Recently in Book club Category
If you love reading and happen to be in Middlesbrough tonight, make this the night you join a real book group! The group meets tonight (and usually the last Tuesday of every month) at Middlesbrough Central Library at 6.30pm with reader in residence Natalie Boxhall. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Tonight the group will be discussing the July book of the month The Crow Road by Iain Banks. Come along and give the real thing a go....
The Reference Library
Middlesbrough Central Library
Victoria Square
Middlesbrough
http://blueloungebookgroup.wordpress.com/
A change of tone this week- you can always rely on Philip Larkin to rain on a sunny day. Still, I'm sure we've all felt the same strange sadness of English seasides...
Sunny Prestatyn
Come to Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.
She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls
Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.
Philip Larkin
A good poem is a wonderful thing- a delicious nugget of beauty, insight or humour (occasionally all three) that can make the working day just a bit more pleasant. I thought I'd put one up every now and again. Here's a topical one to get you going...
My sleeping children are still flying dreams
in their goose-down heads.
The lush of the river singing morning songs
Fish watch their ceilings turn sun-white.
The grey-green pike lances upstream
Kale, like mermaid's hair
points the water's drift.
All is morning hush
and bird beautiful.
If only,
I didn't have flu.
Spike Milligan
(Thanks to Anna Woodford for poetry advice!)
If you are bookish and happen to be in Whitley Bay, make tonight the night you join a real book group! The group meets tonight (and usually the second Wednesday of every month) at The Trojan Rooms at 7.30pm with reader in residence Cathy McCracken. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Following the cancelled June meeting, the book will be discussing the July book of the month Welcome to Life by Alice de Smith, so come along and try it yourself....
The Trojan Rooms
26-32 South Parade
Whitley Bay
Tyne & Wear
NE26 2RG
http://whitleybaybookgroup.wordpress.com/
If you love reading and happen to be in Newcastle, make today the day you join a real book group! The Living Room Book Group meets twice today at 12.30pm and 6.30pm (and usually the first Tuesday of every month) at The Living Room at with reader in residence Caroline Beck. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Tonight the book will be discussing the June book of the month Blackwater by Kirsten Ekman. Come along and try it yourself....
The Living Room
12 Grey Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 6AE
http://www.livingroombookgroup.com/
Read Regional, New Writing North's annual campaign to promote the region's finest writers and publishers, visits Sunderland this weekend.As part of this, some rather wonderful local authors will be appearing- in a writers tepee!- at the International Friendship Festival (formerly the Kite festival), accompanied by lots of other literary activities and giveaways. Come along and join in the fun!
Read Regional books for 2009 are:
Welcome to Life by Alice de Smith, published by Atlantic Books
The Rotting Spot by Valerie Laws, published by Red Squirrel Press
Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward, published by Faber and Faber
9987 by Nik Jones, published by Tonto Books
If you love reading and happen to be in Sunderland, make tonight the night you join a real book group! The group meets tonight (and usually the second Wednesday of every month) at The Place Cafe at 6.00pm with reader in residence Laura Sandy. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Tonight the book will be discussing the June book of the month Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and their bi-annual BOOKSWAP, so bring along any old books you have and swop it for a holiday read. Cheap, carbon neutral and cultural- come along and try it yourself....
The Place Cafe
Athenaeum Street
Sunniside
Sunderland
SR1 1QX
http://sunderlandbookgroup.wordpress.com/
Have you ever read a book and wondered what happens to those characters on who haunt the fringes of the story? Or what happened to the characters before this particular story began? Or what happens after the book is over? Jean Rhys' late masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea is a book sparked into life by just such a feeling, a searing and controversial prequel to Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre. Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of the first Mrs Rochester, the "mad woman in the attic" who haunts the Bronte novel, and explores her troubled childhood in the recently decolonised Jamaica. Born into this oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumors begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness.
Two at once tonight- good news if you live in Hexham or Middlesbrough and fancy joining a book group! It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Come along and try it out...
If you are bookish and happen to be in Berwick, make tonight the night you join a real book group! The group meets tonight (and usually the last Tuesday of every month) at the new Doolally's bookshop at 6.30pm with reader in residence Barbara Henderson. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Tonight the book will be discussing the June book of the month Welcome to Life by Alice de Smith, so come along and try it youself....
Doolally's Bookshop,
Town House,
Marygate,
Berwick-Upon-Tweed,
TD15 1BA.
http://berwickbookgroup.wordpress.com/
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