The Horror Book Club

This event is being held at Waterstones - tickets are £6 and everyone is responsible for buying their own. It should be an interesting discussion!

https://www.waterstones.com/events/new-wave-of-horror-fiction-panel-at-waterstones-trafalgar-square/london-trafalgar-square

Join us for a spooky discussion, welcoming Gemma Amor, V. Castro, Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon and Ally Wilkes, some of the new and exciting voices in contemporary horror as they explore how the genre is evolving, and why it’s more relevant (and terrifying) than ever. From haunted ships and cursed bloodlines to ancient vampires and frozen landscapes, today’s horror is anything but traditional.

This month we are revisiting Beloved, which we first read back in June 2019.

Here’s the summary from Goodreads:
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.
Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.

The meeting will start at 7pm and finish between 9.00 and 10pm (BST), with breaks in between. Just a reminder that the pub lets us to use the room at no charge so please do purchase drinks/food from the bar. Bringing in your own food from outside the pub is not allowed!

SAVE THE DATE! Time & location TBC when screening times are released!

OK so not strictly speaking horror, but it's a King and we have to see if it beats the Arnie adaptation. We'll be going to see this along with The Constant Readers (All Things Stephen King) book group.

Please note, everyone is responsible for purchasing their own tickets. I'll post details nearer the time but it will be in central London.

Blurb follows:
In the near-future, "The Running Man" is the top-rated show on television, a deadly competition where contestants must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins. Desperate for money to save his sick daughter, Ben Richards is convinced by the show's ruthless producer to enter the game as a last resort. Ratings soon skyrocket as Ben's defiance, instincts and grit turn him into an unexpected fan favorite, as well as a threat to the entire system.

Just in time for Christmas, some poetry! There is a version of this read by Sir Ian McKellan on YouTube if you would prefer to listen, rather than read this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1raSUYAr0s0

Here’s the summary from Amazon:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the best-known and best-loved poems in the English language. It is the longest major poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was written in 1797-98 and revised in 1817. The mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The wedding-guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience to fear to fascination as Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood in different parts of the poem.

The meeting will start at 7pm and finish between 9.00 and 10pm (BST), with breaks in between. This one will be online only due to the difficulty in booking venues in the run up to Christmas! I will post the Zoom link on this page about 10 minutes before the meeting is due to start.