📚🚶Announcing our First Books of 2025
Your 2025 reading list is HERE! + a reminder of this evening's zoom
Our First Books of 2025
I’m thrilled to reveal our books and dates for January, February, March and April 2025:
January: Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry
Friday 17th Regent’s Park | Sunday 19th Hampstead Heath | Monday 20th Zoom
February: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Megan Backus
Friday 14th Regent’s Park | Sunday 16th Hampstead Heath | Monday 17th Zoom
March: Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
Friday 14th Regent’s Park (with the Daunt Books Festival) | Sunday 16th Hampstead Heath | Monday 17th Zoom
April: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
Friday 4th Regent’s Park | Sunday 6th Hampstead Heath | Monday 7th Zoom
If you would like to book on to three of our four Regent’s Park walks, you can do so here. (This is minus the March Human Voices walk, which will go on sale via Daunt Books as part of their Festival.)
If you would like to book on to all four of our Hampstead Heath walks, you can do so here:
Or please scroll down to find links to book tickets for individual events, thanks.
📚🚶January **tickets now on sale**
Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry
Funny, compassionate, transporting and revealing, these eleven interlinked short stories detail the day-to-day life of a Parsi community in an apartment building in 1960s-70s Bombay. In a beautiful mosaic of seemingly ordinary lives, we get to know some colourful characters, while Mistry explores tensions of tradition and modernity, home and diaspora. This intriguing collection of stories, first published in 1987, was the Canadian-Indian author’s debut, before he went on to write three prize-winning novels, including A Fine Balance.
Keen to know more? Read THIS fascinating profile of Rohinton Mistry by Angela Lambert in the Guardian.
In Regent’s Park: Friday 17th January, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-£20
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 19th January, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
On Zoom: Monday 20th January, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Tales from Firozsha Baag 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.
February
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Megan Backus
Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about grief and love, loss and resilience in 1980s Japan. Each is emotionally piercing, while also offering a fascinating insight into a different culture. Kitchen was an instant bestseller when published in Japan in 1988 and then translated into English in 1993, putting it at the vanguard of today’s vogue for Japanese fiction.
Keen to know more? Do read THIS insightful review in the LRB by Penelope Fitzgerald (who is, of course our March author!).
**Tickets go on sale 1st January**
In Regent’s Park: Friday 14th February, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-£20
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 16th February, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
On Zoom: Monday 17th February, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Kitchen 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.
March
Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
This quiet, ingenious novel takes place in Broadcasting House during the Second World War, and draws on the author’s own experience of working for the BBC. Very little happens by way of plot; instead, Fitzgerald - with her signature combination of melancholy, sympathy and dry wit - explores dynamics between her characters, creates an incredibly palpable atmosphere and probes at the very essence of the human condition. Penelope Fitzgerald wrote nine novels, and we have discussed five of them in the book club - she’s one of my all-time favourite writers, and it is a great treat for me to discuss another of her subtle, disarmingly wonderful books with you too.
Keen to know more? Do listen to THIS marvellous episode of Backlisted, featuring Lucy Scholes and Georgina Morley. Wonderfully, in this episode, they quote Marganita Laski - author of our April book!
**Tickets go on sale 1st February (and with the Daunt Books Festival)**
In Regent’s Park with the Daunt Books Festival: Friday 14th March, 10am-11.45, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £10
TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE VIA DAUNT BOOKS AS PART OF THEIR FESTIVAL
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 16th March, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
On Zoom: Monday 17th March, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Human Voices 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.
April
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
Hilary Wainwright, poet and intellectual, goes to a ravaged France soon after the Second World War to trace his child, lost five years’ before. Will he find him? Is the child even his? Compulsive, moving and eye-opening, this nerve-shredding novel, first published in 1949, provides fascinating insight into France immediately after a War that left 13 million European children without one or both of their parents. We did discuss this in Emily’s Walking Book Club back in 2015, but I feel it is time to revisit.
Keen to know more? Read the brilliant Persephone Perspective about the book HERE.
**Tickets go on sale 1st March **
In Regent’s Park: Friday 4th April, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £10
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 6th April, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
On Zoom: Monday 7th April, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Little Boy Lost 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.
A reminder that if you would like to book on to three of our four Regent’s Park walks, you can do so here. N.B. This is minus the March Human Voices walk, which will go on sale via Daunt Books as part of their Festival.
If you would like to book on to all four of our Hampstead Heath walks, you can do so here:
In search of Christmas present inspiration? Why not consider pairing a subscription to this weekly newsletter with a ticket to our first walks of 2025?
If you have any bespoke present requests (eg. would you like me also to buy and post the books for you, or write a little Christmas present email), please drop me a line by replying to this email and I’ll be happy to help.
Happy reading,
Emily