BOOK CLUB:
The Party – Tessa Hadley
Wednesday 25th February – 7:15 for :7:30pm
On a winter Saturday night in post-war Bristol, sisters Moira and Evelyn, on the cusp of adulthood, go to an art students’ party in a dockside pub; there they meet two men, Paul and Sinden, whose air of worldliness and sophistication both intrigues and repels them. Sinden calls a few days later to invite them over to the grand suburban mansion Paul shares with his brother and sister, and Moira accepts despite Evelyn’s misgivings.
As the night unfolds in this unfamiliar, glamorous new setting, the sisters learn things about themselves and each other that shock them, and release them into a new phase of their lives.
CLASSIC BOOK CLUB:
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
Wednesday 18th March – 7:15 for :7:30pm
`Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination, or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of the poets sometimes delighted. reflections brought only regret, and anticipation terror.’ Such is the state of mind in which Emily St. Aubuert – the orphaned heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic Classic, The Mysteries of Udolpho – finds herself after Count Montoni, her evil guardian, imprisons her in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Apennines.
Terror is the order of the day inside the walls of Udolpho, as Emily struggles against Montoni’s rapacious schemes and the threat of her own psychological disintegration. A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Walpole, Poe, and other writers of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction.
Everyone is welcome – either let us know beforehand or just turn up on the night. If you would like to be added to the emailing list just go to our contacts page and put your details in with ‘Book Club’ in the Subject line. Our book club meetings cost £5 which includes a glass of wine.