Book Club

Hilary Mantel, acclaimed for her double Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy (now a celebrated television series), presents an extraordinary work of historical imagination in her epic novel of the French Revolution. The narrative centres on three pivotal figures: the passionate and financially burdened Georges-Jacques Danton; the meticulous and violence-averse Maximilien Robespierre; and the charismatic but volatile Camille Desmoulins, a master of rhetoric. As these young men ascend to power, their initial idealism gives way to the chilling realities of political excess, forcing them to confront the terrifying consequences of their actions.

Latitudes of Longing opens in the Andaman Islands, where a botanist is captivated by his wife, Chanda Devi, who possesses a unique connection to the island’s spiritual realm. Their happiness is disrupted by tragedy, prompting their maid to embark on a journey to find her estranged son in Myanmar, where he is imprisoned. This sets off a chain of interconnected narratives that follow the path of a geological fault line.

The story expands to encompass diverse locations, including Nepal’s Kathmandu and the Karakoram mountains, culminating in the remote snow deserts. Swarup weaves together tales of love, loss, and redemption, exploring the interconnectedness of human lives and the earth’s “conscious history.” The novel is praised for its rich detail, humour, and profound humanity, crafting a compelling and original epic.

A powerful love story confronts the devastating threat of loss in this novel set in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1596. When a young girl falls ill with a sudden fever, her twin brother, Hamnet, desperately seeks aid, only to find their home empty. Their mother, Agnes, is tending her medicinal herbs, while their father works in London, unaware of the impending tragedy.

Hamnet reimagines the life of the forgotten son of a renowned playwright, whose name ultimately inspired one of literature’s most enduring works. It explores the grief and resilience of a family facing unimaginable loss, shedding light on the personal tragedy that may have influenced the creation of a masterpiece.

Catherine Chidgey’s The Axeman’s Carnival delivers a darkly comedic and satirical look at a marriage in crisis, narrated by an unlikely observer: Tama, a talking magpie and burgeoning social media sensation. Rescued as a chick by Marnie, Tama’s presence initially threatens to disrupt her already strained relationship with her drought-stricken farmer husband, Rob. However, Tama’s growing fame introduces new, albeit bizarre, possibilities for their future.

As Tama’s influence expands, the lines between the animal and human worlds blur, revealing the precariousness, darkness, and unexpected hope within both. The narrative, propelled by Tama’s often nonsensical yet surprisingly insightful commentary, builds towards a dramatic climax at the annual Axeman’s Carnival. Part trickster, part surrogate child, and part witness, Tama’s unique perspective illuminates the absurdities and truths of human existence, making this novel a profound, poetic, and hilariously true masterpiece.

Perennially on the outside, Brian has led a solitary life; he works at Camden Council, lunches every day at Il Castelletto café and then returns to his small flat on Kentish Town Road. It is an existence carefully crafted to avoid disturbance and yet Brian yearns for more. A visit one day to the BFI brings film into his life, and Brian introduces a new element to his routine: nightly visits to the cinema on London’s South Bank.

Through the works of Yasujiro Ozu, Federico Fellini, Agnes Varda, Yilmaz Güney and others, Brian gains access to a rich cultural landscape outside his own experience, but also achieves his first real moments of belonging, accepted by a curious bunch of amateur film buffs, the small informal group of BFI regulars. A tender meditation on friendship and the importance of community, Brian is also a tangential work of film criticism, one that is not removed from its subject matter, but rather explores with great feeling how art gives meaning to and enriches our lives.

Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents – whether Muslim, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside. When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England.

Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.

A riveting, poetic and powerful work from the author of the International Booker Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian. ‘Exquisite, painful and deeply courageous’ Philippe Sands, Best Books of the Year, Guardian Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. Amid a violent student uprising a young boy named Dong-ho is killed.

As his friend searches for Dong-ho’s corpse, we also meet an editor struggling against censorship, a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories, and Dong-ho’s grief-stricken mother. Through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope comes a tale of a brutalised people in search of a voice. A modern classic, Human Acts has been both a controversial bestseller and an award-winning book in Korea, and it confirmed Han Kang as a writer of international importance.

Please note February’s bookclub is on Tuesday 4th at 6.30pm (instead of the first Wednesday of the month). This is because we other shop events on 5th and 12th. See you then!

‘So bold and so vulnerable at the same time. I don’t know how she did it’ – Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Now with an introduction from Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love, revealing how a new generation of women can take inspiration from Nora’s sharp wit and wisdom about life.

* Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from. * If the shoe doesn’t fit in the shoe store, it’s never going to fit. * When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you. * If only one third of your clothes are mistakes, you’re ahead of the game. * Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of thirty-five you will be nostalgic for by the age of forty-five.*

‘I give this as a present more than other book. I buy it for people so often that I’ve been known to give girlfriends two copies, one birthday after another’ – Dolly Alderton

As has become tradition now at Jaffé & Neale, December’s book club gathering on Wednesday 4th December is an invitation for regulars and new members to discuss their favourite books of the year for a couple of minutes!

Patrick has also ‘promised’ mulled wine…

We look forward to seeing you there.

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them.

Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it.

With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years. ‘An amazing debut novel. You should read this book.