📚 🚶Introducing our September book
Discover Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's transcendent novel, Half of a Yellow Sun
Dear walking book clubbers,
I have loved spending the summer engrossed in this powerful, sweeping novel about Nigeria in the 1960s. A great range of beautifully drawn characters, a fantastic portrait of human resilience, a lesson in the importance of persevering with fractured relationships, as well as a thoughtful exploration of the legacy of Colonialism and a devastating account of the Biafran War. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about the book at our three meet ups later this month.
Please scroll down to find:
Details of our September events
Discussion points to get you thinking
Links to read and listen on…
News of October.
And if you are free next Wednesday 11th September and fancy spending some time thinking about Barbara Comyns, please join me for an event with My Body My Book Club, discussing A Touch of Mistletoe; all proceeds go to Bookbanks.
Our September Half of a Yellow Sun events
Please note that for the benefit of your fellow walkers, you need to have read the book before coming along to a walking book club. If you’ve not read the book, you are very welcome to join the zoom instead.
Emily’s Regent’s Park Walking Book Club: Friday 13th September, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-15
Emily’s Hampstead Heath Walking Book Club: Sunday 15th September, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-15
Emily’s Zoom Book Club: Monday 16th September, 8-9pm, £1-15
Buy Half of a Yellow Sun from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in Emily’s Walking Book Club if you’re buying it in the shop.
Introduction & Discussion Points
Adichie’s powerful novel is set in 1960s Nigeria, during the Civil War that claimed the lives of over a million people. We follow three characters - Ugwu, a houseboy for a university professor; Olanna the professor’s lover; and Richard, a writer who falls for Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister - as they are drawn together, swept up in the violence, and pushed to the limits of human endurance. Half of a Yellow Sun is highly affective, compulsive reading, and also raises challenging questions about morality, class, race and colonialism. A transcendent novel that is required reading for our times.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a vast book, holding a wealth of characters and subjects ripe for discussion. I hope the following three topics prompt some interesting thoughts and I’m really looking forward to discussing them - and so much more with you - later in the month.
History in fiction
I’m sure I’m not alone in finding this book to be my first real introduction to the full horrors of the Biafran War. How did you find the process of learning about historical events in a novel? Do you think history ought to remain in history books and novels shouldn’t concern themselves with concrete facts, or were you happy with this mix of fact and fiction? In one of her interviews Adichie notes that she did invent certain facts for the plot, such as there being a train station in Nsukka. Do you think it’s ok to use poetic licence in this way, or does the author inventing one fact make you question others?
War
Adichie’s writing about war is extremely powerful, including some very upsetting, violent images. The Biafran War took place in 1967-70, but of course war continues today in other parts of the world, and I found it especially hard reading these passages when thinking about the atrocities that continue. Has this book made you feel the horrors of war especially strongly? If so, which moments really hit you? For me, the bit with Ugwu and the girl in the bar (I’m deliberately being vague to avoid spoilers) really brought home how dehumanising war is. Also, what did you make of the depiction of the war journalists in the book? How about Richard? Did it make you reconsider the role of war journalists today?
Motherhood
Again, I’m being vague so as to avoid spoilers, but there are some fascinating and very contrasting examples of mothers in this book. What did you think of the relationship between Olanna and Baby? How about Olanna, Kainene and their mother? And what about Odenigbo and his mother????!! The book raises probing questions about what it is that makes a mother - can love be stronger than a biological tie? And what did you think about the many aunty figures in the book? I was really intrigued by the many matriarchal figures and relationships.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these points and so many more!
Discover more about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
THIS thoughtful piece in the Guardian by Sam Jordison is a great introduction to the book.
HERE is the link to the wonderful Dua Lipa interview with Adichie about the book.
I highly recommend listening to THIS EXCELLENT EPISODE of the BBC World Book Club about Half of a Yellow Sun. It’s wonderful to hear the author talk about and read from the book. Major spoiler alert: don’t listen until you’ve finished the book!
HERE is a nice Q&A with the author in the Guardian, with questions for her from loads of authors including Bernardine Evaristo, Maggie O’Farrell and Elizabeth Day.
Alongside her books, Adichie has become incredibly celebrated for her two TED talks. She delivered the first, The Danger of a Single Story, in 2009 - you can watch it HERE. Her second, We Should All be Feminists, was in 2012, HERE. And if you enjoyed this, there are her other books too - people speak especially highly of Americanah.
October *** tickets are now on sale ***
Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Mrs Bridge is a housewife and mother in 1950s Kansas City, raising her children and making a home for her husband. She follows all the rules: putting out special hand towels for guests (although she hopes they won’t use them, and is furious when her son does), judges people by “their shoes and their manners at the table”, and has never met a socialist. In a series of beautifully drawn, subtly ironic and yet devastating vignettes, Connell catches the contradictions, narrowness and fear that can shadow a life of comfort.
Intrigued? Read THIS RAVE REVIEW by Tom Cox in the Guardian.
In Regent’s Park: Friday 11th October, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-15
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 13th October, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-15
On Zoom: Monday 14th October, 8-9pm, £1-15
Buy Mrs Bridge from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in Emily’s Walking Book Club if you’re buying it in the shop.
Look out for my webcast next Monday in which I’ll chat a little more about the book.
Happy reading!
Emily