📚 🚶Announcing our Spring/Summer 2023 line up
These are the books and dates you need for the coming months
Dear walking book clubbers,
Thanks so much for your patience!
I’m thrilled to announce our next few books: a quartet of delights in which to lose - or find - yourself over the coming months.
I am especially excited about our walking book club on 16th April, for which we will be accompanied by the book’s author, Rachel Joyce - a walking book club first! Scroll down for details.
If you’d like to book on to all four of our Spring/Summer walking book clubs, you can do so here:
Our March meet ups
In the meantime, how are you getting on with Akenfield by the one and only Ronald Blythe? I am hugely enjoying my re-read … such an immersive, transporting experience as I can really hear all the voices. Discover more about our March book here:
Dates:
At the Daunt Books Festival: Friday 17th March, 10-11.30am, setting off from Daunt Books Marylebone, 83-84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW and walking around Regent’s Park. See the Festival’s stellar line up, featuring Katherine Rundell, Sophie Mackintosh, Jeremy Lee and others, and buy a festival pass HERE:
On the Heath: Sunday 26th March, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15. Book in for our regular Sunday Hampstead Heath walk:
On Zoom: Monday 27th March, 8-8.40pm, £1-10. Our evening online chat:
Live Discussion Thread: Friday 31st March, 1.30-2pm. A lovely chance to share whatever else we’ve been enjoying over this past month, as well as this book.
Buy Akenfield from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
April
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
When Harold Fry leaves home to post a letter one morning, he doesn't realise that he’s about to embark on a 600-mile journey from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed. So ill-equipped that he doesn't even have a mobile phone, let alone hiking boots, Harold is nonetheless determined to keep walking and - in so doing - to save someone's life. Only on his journey can he gradually come to terms with the unspeakable sadness at his heart. Simply written, unexpectedly profound, and with intriguing Biblical overtones, this poignant novel packs an emotional punch.
I’m beyond thrilled that to celebrate the release of the beautiful film adaptation, starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, author Rachel Joyce will be joining our walk! It’s an unmissable chance to share our thoughts and questions with the writer.
Why did I pick it? I remember this being such a hit when it was published back in 2012 and I was working as a bookseller, but I didn’t quite get to reading it then - I think the cover put me off as looking too twee. So when the PR team from the new film adaptation recently got in touch, suggesting we might work together, I was instinctively sceptical - as you know, I’m committed to keeping my book choices totally independent, and that’s one of the reasons I never choose new books. But I did think walking with the author was a great opportunity, so I picked up the book and was immediately hooked. It’s instantly charming and intriguing, and I was surprised by how it continued to hold my interest in spite of the apparent simplicity of the premise (man goes for a long walk), with the tragic undertones slowly rising to the surface. There is so much in this book: meditations on parenthood, masculinity, marriage, loneliness, grief, and above all walking - which feels apt for us, as a walking book club. It made me wonder if we could think about our Sunday walks as our own unlikely pilgrimages? I can’t wait to discuss this book with you, and with Rachel!
Tickets are now on sale
On Hampstead Heath, with author Rachel Joyce: Sunday 16th April, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 17th April, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
Live Discussion Thread: Friday 28th April, 1.30-2pm These threads are a chance to share what else we’ve been reading, watching and listening to over the month, as well as discussing the book.
Buy The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
May
The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg translated by Dick Davis
Natalia Ginzburg has been recently rediscovered as one of the great Italian writers of the twentieth century; this striking and intelligent collection of essays, written between 1944 and 1960, and translated by Dick Davis, shows us why. Exploring everything from motherhood and marriage to friendship and terrible English food, covering ground from the Italian South, where she and her husband were exiled under Fascist rule to the streets of 1960s London, this book is one to treasure, full of unconventional wisdom to return to time and again.
Why did I pick it? It was such a delight to spend some time getting into Natalia Ginzburg’s work for Backlisted (one of my favourite podcasts) last year, when they invited me on to discuss her autobiographical novel Family Lexicon (you can listen to the episode here). I’ve been umming and ahhing about which of her many brilliant books to choose and in the end opted for this - not a novel, but an essay collection. There’s so much wisdom, humour, insightful and incisive writing here - I can’t wait to share it with you. If you’d like a taste, you can read her essay from it, “Winter in the Abruzzi”, on Salon here.
Tickets go on sale: 1 April
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 14th May, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 15th May, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
Live Discussion Thread: Friday 26th May, 1.30-2pm These threads are a chance to share what else we’ve been reading, watching and listening to over the month, as well as discussing the book.
Buy The Little Virtues from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
June
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
A Single Man is a breathtaking work of compressed brilliance. This slender, achingly powerful novel, charts a day in the life of George, an English 58-year-old professor in 1960s California, who is grieving the loss of his lover, Jim. Through Isherwood's cool, camera-like gaze, we see George go through the motions of life, while suffering a shattered emotional world. Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication in 1964, the novel continues to enthral.
Why did I pick it? Isherwood - he’s one of those names that I’ve been meaning to get to for a very long time. When I finally began reading it, a couple of weeks’ ago, I was spellbound. The writing - it’s something else: elegant, spare, powerful and also unexpectedly funny. This is a vital work of gay literature that’s left me excited to discover his other books too. N.B. It’s also very slim, so you have a bit more time to get going on July’s lengthier Saplings.
Tickets go on sale: 1 May
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 11th June, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 12th June, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
Live Discussion Thread: Friday 30th June, 1.30-2pm These threads are a chance to share what else we’ve been reading and watching and listening to over the month, as well as discussing the book.
Buy A Single Man from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
July
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
When Saplings begins and we meet the upper-middle-class Wiltshire family playing at the seaside, for a moment we enter the comforting, happy world of Streatfeild's beloved classic Ballet Shoes ... but this is the summer of 1939, and, as the novel progresses, we watch the family be completely emotionally destroyed by War.
Written in 1945, this novel is very much of its time in Streatfeild's portrait of posh social mores and family life, while also being fascinatingly ahead of its time in her nuanced exploration of the psychology of children, sexual desire, and the impact of War. An astonishing, revelatory book.
Why did I pick it? I’m ashamed to say that I only read Ballet Shoes earlier this year, and while I really enjoyed it, I was intrigued to discover that Streatfeild was first an adult writer. When I saw that Persephone Books (one of my favourite publishers) had picked Saplings to be one of their Classics, I thought I had to give it a go. I love the way Streatfeild shows us how the children think: she gets it so spot on, and I recognise many of those complicated emotions in my own children. There’s masses that’s psychologically fascinating in this book - not least the mother - and it’s such an unusual take on the standard wartime tale of evacuees. Unmissable!
N.B. This is a thick book (I don’t often pick them!). You will find the pages whizz past, as with all Persephone Books, but please allow yourself sufficient time to read this one!
Tickets go on sale: 1 June
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 16th July, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 17th July, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
Live Discussion Thread: Friday 21st July, 1.30-2pm These threads are a chance to share what else we’ve been reading and watching and listening to over the month, as well as discussing the book. N.B. This is earlier than usual to allow for summer holidays!
Buy Saplings from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
Here’s that link again if you’d like to book onto all four walks:
Happy reading!
Emily