The next meeting of the Wolfson Reading Group will be on Wednesday at 19.30 in the Gatsby Room. We will be discussing A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
In addition to novels, the Wolfson Reading Group has discussed a collection of short stories and some biographical writing since its foundation in 2005, and is open to suggestions for other genres, including poetry and drama.
The WRG is open to all Wolfson members, and a commitment to attend meetings on a regular basis is not required. Some come along when the book particularly appeals, others use it as an opportunity to explore works they might not otherwise choose to read.
The reading group format works particularly well in Wolfson, a community which brings together people with so many different backgrounds. Everyone (from any academic discipline or none) brings their own perspective to a book, and the aim is simply to have an enjoyable chat sharing views and ideas, not a formal academic discussion. Serious highbrow literary criticism isn't expected, and everyone who comes along should find it easy to contribute.
Mailing list
The Wolfson-Reading-Group list is used to share ideas about books for future discussion and to announce forthcoming meetings. You can subscribe to the list (called "wolfson-reading-group"), using either an @cam or other email address, here. Meetings are also advertised once in advance via the wolfson-events mailing list.
Suggestions of titles for future sessions are very welcome. Please send them via the mailing list.
WRG Blog
Members are encouraged to use the WRG blog to comment on posts and to generate discussions based on books they are reading. Whether you are reading something which you think others should read (or avoid), or you’d like to specifically recommend a book for the Reading Group, all are urged to engage with the blog and to write up reviews for inclusion. Posts which you have written and would like to see published on the blog can be emailed to the Reading Group. Any problems or suggestions can also be emailed to this address.
Books previously discussed
2023-2024
Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life
2022-2023
Natsume Soseki, Sanshiro
Sam Selvon, Lonely Londoners
Jessica Shattuck, The Women in the Castle
Damon Galgut, Promise
Claire Keegan, Small things Like These
Claire Keegan, Foster
Matthew Kneale, English Passengers
Kathleen Rooney, Cher Ami & Major Whittlesey
2021-2022
Seishi Yokomizo, The Inugami Curse
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Stella Tillyard, The Great Level
Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin
Tan Twan Eng, The Graden of Evening Mists
Pip Williams, Dictionary of Lost Words
Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives Tale
Andrey Kurkov, Death and the Penguin
2018-2019
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Isabel Allende, Ines of my Soul
Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
2017-18
Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
Muriel Sparks, The Girls of Slender Means
John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies
2016-17
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small things
Robert Seethaler, The Tobacconist
Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
John Banville, The Sea
Frances Spufford, Golden Hill
William Boyd, Sweet Caress
Paul Beatty, The Sellout
Hillary Mantel, Eight Months on Gazzah Street
2015-16
Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project
Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins
Mo Yan, Frog
E L Doctorow, Ragtime
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
2014-15
Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds
David Nicholls, Us
Ian McKewan, The Children Act
Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories, Vol. 1, Vintage Books
Hallgrímur Helgason, The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning
Karen Joy Fowler, We are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Naguib Mahfouz, Palace Walk
Michelle Paver, Dark Matter: A Ghost story
Jonathan Coe, EXPO 58
2013-14
John Lanchester, Capital
Robert Harris, An Officer and a SpyAlice Munro Dear Life
Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the time being
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Andrea Levy, The Long Song
Charles Moseley, Out of Reach: an elegy for a Cambridgeshire village
John Williams, Stoner
2012-13
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
Lawrence Norfolk, John Saturnall's Feast
Zadie Smith, NW
Jonas Jonasson, The one-hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared
Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
Herman Koch, The Dinner
C J Sansom, Dominion
2011-12
Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger's Child
Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English
Irène Nemirovsky, The Wine of Solitude
Andrew Miller, Pure
Beryl Bainbridge, The Bottle Factory Outing
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
2010-11
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
John Banville, Infinities
John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meaney
Paul Torday, The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce
William Boyd, Ordinary Thunderstorms
Antal Szerb, Journey by Moonlight
Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
2009-10
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972)
Salley Vickers, Where Three Roads Meet
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Jane Gardam, Old Filth
Xiaolu Guo, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger
Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
2008-9
Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: Or, The Murder at Road Hill House
Rose Tremain, The Road Home
Doris Lessing, Alfred & Emily
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table
2007-8
Margaret Attwood, Oryx and Crake
W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
Rebecca Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
Amos Oz (translated by Nicholas de Lange), A Tale of Love and Darkness
2006-7
William Trevor, After Rain
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves
Jill Dawson, Watch Me Disappear
2005-6
Ian McEwan, Saturday
J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost
Salley Vickers, Miss Garnet's Angel
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Alexander Masters, Stuart: A Life Backwards