About A Reading Club in Manchester

How it all started

It all started when I couldn’t find a book club that doesn’t require me to read one specific book and simply share the book I’m currently reading with others. I suggested this idea to my friend- Tasha who organises a crafting group, and immediately she was interested along with the people in her group and so this journey begins…

Our approach

Our vision is to provide a space where everyone can read the book they prefer, share their joy of reading and /or recommend the book they are reading to others. We normally meet up monthly and here is our current schedule:

1st hour: Chitchatting, introducing ourselves and book(s) we are reading

2nd hour: Reading

3rd hour: Sharing what we’ve read and some insights about the themes/topics we have come across

“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them.”

— Neil Gaiman

JOURNAL

2nd Reading Club Meeting – 26/11/2023

Today’s meeting ended with insightful discussions on various topics that involve cultures, science, psychology and art. Here are the books we read during this meeting:

Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep-love (by Dr. Amir Levine And Rachel S.F. Heller. M.A. )
Animals at Night (by Naomi Booth)
Four Thousand Weeks Time Management for Mortals (by Oliver Burkeman)
Fury (by Salman Rushdie)
Freckles (by Cecelia Ahern)
Sense and Sensibility (by Jane Austen)
Welcome To The Hyunan-dong Bookshop (by Hwang Bo-reum)

Here are the books recommended during the discussions today:

What would Wednesday Do? (by Iphigenia Jones)
The Artist’s Way (by Julia Cameron)
The Secret (by Rhonda Byrne)
Atomic Habits (by James Clear)
The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari (by Robin Sharma)

Here are the Youtube videos recommended during the discussions today:

3rd Reading Club Meeting – 13/01/2024

During today’s meeting, we talked about psychopaths, cozy literature, self-love and dramas among the author community. Here are the books we read during this meeting:

Four Seasons in Japan (by Nick Bradley)
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (by Douglas Adams)
The Remains of the Day (by Kazuo Ishiguro)
Galatea A Short Story (by Madeline Miller)
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (by Yuval Noah Harari)
The Psychopath Test (by Jon Ronson)
007: Casino Royale (by Ian Fleming)
What Would Wednesday Do?
BI The Way – The Bisexual Guide to Life (by Lois Shearing)
The Little Book of LGBTQ+ An A-Z of Gender and Sexual Identities (by Harriet Dyes)
Yellowface (by R. F. Kuang)

4th Reading Club Meeting – 19/02/2024

During today’s meeting at the book cafe Social Refuge, we talked about science, time, double slit experiment, labelling and the LGBTQ+/Queer Community. Here are the books we read during this meeting:

Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life by Lois Shearing
Organisational Behaviour for Dummies by Cary L Cooper
The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi
She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa
Born to be Wild by Hannah Dale
The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer
Madness by sam sax
Surrounded by Psychopaths by Thomas Erikson
The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch

Here are the books recommended during the discussions today:

Pod: A Novel by Paull, Laline
Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight by M.E. Thomas
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Good Luck of Right Now: A novel by Matthew Quick

5th Reading Club Meeting – 23/03/2024

During today’s meeting at the book cafe Social Refuge, we talked about serial killers, ways of murdering people and shocking truths uncovering from the books we are reading. Here are the books we read during this meeting:

Surrounded by Psychopaths by Thomas Erikson
The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
The Forager’s Calendar
Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville
Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
March Violets by Philip Kerr
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Manifest 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi
Il nome della rosa by Umberto Eco (English translation: The Name of the Rose)

Books recommended during the meet up:

Butter by Asako Yuzuki
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Video mentioned during the meet up:

https://youtu.be/x1VBvBdc2O0?si=-YXFyqqwkXIWOvhX

6th Reading Club Meeting – 21/04/2024

During today’s meeting at the book cafe Social Refuge, we talked about the benefits of vintage things and physical books, about how we choose our books as if we are choosing wine from the wine cellar. We also went out to sit near the canals instead of staying indoors and it was an uniquely pleasant reading experience to read outdoors, under the bright and warm sun. Here are the books we read during this meeting: