It's time for our summer read again! This is a longer book that we read over the summer and have a themed meeting for in addition to our regular meetings. Our meeting will be on Saturday 14th September at the Black Cultural Archives to see their Windrush exhibition (£3), after we'll be heading to a restaurant in the area - to be confirmed soon. Meeting will be roughly 11am, check back or join our Facebook page for exact time.
Our book this summer is Small Island by Andrea Levy
Synopsis: It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.
'A brilliantly deft and humane account of two ordinary couples in post-war London' - Evening Standard
Other pitched books:
Shanteram - Gregory David Roberts
The Nix - Nathan Hill
Testament of Youth - Veva Brutten
Burning Chambers - Kate Mosse
Cloud Atlas
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