Book Salad

Book Salad meets on the last Tuesday of every month, at 6:30pm. To make a salad you put together lots of different things you'd like to eat, and we do the same. Every month, instead of reading one kind of book, we mix genres. We tend to read mostly imaginative fiction but occasionally we pick non-fiction, by authors from different ages and backgrounds.

For our second book of 2026, we will read 'Cahokia Jazz' by Francis Spufford, author of five novels and previously longlisted for the Booker Prize. His stories have a 'imagine if' spirit and often feature an element of alternative history.  He will be visiting us in March to promote his latest, 'Nonesuch', a fantasy novel set in the Blitz.

In Cahokia Jazz, it's 1922 and there is a huge and thriving Native American population in the US. The story opens with a murder on a rooftop, and our two main characters, each very different, are the detectives trying to make sense of it.  The dead man has an Anopa word, Bashli, scrawled on his face in blood. 

Here's the blurb:

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

A thrilling tale of murder and mystery in a city where history has run a little differently — from the best-selling author of Golden Hill.

‘Utterly immersive.’ Spectator
‘Thrilling.’ Financial Times
‘Unlike anything else you will read this year.’ Daily Express
‘A classic of alternative history.’ Observer
‘A delight.’ Sunday Telegraph

It’s 1922 and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. In the ancient city of Cahokia – a teeming industrial metropolis, a tinderbox of every race and creed – peace holds. Just about.

But on a snowy night at the end of winter, two roughshod detectives are called to the roof of a skyscraper. Their investigation will spill the city’s secrets and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets, either to destruction or rebirth.

You're very welcome to join us for our February Book Salad. We will meet on the last Tuesday of the month, and we limit numbers to fifteen attendees. Please note that we will now be meeting each month at 6:30pm.