Dear walking book clubbers,
Firstly thank you so much for your support on this new way of doing things.
A reminder that these emails will always be free to those who need them to be, but if you are able to pay £15/year to support Emily’s Walking Book Club, please do.
Effi Briest on 2nd August
We have now SOLD OUT of tickets for our socially distanced Effi Briest walk on 2nd August. How wonderful of you to be so organised and clever at using Eventbrite, thank you!
If you have not yet booked your ticket but would like to come along, please hit reply to this email and I will put you on a waiting list and let you know if there are any returns.
If you are no longer able to come, of course I’m happy to refund your ticket, you just have to click on the relevant Eventbrite buttons on your email from them.
Let’s see how we get on this time, if the social-distancing is easy, then next time I can release a few more places.
If you’ve read the book and aren’t coming to the meeting but would like to join the discussion - please email me your thoughts and I’ll add them in to the webcast that will follow.
More on Effi Briest:
I enjoyed this atmospheric travel piece about following in Theodor Fontane’s footsteps (though I’m not sure I’d call him “the German Charles Dickens”!)
Here is a good piece from Persephone Books about their decision to publish Effi Briest.
And here are writer Giles MacDonogh’s thoughts on re-reading Effi Briest. Interesting to learn a bit more about the Prussianness of it.
H is for Hawk on 6th September
I’m thrilled to announce our next book: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
This is Macdonald’s fierce, lyrical, extraordinary account of finding solace from the sudden death of her father in buying and training Mabel, a goshawk. Along the way she tells the story of TH White, the schoolteacher who wrote a memoir about a hawk before his classic The Once and Future King. A remarkable fusion of personal memoir, biography and nature writing, this beautiful book deservedly won both the Costa Book of the Year and The Samuel Johnson prize.
I expect some of you might have, like me, already read this, but I felt this was an a good time to return to it: looking to nature as a solace from grief seems pretty spot on for me, certainly, and I suspect for many of us, given the sweep of the pandemic.
Socially distanced meeting on Sunday 6th September, 11.30-1pm, outside Daunt Books Hampstead. £5 suggested fee.
Webcast to follow.
Housekeeping / Heathkeeping
The walks begin and end outside Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB
We set off promptly at 11.30 and as it is so hard to find each other on the Heath, please try not to be late! Then we are comfortably back by 1pm.
Daunt Books offers walking book club members 10% off the book - just tell them you're in the gang.
Please wear suitable clothes and footwear - the Heath is almost always very muddy. We walk in all weather! Hoods seem to be better for conversations than umbrellas. N.B. You come on these walks at your own risk - please take care not to slip.
Your place must be booked online using the Eventbrite page here. This means:
We are cash free.
I am able to contact you after the event in case anyone has been in touch to say they’ve tested positive for Covid 19.
I am able to limit numbers.
Numbers are limited to 20 walkers (for now). We will walk in groups of no more than 6 - in practice, the groups tend to be smaller than this anyway - and we will keep a distance of at least one metre between walkers.
You are welcome to wear a mask.
Do not attend if you have a temperature, a new continuous cough, or think you might have Coronavirus (obviously!).
We exist on Instagram: #emilyswalkingbookclub
You can see the webcasts about our books on YouTube here.
Looking forward to seeing you or hearing from you soon.
Thanks again for your support,
Emily