For February’s group we are reading the insightful and beautiful Midwinter Break, by Bernard MacLaverty. This short novel, MacLaverty’s first in sixteen years, details the intimate, tender, and ultimately strained relationship between an elderly couple as they take a winter holiday to Amsterdam. Both traumatised by the events of The Troubles in their native Northern Ireland, Stella finds solace in her Catholicism, while the Gerry has turned to drink. MacLaverty’s prose is organic and restrained, and the characters and relationship exist with the natural depth of nuance that is true of reality.
Our reading groups last for an hour, and consists of a relaxed chat with wine and nibbles. The chat focuses on the set book to begin with, but often amiably strays to include thoughts on other related books.
This one one of two fiction reading groups that run every month in the bookshop. For those who are interested in discovering the best of literary fiction from cultures around the world please consider our translated fiction reading group which meets on Monday 5th February.