Programmes for Each Group

Group A (Janet Powell) 📘

2025

4th December - Olive Collins - The Tides Between Us - 2017
In the early 1800’s, a young boy is deported from Ireland to a plantation in Jamaica. When a skeleton is unearthed in 1990’s Ireland, so too are the long-buried truths of family links to the slave trade. (Alison)

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2026

8th January - Lisa Jewell - The Night She Disappeared - 2021
A teenage mum goes out on a date but doesn’t return home. One year later, a sign is nailed to a fence near the woods where she was last seen –it reads: DIG HERE.

5th February - Andrew Miller - The Slowworm’s Song - 2022

An ex-soldier is summoned to appear at an inquiry in Belfast, but to testify now could wreck his fragile relationship with his daughter - so he writes her a letter, which is a confession and a defence.

5th March - JoJo Moyes - Me Before You - 2012

Having lost her job and seeking a new one, Lou is employed as a carer for Will, a quadriplegic, whose life has shrunk to the confines of a wheelchair - but can Lou open up his life?

2nd April - Ocean Vuong - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - 2019

A letter written from a son to a mother who cannot read, unearths a family’s history from before his birth. It tells of the lasting impact of war in Vietnam and of his family’s struggle to forge a new future.

7th May - Francis Spufford - Golden Hill - 2016

New York, 1746: A handsome young stranger is fresh off a boat from England, and he has a letter of credit for £1,000 to cash - and so begins the adventurous comedy of young Mr Smith.

4th June - Penelope Fitzgerald - The Beginning of Spring - 1988

Moscow, 1913: Frank Reid’s wife has just left him without an explanation, leaving him to run his print works and look after their 3 children - how is the seemingly unflappable Frank going to cope?

2nd July - Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - 2005

When their 85-year-old émigré engineer father falls in love with the voluptuous gold-digger, Valentina, sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save him.

6th August - Joseph Conrad - Victory: An Island Tale - 1915

Axel Heyst has retreated from the world to live alone on the island of Samburan, but when he rescues a young English girl from an exploitative situation, their love affair rescues him from isolation.

3rd September - David Lodge - Deaf Sentence - 2008

Retired linguistics professor, Desmond Bates is going deaf, a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. Then his deafness leads to a misunderstanding with a young woman, which threatens to destabilise his life completely.

1st October - Mark Sullivan - Beneath a Scarlet Sky - 2017

Based on a true story, an Italian teenager joins a resistance group helping Jews escape over the Alps. In a bizarre twist, he is recruited to be the personal driver for one of Hitler’s most powerful commanders, giving him the chance to spy for the Allies.

5th November - Eowyn Ivey - The Snow Child - 2012

Set in 1920’s Alaska: A middle-aged couple have staked everything on a fresh start in a remote homestead. Following the first snow of winter a young girl appears mysteriously from the woods – is she what she seems?

3rd December - Naill Williams - This Is Happiness - 2019

It’s 1958, and after dropping out of seminary school, 17-year-old Noel Crowe returns home. But all is about to change in the small parish of Faha, when the news reaches town that electricity is finally arriving, and a lodger comes to stay in Noel’s grandparents’ house.

Group B (Anne Smith) 📗

2025

Pending

Group C (Sue Buchan) 📕

2025

27th November - W Somerset Maugham - The Painted Veil - 1925

A doctor’s wife is forced to travel to a Chinese city with a cholera outbreak. (Sarah)

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2026

22nd January - Victoria Hislop - The Island - 2005

Alexis needs to find out how her mother’s past is linked to a leper colony off Crete. (Linda)

26th February - Samantha Harvey - Orbital - 2023

SF/Literary Fiction/Philosophical Drama – It follows six astronauts over 24 hours on a space station. (John)

26th March - Ann Patchett - The Dutch House - 2019

Maeve and Danny’s father become rich: Then a stepmother arrives and their lives change. (Sue V)

23rd April - Elif Shafak - The Island Of Missing Trees - 2022

Teenagers on Cyprus are divided by war in 1974: Decades later, a London girl seeks her family history. (Anne)

28th May - Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger - 2008

Darkly humorous view of Indian class struggles: Balram’s rise from poverty to success. (Sally)

25th June - Jane Austen - Mansfield Park - 1814

Shy Fanny is adopted, as a child, by rich relatives. (Amanda)

23rd July - David Park - Travelling In A Strange Land - 2018

Tom ventures out into snowbound landscapes, driving from Belfast to Sunderland to his sick son. (Alison)

27th August - Chris Whitaker - All The Colours Of The Dark - 2024

Coming of age tale, love story and thriller about kidnapped children. (Hazel)

24th September - Kate Atkinson - Life After Life - 2013

Ursula Todd, born 1910, has multiple alternate possible lives - and deaths. (Carol)

Oct 22nd - Kit De Waal - My Name Is Leon - 2017

It's 1981. Leon, 9, and little brother Jake now live with Maureen: where is their mother? (Sally)

Nov 26th - Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains Of The Day - 1989

Summer '56, Stevens, ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a driving holiday into the

countryside, and his past (Alison)

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2027

Jan 28th - J L Carr - A Month In The Country - 1980

A traumatised ex-soldier comes to 1920s N Yorks to restore a church mural, and spends a

recuperative summer in a bucolic idyll (Hazel)

Feb 25th - Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin - Ordinary Saints-2025 Joan

Jay has escaped a devout Irish family to live her best queer life in London - then her brother

becomes a candidate for sainthood (Joan)

Mar 25th - Tim Winton - Dirt Music - 2002

Georgie is 40, with stepchildren and an unhappy marriage - then outcast Luther arrives on her

beach (John)

Apr 22nd - Tracy Chevalier - The Glass Maker - 2025

As a woman, Orsola should not - but does - learn to craft the famous Murano glass of Venice (Linda)

May 27th - Iain Banks -The Bridge - 1986

A man has a crash on the Forth Bridge: John is an amnesiac living a comfortable life: a

Scottish barbarian may be an alter ego (James)

June 24th - Isabel Allende - A Long Petal Of The Sea - 2019

Four generations, their loves and tragedies, and their fights against repression, from the

Spanish Civil War to the Pinochet regime (Carol)

July 22nd - Thomas Savage - The Power Of The Dog- 1967 Carmen

Two brothers have contentedly run their Montana ranch together for years - until one marries (Carmen)

Aug 26th - Marina Lewycka - A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian - 2005

Two sisters have to put aside their feud when their elderly father is entrapped by a gold digger (Sarah)

Sep 23rd - Sayaka Muraka - Convenience Store Woman - 2016

Young woman is viewed as a misfit but really enjoys her work and her world, and resists

attempts to pair her off (Sue)

Oct 28th - Maggie O’Farrell - Land - 2026

Ordnance surveyors in Ireland just after the Famine, and what they find (Amanda)

Group D (Sue Buchan) 📙

Sep 21st - William Boyd - Gabriel’s Moon - 2024

In the Cold War, travel writer Gabriel becomes inadvertently entangled in international espionage (Jenny M)

Oct 19th - Laurence Rees - The Nazi Mind Subtitled “12 Warnings From History” - 2025

History and psychological research to answer the questions of how and why (Geoff)

Nov 16th - Tayari Jones - An American Marriage‍ - 2019 ‍

In the Deep South, an Afro-American is wrongly imprisoned for rape - his wife has to cope alone (Savi)

Dec 21st - Hallie Rubenhold - The Five - 2019

History about the lives of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper: Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane (Amanda)

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‍2027

Jan 18th - Kate Grenville - The Idea Of Perfection - 1999

Funny and touching romance set in eccentric little backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales (Jenny F)

Feb 15th - Sylvia Townsend Warner - Lolly Willowes - 1926

Comedy with elements of fantasy: elderly spinster escapes her family to live her own life and become a witch (Sue B)

Mar 15th - Amy Tintera - Listen For The Lie - 2024

Lucy can't remember the night her best friend was murdered - and some people think she did it (Anne)

19 Apr 19th - Kirsty Capes - Girls - 2024

After a famous artist dies, her daughters try to follow her wishes, and unpick her impact on them (Sue V)

May17th - Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman - 1969

Following her engagement, Marian feels her world slipping out of focus, and food becoming repellent (Margaret)