📚🚶Announcing our Spring/Summer 2025 books
Books + dates for May, June, July with Emily's Walking Book Club
Dear walking book clubbers,
Thanks for your patience while I’ve been whittling down our summer reading list. I’m delighted to reveal our final selection:
May: Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Friday 9th Regent’s Park | Sunday 11th Hampstead Heath | Monday 12th Zoom
June: Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
Friday 20th Regent’s Park | Sunday 22nd Hampstead Heath | Monday 23rd Zoom
July: Persuasion by Jane Austen
Friday 18th Regent’s Park | Sunday 20th Hampstead Heath | Monday 21st Zoom & also at The Idler Festival on Friday 11th.
Classic! I can now see that these are of course back-to-front in the picture - thank you for coping with my lack of spatial intelligence.
If you would like to book on to all three of our Regent’s Park walks, you can do so here:
If you would like to book on to all three of our Hampstead Heath walks, you can do so here:
Or please scroll down to find links to book tickets for individual events.
In all the excitement of getting ready for our new books, along with the Easter break (and opening TWO new Bookbanks sites, in Euston and Manchester), and enduring a horrid bug, I’m afraid there isn’t a webcast for this month’s book. Please forgive me. I’ll be back next Monday with a reminder for our Zoom book club that evening, 14th April - You can book onto that HERE.
📚🚶May
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
This slender, haunting novel, comprised of a series of vignettes, follows a woman in her late 40s adrift in an unnamed Italian city. While little happens by way of plot, Lahiri beautifully renders the narrator’s wanderings and wonderings, which culminate in a life-changing moment. This is the first novel to be written in Italian and then translated into English by the prize-winning Bengali-American writer, whose short story collection Unaccustomed Earth was a very popular previous walking book club pick.
Curious to know more? THIS detailed piece by Tim Parks in the LRB is a great exploration of the book in the context of the author’s previous work.
Emily’s Regent’s Park Walking Book Club: Friday 9th May, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-£20
Emily’s Hampstead Heath Walking Book Club Sunday 11th May, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
Emily’s Zoom Book Club: Monday 12th May, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Whereabouts 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.
📚🚶June
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
It’s London, 1949, and Fleur Talbot is working on her first novel and short of money. When she gets a secretarial job for the pompous director of the Autobiographical Association and he steals her work-in-progress, life begins to imitate fiction with extremely dangerous results… First published in 1981, this remains one of Spark’s wittiest, most delightful novels; it’s the third by this Scottish minor genius that we’ve discussed in the group.
Curious to know more? Listen to THIS episode of the Booker Prize podcast all about it.
Emily’s Regent’s Park Walking Book Club: Friday 20th June, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-£20
Emily’s Hampstead Heath Walking Book Club Sunday 22nd June, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
Emily’s Zoom Book Club: Monday 23rd June, 8-9pm, £1-£15
Buy Loitering with Intent 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.
📚🚶July
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Tickets go on sale 1st June
Anne Elliot seems to have resigned herself to living off her memories since, eight years’ ago, she dutifully broke off her engagement to a naval captain lacking in fortune, ancestry, and prospects. Then, when Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once again, she must learn to follow her own judgement amidst a sea of influence. The 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth is the perfect time to read her final novel.
Curious to know more? You might enjoy watching Miranda Mills’ Comfort Book Club episode on it, HERE.
Emily’s Regent’s Park Walking Book Club: Friday 18th July, 12-1.45pm, setting off from Daunt Books, 84 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, £8-£20
Emily’s Hampstead Heath Walking Book Club Sunday 20th July, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £8-£20
Emily’s Zoom Book Club: Monday 21st July, 8-9pm, £1-£15
AND also at The Idler Festival, on Friday 11th July, 4-6pm, setting off from Fenton House, Hampstead. Full details and tickets for the full weekend of delightful literary entertainment HERE.
Buy Persuasion 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 those links to book onto all three events again:
Happy reading,
Emily
Wonderful! And, a Jane Austen! 💮❣️