Book Club
Forthcoming Meetings
- 13 Mar: Samantha Harvey's Orbital
About Us
PRISTON BOOK CLUB meets on the second Thursday of every month in the Ring O'Bells pub, at 8pm.
We read a range of (paperback) books, including novels, short stories, crime fiction and popular science.
Anyone is welcome to join our informal discussions – on a regular or occasional basis.
No expertise is required, just an interest in books.
For more information, phone Penny on 01761 470589.
Each month’s book will be advertised on this web-page.
Books read by the Group
(Winners since 2010 of the prestigious Priston Book Club's Book of the Year Award are denoted in red.)
| Date | Author | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 2025 | Herman Melville | Moby Dick |
| Dec 2024 | Ann Patchett | Bel Canto |
| Nov 2024 | Curtis Sittenfeld | Rodham |
| Oct 2024 | Jenny Erpenbeck | Kairos |
| Sep 2024 | Paul Harding | This Other Eden |
| Aug 2024 | Paul Lynch | Prophet Song |
| Jul 2024 | Carson McCuller | The Heart is a Lonely Hunter |
| Jun 2024 | DH Lawrence | The Virgin and the Gipsy |
| May 2024 | Sandy Tolan | The Lemon Tree |
| Apr 2024 | Andrew Miller | The Slowworm’s Song |
| Mar 2024 | Rory Stewart | The Places in Between |
| Feb 2024 | Dave Goulson | Silent Earth |
| Dec 2023 | Peter Carey | Theft |
| Nov 2023 | Barbara Kingsolver | Demon Copperhead |
| Oct 2023 | Shepherd | The Living Mountain |
| Sep 2023 | Yagisawa | Days at the Morisaki Bookshop |
| Aug 2023 | Lisa See | The Island of the Sea Women |
| Jul 2023 | S. G. Maclean | The Bookseller of Inverness |
| Jun 2023 | Shehan Karunatilaka | The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida |
| May 2023 | Annie Ernaux | The Years |
| Apr 2023 | Anthony Doerr | Cloud Cuckoo Land |
| Mar 2023 | Carlo Rovelli | Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution |
| Feb 2023 | James Plunkett | Strumpet City |
| Jan 2023 | AGM | - |
| Dec 2022 | Jon McGregor | If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
| Nov 2022 | Lea Ypi | Free: Coming of Age at the End of History |
| Oct 2022 | Benjamin Labatut | When We Cease to Understand the World |
| Sep 2022 | V S Naipaul | A Bend in the River |
| Aug 2022 | Kazuo Ishiguro | Klara and the Sun |
| Jul 2022 | Damon Galgut | The Promise |
| Jun 2022 | Olga Tokarczuk | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead |
| May 2022 | Susanna Clarke | Piranesi |
| Apr 2022 | James Rebanks | English Pastoral |
| Mar 2022 | Christy Lefteri | Songbirds |
| Feb 2022 | Arnold Bennett | Clayhanger |
| Jan 2022 | AGM | - |
| Dec 2021 | Adam Nicolson | The Seabird's Cry |
| Nov 2021 | Elizabeth Strout | The Burgess Boys |
| Oct 2021 | Charlotte Wood | The Weekend |
| Sep 2021 | Thomas Hardy | Return of the Native |
| Aug 2021 | William Boyd | Fascination |
| Jul 2021 | Douglas Stuart | Shuggie Bain |
| Jun 2021 | Maggie O'Farrell | Hamnet |
| May 2021 | Tim Spector | Spoon-fed |
| Apr 2021 | F Scott Fitzgerald | The Great Gatsby |
| Mar 2021 | Benjamin Myers | The Gallows Pole |
| Feb 2021 | Bill Bryson | The Body |
| Jan 2021 | - | AGM |
| Dec 2020 | Alice Munroe | Short Stories |
| Nov 2020 | Isabella Hammad | The Parisian |
| Oct 2020 | Raynor Winn | The Salt Path |
| Sep 2020 | Pat Barker | The Silence of the Girls |
| Aug 2020 | Bernardine Evaristo | Girl, Woman, Other |
| July 2020 | Donna Tartt | The Goldfinch |
| June 2020 | Maggie O'Farrell | I Am, I Am, I Am |
| May 2020 | Barbara Kingsolver | The Poisonwood Bible |
| Apr 2020 | Heinrich Boll | The Train Was on Time |
| Mar 2020 | Colson Whitehead | The Underground Railroad |
| Feb 2020 | David Mitchell | Cloud Atlas |
| Jan 2020 | - | AGM |
| Dec 2019 |
Peter Wohlleben | The Hidden Life of Trees |
| Nov 2019 |
John Boyne | The Heart's Invisible Furies |
| Oct 2019 |
Robin Robertson' | The Long Take |
| Sep 2019 |
Jessie Burton |
The Miniaturist |
| Aug 2019 |
Anna Burns | Milkman |
| Jul 2019 |
Melissa Harrison' | Hawthorn Time |
| Jun 2019 |
Hannah Kent | Burial Rites |
| May 2019 |
Nick Hunt | Where the Wild Winds Are |
| Apr 2019 |
Salley Rooney |
Normal People |
| Mar 2019 |
Rebecca Scott |
In the Days of Rain |
| Feb 2019 |
Ken Follett |
The Pillars of the Earth |
| Jan 2019 |
- |
AGM |
| Dec 2018 |
Kamila Shamsie |
Home Fire |
| Nov 2018 |
Virginia Woolf |
To the Lighthouse |
| Oct 2018 |
John Le Carre |
Legacy of Spies |
| Sep 2018 |
Omar Robert Hamilton's |
The City Always Wins |
| Aug 2018 |
Polly Clark's |
Larchfield |
| Jul 2018 | Sebastian Barry |
Days without End |
| Jun 2018 |
Jeffrey Eugenides |
Middlesex |
| May 2018 |
Ali Smith |
Autumn |
| Apr 2018 |
Laurie Frankel |
This Is How It Always Is |
| Mar 2018 |
Henry Marsh | Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery |
| Feb 2018 |
Margaret Atwood | Alias Grace |
| Jan 2018 |
- |
AGM |
| Dec 2017 |
Kazuo Ishiguro |
Remains of the Day |
| Nov 2017 |
Julian Barnes |
Noise of Time |
| Oct 2017 |
Colm Tobin |
House of Names |
| Sep 2017 |
Graham Wift |
Mothering Sunday |
| Aug 2017 |
Richard Kerridge |
Cold Blood |
| Jul 2017 |
Lionel Shriver |
The Mandibles |
| Jun 2017 |
James Shapiro |
1606: Shakespear and the
Year of Lear 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare |
| Apr 2017 | M. L. Stedman | The Light Between Oceans |
| Mar 2017 | Svetlana Alexievich | Chernobyl Prayer |
| Feb 2017 | Anne Brontë | The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| Jan 2017 | - | - AGM |
| Dec 2016 | Patricia Highsmith | Strangers on a Train |
| Nov 2016 | Joshua Slocum | Sailing around the World |
| Oct 2016 | Evan S. Connell | Mrs. Bridge |
| Sep 2016 | Emma Hooper | Etta and Otto and Russell and James |
| Aug 2016 | Ben MacIntyre | A Spy among Friends |
| July 2016 | John Williams | Stoner |
| June 2016 | Jane Austen | Emma |
| May 2016 | Tim Dee | Four Fields |
| April 2016 | Cormac McCarthy | Blood Meridian |
| Mar 2016 | J.D. Salinger | The Catcher in the Rye |
| Feb 2016 | Anthony Trollope | The Way We Live Now |
| Jan 2016 | - | - AGM |
| Dec 2015 | James Joyce | The Dubliners |
| Nov 2015 | Bruce Chatwin |
The Songlines |
| Oct 2015 | E.M. Forster | Howards End |
| Sep 2015 | Ann Enright | The Gathering |
| Aug 2015 | Jim Crace | Harvest |
| July 2015 | Terry Pratchett | The Colour of Magic |
| June 2015 | Dave Goulson | A Sting in the Tale |
| May 2015 | Ian McEwan | The Children Act |
| April 2015 | Andrea Levy | Small Island |
| Mar 2015 | Albert Camus | The Plague |
| Feb 2015 | Wlkie Collins | The Woman in White |
| Jan 2015 | - | - (AGM) |
| Dec 2014 | Richard Yates | The Easter Parade |
| Nov 2014 | Helen Dunmore | The Lie |
| Oct 2014 | Nathan Filer | Shock of the Fall |
| Sep 2014 | Tom Sharpe | Blot on the Landscape |
| Aug 2014 | Ismail Kadare | Broken April |
| Jul 2014 | Murakami | Norwegian Wood |
| Jun 2014 | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | One Hundred years of Solitude |
| May 2014 | Tim Dee | The Running Sky |
| Apr 2014 | Siegfried Sassoon | Memoirs of an Infantry Officer |
| Mar 2014 | Dr Steven Peter | The Chimp Paradox |
| Feb 2014 | George Eliot | Middlemarch |
| Jan 2014 | - | -(AGM) |
| Dec 2013 | Jennifer Egan | A Visit from the Goon Squad |
| Nov 2013 | Penelope Fitzgerald | The Beginning of Spring |
| Oct 2013 | Ian Banks | The Wasp Factory |
| Sep 2013 | A D Miller | Snowdrops |
| Aug 2013 | William Trevor | The Old Boys |
| July 2013 | Claire Tomalin | Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man |
| May 2013 | Thomas Hardy |
Short Stories |
| April 2013 | John Lanchester | Capital |
| Mar 2013 | George Orwell | Down and Out in Paris and London |
| Feb 2013 | Graham Swift | Wish You Were Here |
| Jan 2013 | Josephine Tey | The Daughter of Time |
| Dec 2012 | Alan Hollinghurs | The Stranger's Child |
| Nov 2012 | Yiyun Li | A Thousand Years of Good Prayers |
| Oct 2012 | Julian Barnes | A Sense of Ending |
| Sep 2012 | Emily Bronte | Wuthering Heights |
| Aug 2012 | Emily Bronte | Wuthering Heights |
| Jul 2012 | Spke Milligan | Puckoon |
| Jun 2012 | William Kamkwamba | The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind |
| May 2012 | Thaler & Sunstein | Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth & Happiness' |
| Apr 2012 | Andrew Miller | Pure |
| Mar 2012 | Mary Shelley | Frankenstein |
| Feb 2012 | Sheila Steward | |Lifting the Latch |
| Jan 2012 | General discussion with fish and chips! | |
| Dec 2011 | Kathryn Stockett | The Help |
| Nov 2011 | Richard Hughes | The Fox in the Attic |
| Oct 2011 | R.M. Pirsig | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
| Sep 2011 | Tea Obreht | The Tiger's Wife |
| Aug 2011 | - | - |
| Jul 2011 | Beryl Bainbridge | Master Georgie |
| Jun 2011 | Michael Lewis | The Big Short |
| Apr 2011 | C J Sansom | Dissolution |
| Mar 2011 | J G Ballard | Life's Miracles |
| Feb 2011 | Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall |
| Jan 2011 | Helen Dunmore | Spell in Winter |
| Dec 2010 | Tracey Chevalier | Remarkable Creatures |
| Nov 2010 | Anthony Trollope | The Warden |
| Oct 2010 | Charles Dickens | Bleak House |
| Sep 2010 | Paul Gallico | The Snow Goose |
| Aug 2010 | Martin Amis | Money |
| Jul 2010 | Roy Jacobson | The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles |
| Jun 2010 | Marjane Satrapi | Persepolis |
| May 2010 | Kate Summerscale | The Suspicions of Mr Whicher |
| Apr 2010 | Thomas Hardy | Far from the Madding Crowd |
| Mar 2010 | Mohsin Hamid | The Reluctant Fundamentalist |
| Feb 2010 | Margaret Atwood | The Handmaid's Tale |
| Jan 2010 | Nevil Shute | On the Beach |
| Dec 2009 | Stieg Larsson | Girl with Dragon Tattoo |
| Nov 2009 | Oscar Wilde | Dorian Gray |
| Oct 2009 | Sarah Waters | Fingersmith |
| Sep 2009 | Paul Theroux | The Great Railway Bazaar/ Ghost Train to the Eastern Star |
| Aug 2009 | Henry Miller | Tropic of Cancer |
| Jul 2009 | Orwell Ben Goldacre | Inside the Whale and Other Stories Bad Science |
| Jun 2009 | Ernest Hemmingway | For Whom the Bell Tolls |
| May 2009 | Aravind Adiga | White Tiger |
| Apr 2009 | T. S. Eliot Wendy Cope | The Wasteland Any poem |
| Mar 2009 | Updike | Any novel |
| Feb 2009 | Sophocles | Antigone |
| Jan 2009 | Malcolm Pryce | Aberystwyth Mon Amour |
| Dec 2008 | Jane Austen | Persuasion |
| Nov 2008 | Minette Walters | The Breaker |
| Oct 2008 | Salman Rushdie | Midnight’s Children |
| Aug 2008 | Evelyn Waugh | Vile Bodies |
| Jul 2008 | Nadine Gordimer | The Conservationist |
| Jun 2008 | James Lovelock | Revenge of Gaia |
| May 2008 | Iain Banks | Steep Ascent to Garbadale |
| Apr 2008 | Rose Tremain | The Road Home |
| Mar 2008 | William Boyd | Restless |
| Feb 2008 | Chekhov | Short stories |
| Jan 2008 | Leo Tolstoy | Anna Karenina |
| Dec 2007 | Grahame Greene | The Quiet American |
| Nov 2007 | Peter Carey | Tax Inspector and My Life as a Fake |
| Oct 2007 | Niall Griffiths | Runt |
| Sep 2007 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Half of a Yellow Sun |
| Aug 2007 | Emile Zola | Nana |
| Jul 2007 | David Mitchell | Black Swan Green |
| Jun 2007 | Mitch Albom | Five People You Meet in Heaven |
| May2007 | Arundhati Roy | God of Small Things |
| Apr 2007 | Mervyn Peake | Titus Groan |
| Mar 2007 | Primo Levi | Periodic Table |
| Feb 2007 | Michael Frayn | Spies |
| Jan2007 | Richard Dawkins | The God Delusion |
| Al Gore | Inconvenient Truth | |
| Marina Lewycka | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian | |
| Flaubert | Madame Bovary | |
| Rose Tremain | Music and Silence | |
| David Lodge | The British Museum is Falling Down | |
| Evelyn Waugh | Decline and Fall | |
| Joseph Conrad | Heart of Darkness | |
| Margaret Atwood | Oryx and Crake | |
| Khaled Hosseini | The Kite Runner | |
| 1st book | Liz Jensen | The Ninth Life of Louis Drax |