World Book Club Around the world in 12 titles
£90 for six months / £15 per session
Meet first Thursday of the month, 2.30pm
April to September 2022
Perfume by Patrick Suskind, Penguin 272pp, GERMANY April 7
Grey Bees by Andrei Kurkov translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk, Maclehose Press 330pp UKRAINE May 5
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison, Vintage, 192pp, US June 2
That Old Country Music (short stories) by Kevin Barry, Canongate 192pp, IRELAND, July 7
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from French by Melanie Mauthner
Daunt Books 220pp, RWANDA, August 4
Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon, Penguin 250pp, MALAYSIA, September 1
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Previous titles include: Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat, stories (Riverrun) HAITI; Ali and Nino Kurban Said (Penguin) AZERBAIJAN; Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury) PAKISTAN; The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg, transl by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah (Peirene Press) FINLAND; A Hundred Million Years and a Day by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, transl Sam Taylor (Gallic Books) FRANCE; My Sweet Orange Tree by Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos transl by Alison Entrekin (Pushkin Press) BRAZIL.
The Days of
Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions)
ITALY; The Quarter by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Roger Allen
(Saqi) EGYPT; Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan, translated by
Labodalih Sembiring (Verso) INDONESIA; People from my Neighbourhood by Hiromi
Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen (Granta) JAPAN; Spilt Milk by
Chico Buarque, translated by Alison Entrekin (Atlantic Books) BRAZIL; Girl by Edna
O Brien (Faber) IRELAND/NIGERIA; Love by By Hanne Ørstavik,
NORWAY; Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda,
LIBYA; Silk By Alessandro Baricco, ITALY/JAPAN; El
Llano in Flames by Juan Rulfo, MEXICO; The Lives of
Animals by J.M. Coetzee, SOUTH AFRICA; The God of
Small Things by Arundhati Roy, INDIA; A Life’s Music by
Andrei Makine, RUSSIA/FRANCE; Running in the Family Michael
Ondaatje, CANADA/SRI LANKA; Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, PAKISTAN; Happiness,
Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta, NIGERIA; Balzac and the
Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, CHINA; Down the Rabbit
Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos, MEXICO.
Also for aspiring writers: regular reading is crucial to fire the imagination, explore language and develop your own writing skills.