Our book group partners
Book Group Partners - our grass roots supporters
Local book groups are the grass roots supporters of Eastbourne LitFest. Here is our little thank you to our book group donors, celebrating their stories and the books they talk about, from the universally loved to those that split opinion!
Wanderlust Book Club
The Wanderlust Book Club came together via a local community centre in 2017. Post-pandemic, we started meeting in our own homes and gardens - weather permitting! We are an all-woman group and as well as our love of books, we share a love of travel and comparing our different experiences of life.
How do you choose which books to read? Once a year, we each bring along two suggestions, write them on slips of paper and pick them out of a hat. The first book title drawn is January’s read, the second is for February – and so on. We pin the list in our WhatsApp chat, where we also share best buys and bargains.
Do you have any favourite genres or authors? We are drawn to contemporary fiction and we’ve loved reading John Boyne, Fredrik Backman, Elif Shafak and Eowyn Ivy. The 2024 Booker Prize winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey was a Marmite book for us – some felt it didn’t live up to the hype. Over the years, we’ve noticed we have a lot more to discuss when we don’t like a book than when we love it!
Do you have any book group rules? No rules! It’s fun and relaxed. There’s no pressure to speak and we encourage everyone to come along, even if they haven’t read or finished the book. We talk a lot about characters and often reflect on whether a story will stay with us, or not. We share favourite quotes and sometimes play music that has featured in a book.
What are the best things about being in your book group? The social aspect has become as important as the book-sharing. One member has the perfect home for our Christmas meet up, and we all look forward to that. But all year round, we share excitement about choosing and buying books we may never have encountered if not for the group. We’ve all definitely broadened our reading horizons.
What books would you recommend to other book groups?
We found A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles captivating, and also enjoyed Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The character-led Brit Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman is another we’d highly recommend.
The ABC
The Awesome Book Club is a book group of six women living in Eastbourne. Four of us are retired and between us we’ve done lots of jobs including teaching, book-keeping, nursing and selling houses.
When and where do you meet? We meet at each other’s homes every 2-3 months, and we always have food and a few drinks to help keep the conversation flowing.
How do you choose which books to read? We take turns to bring recommendations. We’re happy reading serious and comic books, in any genre, and we do nonfiction too. We choose two books to read each time – one lighter, and one a bit more serious or literary. Or we might choose a shorter and a longer one. For example, we read The Living Mountain, a short book about the Cairngorm mountains, alongside The Magus by John Fowles, which is more of a marathon at 700 pages.
Are you social chatters or serious book talkers? A bit of both! After a good catch up, we turn to the books. Because we have two to talk about each time, we always have a lot to say!
Are there any books that have divided opinion? Definitely! Babel by KF Kuang really split the group – one person couldn’t bear it and felt the author was showing off, but others adored it as a brilliant and involving blend of historical fiction and fantasy.
What books would you recommend to other book groups? Three that really got the conversation going are Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, The Trees by Percival Everett and There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. We also enjoyed Hugh Bonneville’s memoir Playing Under the Piano: From Downton to Darkest Peru.
