, healing and transformation. You may experience a profound shift in your consciousness, deep inner healing and letting go, and a (re)connection with your true, authentic self. This event is ideal for those interested in self-help and self-evolution, energy healing, and exploring the depths of their spiritual nature. These workshops offer you a supportive space to let go of limiting beliefs, rejuvenate your energy, and awaken to the full potential of your being. Whether you are new to breathwork or have been practicing for years, this session will offer you a unique opportunity to dive deep into the healing power of your breath About Kate - Kate first experienced the incredible healing and transformational power of her own breath in 2016. Blown away by the insight, clarity and deep inner healing that unfolded in just one session, she went on to train with Transformational Breath and to then get certified as an Alchemy of Breath Facilitator in 2018. She has explored many modalities including Rebirthing and Holotropic, but primarily follows the Alchemy of Breath philosophy to breathwork, taking an intuitive approach to holding space for whatever wants to unfold and encouraging breathers to listen first and foremost to their own body and intuition, and to allow their breath to guide them wherever it is they need to go. Kate believes that we are our own healers, and that if we can simply breathe – here – now – and be willing and open to receive – then we can connect with that inner knowing, our eternal wisdom, and find all the answers we are looking for, all of the resolution we crave, and all of the guidance we need, to step forward in alignment with our true self, resourced and able to live our very best life. **General House keeping - Please read!** Please kindly make payment by bank transfer of £15 upon booking to secure your spot directly as spaces are limited to 5 per session. Band details - Kate Stephens, Lloyds Bank, Account No 01103229 Sort code 302580. Spaces are limited so pre booking and payment is required. Please kindly arrive on time at 11am. Please bring a bottle of water and a blanket (not essential) and an open mind and heart. You may also like to bring a note pad and pen. **Health & Safety first -** If you have any of the following conditions, this kind of Breathwork may not be right for you - Bipolar, Schizophrenia, acute heart conditions, cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, aneurysms, glaucoma, history of stroke, and the presence of severe psychiatric symptoms. If you have any of these please contact me directly at [breatheherenow01@gmail.com](mailto:breatheherenow01@gmail.com) before you book a session. It is paramount to me that your safety comes first!

WELCOME! We’re a supportive community, and I’m here to organise this Meetup space. I’m looking foreword to seeing it grow and become a regular place for people to get-together. I also invite likemindeded people with shared interests from society. I hope this develops into a fully fledged, shared, literacy lounging experience. INTRODUCTION Join us for some focused coworking writing or reading time. All experience levels are welcome and don’t worry, no one will see what you've written. This session is about getting your writing and reading done and meeting other literacy enthusiasts in the area. EARLY ARRIVALS around 6:30pm When you show up, the group will be located in the large room next to the fireplace. Take a seat and settle in and spend some time to chat with your fellow writers before the start of the session if you like. START OF SESSION around 6:45pm I’ll set timers for our no-talking and focused writing sessions (write, break, write, end). END OF SESSION around 8:30pm Afterward, there’s time to hang out, and many people stay for over an hour. Perhaps to chat and get to know each other. Everyone tends to talk about their successes and challenges as writers/readers or similar interesting topics. If we don’t have time to stick around, no worries! We’re here every week anyway!! FORMAT A note about the format: We don’t host critiques or readings. These events are a safe space for writers andd readers of all skill levels and genres to work on their craft. VENUE Sandwiched lovingly between Crouch Hill and Stroud Green, the Stapleton Tavern is a warm, welcoming, quirky pub fit for a vibrant community. home to a truly bizarre collection of ornaments, they serve a wide variety of tasty food and drink from all over the world. LOCATION & TRAVEL Located in the junction of Stroud Green Road and Stapleton hall, 10 minutes walk from the Finsbury Park Underground station and 2 minutes from Crouch Hill station on the Suffragette line. INTERNET Name: Stapleton Guest Password: StapletonTavern For our full event schedule\, visit \[https://shutupwrite\.com\]\(https://shutupwrite\.com\)

Fairly new to singing and wanting to find an outlet for your new skills or long-time singer and choir member looking for a new choir to join? Want a choir that will help coach and support your singing at all levels and increase your knowledge of music technique and sight singing - and make it all fun? Then London Sings! is the group for you. London Sings! is a no audition local community choir which is big in personality and looking to grow. We cater both for experienced singers and those still quite new to singing, with plenty of opportunities for interesting performances. We do ask members to commit to regular attendance as we want to ensure our performances continue to impress and can be enjoyed with confidence by our members. We sing a wide variety of pieces ranging from jazz and musical theatre to classical, and from unison through to four part harmony, while having a lot of fun in the process. We rehearse every Monday evening from 7.30pm to 9.30pm and from April 2026, we are in a new rehearsal venue; St Vincent's Centre, Talma Road, Brixton, SW2 1AS. We always welcome new members, whatever your level of experience. The ability to read music is very helpful, but we have audio aids available for much of the music we do and if you are not a sight reader, we may ask you to spend a short amount of time with these between rehearsals when we are working towards a performance, to make sure we can all progress towards a performance at a reasonable rate. You are welcome to try us out for a few sessions at no charge while deciding whether you want to become a member. If you do join us, fees are a very reasonable £15 a month. We are a very sociable bunch, so usually go to the pub after rehearsals for a good chat and we also organise various social events. Please do not hesitate to contact us on [chair@londonsings.org.uk](mailto:chair@londonsings.org.uk) or by telephone on 07785 905355 More information on who we are can be found on [http://www.londonsings.org.uk/](http://www.londonsings.org.uk/) Looking forward to seeing you...

So come with me on this enjoyable walk from The White Swan Pub {Wetherspoons} to Little Venice walking distance {approx 7 miles}. We will meet at in The White Swan Pub at 11 am for a hot drink, leaving at 11.30 am to start our walk to the Regents Canal, stopping off at Camley Street Natural Park {as image above}. Lunch will be in the The Ice Wharf {Wetherspoons}at Camden Lock or you can buy something from the food stalls there or bring your own} After lunch we will carry along the Regents Canal to Little Venice where the walk ends, where we will end up for a drink at The Warwick Castle. With Warwick Road Underground 5 minutes away or Paddington Station 10 minutes. We will be walking mostly along the Regents Canal, but The Camley Natural Park can get muddy, so suitable foot wear is recommended. £7 meet up fee,{please have the right change.} If you need any more info, please phone or text me on 07530 675739 {this is not a smart phone or email paulc200850@yahoo.co.uk.

London's Friendly Book Club's pick for March is **Project Hail Mary** by **Andy Weir**. A lone astronaut. An impossible mission. An ally he never imagined. Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone. Or does he? Please only RSVP if you think you'll be able to make this event. **We host three sessions per book, you only need to attend one.** Everyone is welcome! Grab your copy and join us for a relaxed and engaging discussion.

**New members of all ages always welcome!** One day in 399BC in the Athenian Agora, shortly before his trial for impiety, Socrates meet Euthyphro, another citizen involved in a religious suit and their subsequent conversation, whether fact or fiction or a mixture of the two is vividly portrayed by Plato in his short dialogue. Socrates, being prosecuted for his supposed failure to acknowledge the gods, is shown to have more concern for religious matters than his somewhat naïve friend; at the same time, however, Socrates’ probing about the logical inconsistencies in Euthyphro’s views about piety and the gods reveal him as a radical critic of Athenian social and moral values.

Hi everyone, in May our theme was classic literature and Orlando narrowly beat Persuasion to be our winner! Synopsis below: Virginia Woolf's exuberant `biography' tells the story of the cross-dressing, sex-changing Orlando who begins life as a young noble in the sixteenth century and moves through numerous historical and geographical worlds to finish as a modern woman writer in the 1920s. The book is in part a happy tribute to the `life' that her love for Vita Sackville-West had breathed into Virginia Woolf's own day-to-day existence; it is also Woolf's light-hearted and light-handed teasing out of the assumptions that lie behind the normal conventions for writing about a fictional or historical life. In this novel, Virginia Woolf plays loose and fast: Orlando uncovers a literary and sexual revolution overnight. See you there 🍻 Steph & Christina

Let's catch up to discuss Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. Come and join us!!!

***"In this complex and terrible development which has carried the epoch of class struggles toward new conditions, the proletariat of the industrial countries has completely lost the affirmation of its autonomous perspective and also, in the last analysis, its illusions, but not its being. It has not been suppressed. It remains irreducibly in existence within the intensified alienation of modern capitalism[.]"*** **\- Guy Debord\, *The Society of the Spectacle*** Welcome back readers! By popular request, we're bringing back (for a new generation of LMRG readers) an old favourite: the always-relevant Guy Debord and his masterful *Society of the Spectacle*. This is meeting two, where we'll be reading the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. Find the classic text here: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm Or an alternative, possibly more readable translation here: [https://files.libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%20Edition.pdf](https://files.libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%20Edition.pdf) Often maligned as theorymaxxed nonsense but little-read, this slim volume is certainly dense with ideas - all of which carry as much relevance today as those half-forgotten postwar years when the Situationist International made its mark on the world, if not more. With the rise of the Internet and social media, the decline of literacy and the closing of the mass mind, the endless doom-loop of doomscrolling and bed-rotting, increasingly performative protest, the commodification of everything, the Epstein-approved culture war, and the theatre of spectacular cruelty that is imperialist colonial policy from Gaza to Venezuela, we really are living an age where everything that was once directly participated in has passed into representation. Every hand-grip one searches for to get some kind of grasp on the world seems to be a mirage; "participation" in anything, from politics to culture, has been reduced to fandom - limited to nothing more than expressing approval or disapproval through totally mediated social media platforms. Above it all stands an utterly corrupt, irresponsible elite class more and more transparent in how it relishes in conspiratorial play, power-games with unlimited stakes for us and no consequences for them. Such a world where power wears a shit-eating grin and keeps us off our balance by endlessly[ "flooding the zone"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone) (in Steve Bannon's terms) with distractions so intricate they short-circuit the collective brain is exactly what Debord not only predicted but described in frightening detail, with more than a little bit of humour. So let's dig in and find out: just what can we do to unplug from the spectacle? Is the spectacle even un-plug-from-able? Debord haters, cope and seethe: as a much more orthodox Marxist than he ever gets credit for, there really are some strategies in here. We just need to be creative. Take care and happy reading!

Welcome, readers! Our June read is ***Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible*** ***Voyage*** **by Alfred Lansing.** A work of nonfiction, and one of the most astonishing survival stories in history, we follow Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew after their ship is crushed by Antarctic ice. Stranded in one of the harshest environments on Earth, the men endure months of isolation, freezing temperatures, and near starvation—yet refuse to give up hope. Lansing brings their ordeal to life through vivid detail and firsthand accounts, capturing both the brutality of nature and the resilience of the human spirit. At its core, the story is a powerful testament to leadership, perseverance, and the unbreakable will to survive against impossible odds. Looking forward to discussing with everyone! We will meet at Zaftig Brewing Co in their event room in the back. We are welcome to bring in our own food, but **all** **drinks must be purchased at the bar.** Happy reading! 📖

Welcome, readers! Our May read is **_Kindred_ by Octavia E. Butler.** The story follows Dana, a Black woman living in 1976 California, who is suddenly pulled back to a Maryland plantation before the Civil War. She learns her survival is tied to a white slaveholder’s son. Forced to move between centuries, she must endure the brutal realities of slavery while fighting to hold on to her identity. Tense, intimate, and unforgettable, Kindred explores how the past refuses to stay buried. Looking forward to discussing with everyone! We will meet at Zaftig Brewing Co in their event room in the back. We are welcome to bring in our own food, but **drinks must be purchased at the bar.** Happy reading! 📖

[Columbus library link to book](https://cml.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S105C3351321) Location: The Goat River South 219 S High St, Columbus, OH 43215 Street parking is free on Sundays [Menu](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/686d3ed16745133042482c5f/t/68ff654dbb03b96875430bde/1761568077220/all_brunch-20250311.pdf) Book summary: On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: 'You exist too much,' she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.

Join us as we discuss our June pick: Metal Slinger by Rachel Schneider! Book description: Even though she's not one of them, Brynn has spent her life among the Alaha, training to be a guard and waiting for the chance to attend the annual market hosted by the Kenta–the very same people who exiled her adopted community to a life at sea. Going to the market is a rite of passage eagerly anticipated by all young guards, but Brynn does not anticipate breaking a century-long peace treaty while there. Nor does she plan for the intense encounter with an enemy soldier that now threatens to unwind the fragile coexistence between their people–and everything Brynn once believed about herself to be true. Brynn's loyalty to the Alaha is tested when the truth of her identity is brought to light by this soldier who's taken an oath to bring her back to where she belongs. Narrowly escaping death on the violent high seas, Brynn's connection to the Alaha is further tested when she learns about the world of magic she's been denied. She was once certain of her fate and where she belonged, but the dark, knowing eyes of this stranger have her questioning everything, including her heart. Packed with knife fights and seafaring adventure, METAL SLINGER is the smash-hit start to the romantic fantasy duology, the Fire & Metal series

Join us for our May Book Club gathering where we will come together to discuss *[Cantoras](https://caroderobertis.com/books/cantoras/)*[ ](https://caroderobertis.com/books/cantoras/)by [Caro de Robertis](https://caroderobertis.com/bio/) in a safe and welcoming environment. Make new friends who share your passion for books and connect with fellow LGBTQ book enthusiasts.

By popular demand, the group wanted to read and discuss the semi-autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roche, that inspired the Truffaut movie we watched last year. The book is available through the Columbus Library's interlibrary loan system. They reported there are twenty-eight copies available in the state of Ohio. If you have a library card, you can file an interlibrary loan request here: https://www.columbuslibrary.org/library-services/ . There are also used copies available on Amazon and eBay for under twenty dollars. You may want to rewatch the movie after reading the book, so we can compare and contrast in our discussion. The Columbus Library has four copies on DVD, and it's streaming on HBOMax.