Book Club

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
– Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

Book Club Season 24

The next season of the Book Club will run from November 2023 to May 2024. Nicola will pick 4 books by both men and women writers from 4 regions (Africa & the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific, Europe & the Middle East, The Americas).

The selected books will be announced in September 2023. Check back then!

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From February 2005 to March 2018, Nicola organised her Book Club by season with a selection of 5 books by both men and women writers from each of the 5 continents (Africa & the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific, Europe & the Middle East, North America, South America). The books chosen were primarily contemporary fiction, often new releases and occasionally classics.

After a break of 3 years, the Book Club returned in December 2021 with a slightly changed format from previous years. Nicola chooses 4 books per season by both men and women writers from 4 regions (Africa & the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific, Europe & the Middle East, The Americas).

These are the seasons (some with a “theme”) that she has organised:

  • Seasons 1-3 – no theme (2005-2006)
  • Season 4 – “From Book To Film” (2006)
  • Season 5 – “Censorship in the 21st Century” (2007)
  • Season 6 – “World Classics (the past is masculine)” (2007)
  • Season 7 – “Future World Classics (the future is feminine)” (2008)
  • Season 8 – “Love and Passion in World Literature” (2008)
  • Season 9 – “War and Conflict around the World” (2009)
  • Season 10 – “First Novels” (2009)
  • Season 11 – “Short Stories” (2010)
  • Season 12 – “Book to Film Adaptations” (2010)
  • Season 13 – “Politics and Religion” (2011)
  • Season 14 – “Satire” (2011)
  • Season 15 – “Fantasy and the Fantastic” (2012)
  • Season 16 – “Journeys in Time” (2012)
  • Season 17 – “The Human Condition” (2013)
  • Season 18 – no theme (2015)
  • Season 19 – no theme (2015-2016)
  • Season 20 – no theme (2016-2017)
  • Season 21 – no theme (2017-2018)
  • Season 22 – “Connection” (2021-2022)
  • Season 23 – “Myth and the Magical“ (2022-2023)

If you would like to receive the reading lists, please send us a message via the contact page.

Between 2005 and 2018, the group met once a month or every two months in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2021, we meet online. The discussions, led by Nicola, are lively and interesting, leaving the readers with an added value to each book. At the end of each meeting, Nicola asks readers to give a score for the book, so that at the end of the season, one of them stands out as the favourite.

Here are some of the book club favourites:

  • “Pilgrim” by Timothy Findley (Canada)
  • “Tsotsi” by Athol Fugard (South Africa)
  • “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury (US)
  • “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)
  • “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood (Canada)
  • “The Bad Girl” by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
  • “The Attack” by Yasmina Khadra (Algeria)
  • “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga (India)
  • “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)
  • “Sightseeing” by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Thailand)
  • “Disgrace” by J.M. Coetzee (South Africa)
  • “Seeing” by José Saramago (Portugal)
  • “The Brothers’ Lot” by Kevin Holohan (Ireland)
  • “Living in the Maniototo” by Janet Frame (New Zealand)
  • “Black Mamba Boy” by Nadifa Mohamed (Somalia)
  • “Hustle” by Will Ferguson (Canada)
  • “The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman” by Denis Thériault (Canada)
  • “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” by Richard Flanagan (Australia)
  • “Island of a Thousand Mirrors” by Nayomi Munaweera (Sri Lanka)
  • “Lyrics Alley” by Leila Aboulela (Sudan)
  • “Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night” by Jon Kalman Stefansson (Iceland)
  • “Ceremony” by Leslie Marmon Silko (USA)