November meeting

In October the group has been reading a Scandinavian thriller; ‘Betrayal’ by Karin Alvetegen and we met on 2^nd November to discuss this slim but chilling novel. Alvetegen is one of Sweden’s most popular and acclaimed crime writers and this new publication of her 2003 novel, is a compulsive read which most of us  consumed in one go, being  particularly hard to put down. Meanwhile this month the Durham Book Festival has provided lots of food for thought particularly in the field of non-fiction; Melanie Challenger’s talk about ‘On Extinction’ was fascinating and illuminating; the book is based on her visits to abandoned whaling stations in South Georgia, the reducing icescapes of Antarctica and the Inuit camps in the Arctic. Through the story of her journey she traces the links between human activities and environmental collapse, weaving together ideas about cultural and biological extinction. Meanwhile there is a veritable feast of films based on books (that most book groups have read) with ‘We need to talk about Kevin’, ‘The Help’ and a new ‘Wuthering Heights’ all soon to be released, so lots to keep us all talking about literature through the winter months.