Members’ Evening-Do lyrics have literary value?

Do lyrics have literary value? The theme for our June members’ evening was ‘Do lyrics have literary value?’  That’s the question many asked after Bob Dylan was named the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.  He was receiving the same award previously given to literary greats like T S Eliot, Gabriel Marquez and Samuel

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma ‘The Fishermen’ is the first novel, published in 2014, written by Chigozie Obioma, resident now in Philadelphia as a professor, author and fervent promotor of West African writing. He was born in Fulani, Nigeria and still has a home there, frequently crossing the Atlantic divide. ‘The Fishermen’ is a tragic

Members’ Evening – All at sea

The theme for our March members’ evening was ‘All at sea.’ Whether it’s the inspiration for lyrical description, or dramatic encounters, whether purely literal, or also metaphorical, the sea in all its moods has always been a huge source of inspiration for writers and finds its way into all literary forms. Over the years LitSoc

Sylvia Plath – Selected Poems

My talk focussed on nine poems by Sylvia Plath, chosen to give some sense of her variety of theme, mood and poetic style. I mainly went for poems that I thought were somewhat more accessible than others – which isn’t to say that any of them are straightforward! The first poem of the evening was

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is a fascinating and challenging read. Set in three time periods, 1910, 1921 and 1947, it records the life of Lesley Hamlin, born in Penang (as was Tan Twan Eng), she marries a lawyer, gives up her job and settles down, producing two sons who, in true

Food, Glorious Food

Food, Glorious Food: Christmas members’ evening Our usual Christmas members’ evening this year was on the theme of ‘Food, Glorious Food.’ Penny organised our Menu du Jour for the evening with a mix of prose and poetry, serious and light-hearted pieces – some delicious sounding, and others not! The full menu was as follows… Aperitif

Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster

This is Forster’s first novel, published in 1905 when he was 26 years old. The novelist Elizabeth Bowen said that it ‘contained the embryo of all the other books’. And indeed the themes of hypocrisy and snobbishness among the Edwardian English middle-class with more than a sprinkling of xenophobia are found in his later novels

Toast by Henry Filloux-Bennett

For our Barn production this year, we chose the play ‘Toast’, adapted by Henry Filloux-Bennett from the memoir by food writer Nigel Slater: https://www.barntheatre.co.uk/productions_events/2023-2024/nigel-slaters-toast/ We were delighted that the director of the play, Keith Thompson, agreed to come along and talk to us about the production process.  Keith has a very long history with the Barn

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Why “Pnin”? The inspiration for choosing a Nabokov title for this year’s Literary Society programme arose from a reading of Martin Amis’ “The Rub of Time”. This acclaimed volume includes essays on Bellow, Murdoch, Ballard, Burgess, Roth, and Nabokov.  Amis was a wonderful advocate for other writers and referred to Nabokov as “this great and greatly

Small things like these, by Claire Keegan

Having started our first session of the year with a the run-through of our summer reading, we moved on to the main business of the meeting: Claire Keegans’ Booker shortlisted novel ‘Small things like these’. The novel is set in 1985, in a small Irish town, during the weeks leading up to Christmas. The main