📚 🚶Announcing our Autumn 2024 picks
Your reading list is here + a reminder of this week's walks
Dear walking book clubbers,
I’m thrilled to announce our books for September, October, November and December:
September Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Friday 13th Regent’s Park | Sunday 15th Hampstead Heath | Monday 16th Zoom
October Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Friday 11th Regent’s Park| Sunday 13th Hampstead Heath | Monday 14th Zoom
November The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
Friday 15th Regent’s Park | Sunday 17th Hampstead Heath | Monday 18th Zoom
December Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Friday 13th Regent’s Park | Sunday 15th Hampstead Heath | Monday 16th Zoom
If you would like to book on to all four of our Regent’s Park walks, you can do so here:
If you would like to book on to all four of our Hampstead Heath walks, you can do so here:
How did I choose these books?
People often ask me what are the criteria for an Emily’s Walking Book Club pick. Basically it’s a book that isn’t new (reason being, there’s enough other stuff telling you to read the good new books, but very little to highlight those left gathering dust on the shelves) and is really good. Often, it is a bit of a hidden gem - a book you might not otherwise come across, but sometimes it’s something of a classic that I feel really deserves our attention. In addition, I’m aware of the balance of our programme in terms of author diversity (perhaps unusually I am always struggling to find enough male writers!), setting, time period and genre.
This Autumn, we begin in Nigeria with the modern classic Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006) about the Nigerian Civil War at the end of the 1960s. I wanted to use the opportunity of having an extra month over the summer to allow enough time for us to read this vast, sweeping, moving masterpiece, crowned the Women’s Prize’s “Winner of Winners”. Then we return to the quieter (and slimmer) horror of being a 1950s American housewife in Evan S. Connell’s powerful novel Mrs Bridge (1959), before going further back with Christabel Bielenberg’s astonishing memoir of being an English woman, married to a German man in Nazi Germany. Her husband was involved in the plot to overthrow Hitler and her story is a brilliant mix of domestic detail and nail-biting tension. Finally, for Christmas, we’ll reread the beloved children’s classic Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Heaven.
I can’t wait to take you on a reading adventure, and discuss this quartet of books with you in Regent’s Park, on Hampstead Heath or over Zoom.
This Autumn there will be a couple of changes to our other features, namely that instead of Our Walkers’ Walks emails, and On Our Reading Radar live discussion threads, I’ll be sending out a Monday Reading Radar email with recommendations of books and other cultural events I’ve enjoyed over the current month and inviting all of you to leave comments with your own, whenever you have time.
Thank you all for being such wonderful members of Emily’s Walking Book Club - you are the secret ingredient that makes it so special!
September
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
***tickets are now on sale for our September events***
Adichie’s powerful, sweeping 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 both 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.
Intrigued? You can watch Dua Lipa interviewing the author about Half of a Yellow Sun HERE.
In Regent’s Park: Friday 13th September, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-15
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 15th September, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-15
On Zoom: 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.
October
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.
Tickets go on sale 1st September
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.
November
The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
In 1934, a young English woman, Christabel Burton, married a German man, Peter Bielenberg, and adopted German citizenship, thinking that Hitler was a bad joke: ”I can assure you,” said Peter, “the Germans won’t be so stupid as to fall for that clown.” What follows is a compelling portrait of daily life in Nazi Germany for an Englishwoman who despised Hitler, while knowing that dissent meant death. She raises children, shelters from devastating Allied bombings, and pleads with the Gestapo to release her husband after he’s caught in a plot to bring down Hitler. This is a fascinating and unique perspective on life in Nazi Germany, which also raises important questions about what goes unsaid.
Intrigued? Read THIS by Amanda Theunissen in the wonderful Slightly Foxed.
Tickets go on sale 1st October.
In Regent’s Park: Friday 15th November, 11-12.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-15 **Please note the earlier time this month!!**
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 17th November, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-15
On Zoom: Monday 18th November, 8-9pm, £1-15
Buy The Past is Myself 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.
You can buy the beautiful Slightly Foxed hardback edition HERE with 10% off using the code EMILY24.
December
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
In this classic children’s novel, dearly loved by grown-ups too, we follow the lives of the March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, as they grow up in Massachusetts against the backdrop of the American Civil War. Beginning with an unforgettable Christmas, we join them for ice skating, piano-playing, writing, hair-cutting (!), love affairs and devastating illness. It is a delight to revisit this beloved children’s story as an adult, while also taking note of the religiosity and gender politics at play.
As Jo says, in the novel’s opening line: “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.” So for our Christmas events, we invite you to pick a book from your own shelves, wrap it up and swap it with another member in our Emily’s Walking Book Club literary Secret Santa.
Children who have read the book are very welcome to attend this one!
Intrigued? Watch the beautiful 2019 film adaptation - HERE’s the trailer.
Tickets go on sale 1st November
In Regent’s Park: Friday 13th December, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-15
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 15th December, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-15
On Zoom: Monday 16th December, 8-9pm, £1-15
Buy Little Women 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.
Here are the links again to book on to all our walks:
Happy reading,
Emily