We all enjoyed The Colony by Audrey Magee, her second much lauded novel. Her writing was rich with descriptions of the characters, as wellas the extraordinary landscape of this tiny island, off the Atlantic coast of the Republic of Ireland. Set in 1979 during 'the troubles' the book is about colonisation and all that imposes…

We all thought that this book was an exemplary piece of writing by a young woman - barely out of her teens - illustrating the deep south in Georgia, USA, during those times of bleak hardship, deprivation, embedded racism and social isolation. She became a literary sensation upon publication of this, her first novel, and…

Forecast snow limited us to a potentially less satisfactory Zoom meeting. However, the choice of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas ensured that it was a very lively, if one-sided, discussion. It was almost universally disliked, with everyone finding it difficult to empathise with any of the characters as they exhibited racism, sexism, foul language and…