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Recent conversations

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  Author Discussions · 22 April 2025

  Septimus and Clarissa — two halves of one day?

  We keep reading Mrs Dalloway as a party novel, but Septimus carries half its weight and they never meet. Does the book work if you read his chapters first?

  Started by Clara Whitfield · last reply by Karl Brenner · 64 replies · 38 likes

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  Fiction · 19 April 2025

  April selection: where did Beloved lose you (if it did)?

  Honest thread, no judgement. I want to hear from the people who put this down at page forty as much as from the people who finished it in two days.

  Started by Helen Mercer · last reply by Sofia Bello · 47 replies · 31 likes

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  Poetry · 17 April 2025

  Sunday reading aloud — bring one poem you can't explain

  The rule is simple: a poem you like and cannot fully account for. Post the text, we read it out at 7pm, nobody has to have a theory.

  Started by Ivy Carr · last reply by Nadia Haddad · 29 replies · 44 likes

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  Classics · 14 April 2025

  Which translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude do you read?

  Rabassa is the standard, and García Márquez famously preferred it to his own Spanish. But I want to hear from anyone reading it in the original before we meet.

  Started by Julian Reyes · last reply by Marcus Lang · 38 replies · 26 likes

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  Writing · 11 April 2025

  Do you keep a commonplace book? Show me your system

  Mine is three notebooks and no index, which is becoming a problem. Curious whether anyone has a method that survives more than a year.

  Started by Nadia Haddad · last reply by Daniel Brandt · 52 replies · 35 likes

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  Literary Culture · 8 April 2025

  Is it fine to abandon a book at page 100?

  I gave up on a Booker winner last week and felt guilty for three days. Where does the group land on the fifty-page rule, the hundred-page rule, or no rule at all?

  Started by Tom Ashby · last reply by Helen Mercer · 71 replies · 49 likes

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  Biography & Memoir · 5 April 2025

  Memoirs that earn their intimacy

  So many memoirs mistake disclosure for insight. Looking for the ones where the writer actually thought about why they were telling you this.

  Started by Daniel Brandt · last reply by Grace Nolan · 33 replies · 21 likes

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  Publishing · 2 April 2025

  Independent bookshops: what actually keeps them alive?

  I run a small shop in Portland. Happy to answer anything about margins, sale-or-return, or why your favourite title is never in stock.

  Started by Peter Owens · last reply by Ivy Carr · 41 replies · 57 likes

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  Nonfiction · 29 March 2025

  Tudor histories to read alongside Wolf Hall

  The novel sends everyone looking for the history afterwards. Collecting a shortlist here so we have something to hand at the next discussion.

  Started by Grace Nolan · last reply by Clara Whitfield · 24 replies · 30 likes

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  General Reading · 25 March 2025

  What are you reading this week? (April thread)

  One line on what's open on your table, no reviews required. I'm halfway through Kafka on the Shore and losing the plot pleasantly.

  Started by Marcus Lang · last reply by Julian Reyes · 88 replies · 40 likes

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  Mystery & Thriller · 21 March 2025

  Crime novels where the setting does the real work

  Less interested in twists than in place. Cities, weather, buildings — where does the atmosphere carry the whole case?

  Started by Sofia Bello · last reply by Tom Ashby · 27 replies · 18 likes

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  Romance · 16 March 2025

  Love stories for people who claim not to read romance

  I was one of those people until this club talked me out of it. Post the book that changed someone's mind, yours or another member's.

  Started by Karl Brenner · last reply by Peter Owens · 36 replies · 25 likes