What we’re about
We are a book club for people who like to talk about books!
We read current-ish fiction (last 15 years) that is already in paperback and has won or been nominated for any award. We pick books that highlight diverse stories from diverse authors around the word. The folks who come to the meeting vote on the next book.
We (usually) meet the third Thursday of the month at 8 pm in East Lake.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Let's discuss "The Fraud" by Zadie SmithUniversal Joint, Decatur, GA
Let's discuss "The Fraud" by Zadie Smith.
This meeting will be in-person at Universal Joint.
The people who come will vote on the next book, so bring an idea :)
Remember that we're trying to read current-ish fiction (last 15 years) that represents diverse voices, is already in paperback, and has won or been nominated for an award.
***
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.
Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.
The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .
Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”
Literary awards
Walter Scott Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024), Writers' Prize Nominee for Fiction (2024), The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee for Longlist (2024), Libby Award Nominee for Best Adult Fiction (2024)***
