Programmes for Each Group

Group A (Janet Powell) 📘

2025

4th December - Olive Collins - The Tides Between Us - 2017
In the early 1800’s, a young boy is deported from Ireland to a plantation in Jamaica. When a skeleton is unearthed in 1990’s Ireland, so too are the long-buried truths of family links to the slave trade. (Alison)

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2026

8th January - Lisa Jewell - The Night She Disappeared - 2021
A teenage mum goes out on a date but doesn’t return home. One year later, a sign is nailed to a fence near the woods where she was last seen –it reads: DIG HERE.

5th February - Andrew Miller - The Slowworm’s Song - 2022

An ex-soldier is summoned to appear at an inquiry in Belfast, but to testify now could wreck his fragile relationship with his daughter - so he writes her a letter, which is a confession and a defence.

5th March - JoJo Moyes - Me Before You - 2012

Having lost her job and seeking a new one, Lou is employed as a carer for Will, a quadriplegic, whose life has shrunk to the confines of a wheelchair - but can Lou open up his life?

2nd April - Ocean Vuong - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - 2019

A letter written from a son to a mother who cannot read, unearths a family’s history from before his birth. It tells of the lasting impact of war in Vietnam and of his family’s struggle to forge a new future.

7th May - Francis Spufford - Golden Hill - 2016

New York, 1746: A handsome young stranger is fresh off a boat from England, and he has a letter of credit for £1,000 to cash - and so begins the adventurous comedy of young Mr Smith.

4th June - Penelope Fitzgerald - The Beginning of Spring - 1988

Moscow, 1913: Frank Reid’s wife has just left him without an explanation, leaving him to run his print works and look after their 3 children - how is the seemingly unflappable Frank going to cope?

2nd July - Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - 2005

When their 85-year-old émigré engineer father falls in love with the voluptuous gold-digger, Valentina, sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save him.

6th August - Joseph Conrad - Victory: An Island Tale - 1915

Axel Heyst has retreated from the world to live alone on the island of Samburan, but when he rescues a young English girl from an exploitative situation, their love affair rescues him from isolation.

3rd September - David Lodge - Deaf Sentence - 2008

Retired linguistics professor, Desmond Bates is going deaf, a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. Then his deafness leads to a misunderstanding with a young woman, which threatens to destabilise his life completely.

1st October - Mark Sullivan - Beneath a Scarlet Sky - 2017

Based on a true story, an Italian teenager joins a resistance group helping Jews escape over the Alps. In a bizarre twist, he is recruited to be the personal driver for one of Hitler’s most powerful commanders, giving him the chance to spy for the Allies.

5th November - Eowyn Ivey - The Snow Child - 2012

Set in 1920’s Alaska: A middle-aged couple have staked everything on a fresh start in a remote homestead. Following the first snow of winter a young girl appears mysteriously from the woods – is she what she seems?

3rd December - Naill Williams - This Is Happiness - 2019

It’s 1958, and after dropping out of seminary school, 17-year-old Noel Crowe returns home. But all is about to change in the small parish of Faha, when the news reaches town that electricity is finally arriving, and a lodger comes to stay in Noel’s grandparents’ house.

Group B (Anne Smith) 📗

2025

Pending

Group C (Sue Buchan) 📕

2025

27th November - W Somerset Maugham - The Painted Veil - 1925

A doctor’s wife is forced to travel to a Chinese city with a cholera outbreak. (Sarah)

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2026

22nd January - Victoria Hislop - The Island - 2005

Alexis needs to find out how her mother’s past is linked to a leper colony off Crete. (Linda)

26th February - Samantha Harvey - Orbital - 2023

SF/Literary Fiction/Philosophical Drama – It follows six astronauts over 24 hours on a space station. (John)

26th March - Ann Patchett - The Dutch House - 2019

Maeve and Danny’s father become rich: Then a stepmother arrives and their lives change. (Sue V)

23rd April - Elif Shafak - The Island Of Missing Trees - 2022

Teenagers on Cyprus are divided by war in 1974: Decades later, a London girl seeks her family history. (Anne)

28th May - Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger - 2008

Darkly humorous view of Indian class struggles: Balram’s rise from poverty to success. (Sally)

25th June - Jane Austen - Mansfield Park - 1814

Shy Fanny is adopted, as a child, by rich relatives. (Amanda)

23rd July - David Park - Travelling In A Strange Land - 2018

Tom ventures out into snowbound landscapes, driving from Belfast to Sunderland to his sick son. (Alison)

27th August - Chris Whitaker - All The Colours Of The Dark - 2024

Coming of age tale, love story and thriller about kidnapped children. (Hazel)

24th September - Kate Atkinson - Life After Life - 2013

Ursula Todd, born 1910, has multiple alternate possible lives - and deaths. (Carol)

Group D (Sue Buchan) 📙

2025

17th November - Markus Zuzak - The Book Thief - 2005

Historical fiction set in Nazi Germany: a young girl has lost her family and becomes obsessed with reading. (Frances)

15th December - Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide - 2004

Set in the Sundarbans, a mismatched trio travel upriver to find the rare Irrawaddy dolphin. (Savi)

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2026

19th January - John Steinbeck - Cannery Row - 1945

The story of a marine biologist in a seedy district of sardine canneries in Monterey, California. (Sue)

16th February - Robert Harris - Fatherland - 1992

April 1964: The naked body of an old man is found in a lake near Berlin. (Geoff)

16th March - J B Priestley - The Good Companion - 1929

The travels and travails of a concert troupe on the road, as they criss-cross England. (Anne)

20th April - Pat Barker - The Silence Of The Girls - 2018

From the Iliad: Briseis recounts her life as a queen and then as Achilles' slave in the Greek camp outside Troy. (Sian)

18th May - Tan Twan Eng - The Garden Of Evening Mists - 2012

A POW in Malaysia becomes a judge, then creates a garden in memory of her sister. (Margaret)

15th June - Catherine Newman - Sandwich - 2014

Comedy around an annual three generational family holiday to Cape Cod. (Peggy)

20th July - Marlen Haushofer - The Wall - 1963

Austrian dystopian novel: One survivor and her animals as she tries to cope, alone in her hunting lodge. (Jenny)

The other books that were nominated, but not selected, were:

E L Doctorow - Ragtime - 1975

Historical fiction of early 20th Century New York: Includes a wealthy dysfunctional family, racial tensions and historical characters. (Frances)

Jack Parkes - The Man With The Golden Tooth - 2023

Gregor and family have to go into hiding after he helps to bring drug smugglers to justice. (Anne)

Rabindranath Tagore - Selected Short Stories - 2005

By the 1913, Nobel Laureate - the first non-European Laureate. (Savi)

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory - 1984

Teenager Frank tells the story of his younger childhood, creating rituals and killing. (Sian)

Chris Whitaker - All The Colours Of The Dark - 2024

A young boy was abducted: How it affects him and his best friend in later life. (Peggy)

William Woodruff - The Road To Nab End - 1993

Childhood memoir of being a weaver’s son in Blackburn in the 1920s - He went on to become a professor at several universities around the world. (Jenny)

Beryl Bainbridge - According To Queeney - 2001

Fictional tale of the last years of Samuel Johnson and his friendship with Hester Thrale and her daughter, Queeney. (Margaret)