Our book group is open to all. Attend every meeting, occasionally or just once in your life. All we ask is that you read the book in advance and take part in the discussion. There’s a short introduction by a member of staff, a group regular, or someone we know with a special interest in the book in question. This is a casual group discussion, there is no author or presentation.

Heart Lamp won the International Booker Prize 2025 and is translated by Deepa Bhasthi.

In 12 stories, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India

Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.

Refreshments provided

Our book groups – Fiction (monthly), Pagan (bi-monthly), Non-Fiction (roughly quarterly) and our Irish book club