What we’re about
This is a meetup for book lovers who are eager to discuss books and be inspired by other fellow readers's ideas, over a nice drink. A positive, open group that accepts everyone's views with respect. We will meet once a month at Luddites Books and Wine bar. Each month a different group member will get to pick the next book, to ensure we cover a wide variety of genres and preferences. Never know, you might discover your new favourite book!
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Antwerpen Book Club Meetup September 2025 - The Emperor of Gladness by O. VuongLuddites Books & Wine, Antwerpen
We will have a little summer break! However, there is a special meetup hosted by regular Polina on the 30th July. Head over to our Instagram for the details. Have a nice summer!
Oprah’s Book Club Pick • Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive
The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
