30th of December 2025
With a new cohort of wondrous alumni, I am assured of another devastatingly awesome book club in December. Talk is always good, the atmosphere is always lovely and the food always free. Don’t hesitate if you haven’t been before: the group changes every time and everyone is welcome.
For further questions, comments or voting for the topic of your choice (even if you’re not yet sure you can make it), contact me via the website, Signal or email.
Option 1: Giving a Voice to Nature
With humanity setting itself apart from nature, it has become common practice to see nature as something to be domesticated, dominated or exploited. Still, humanity cannot escape being a part of nature, which leads to a constantly guarded and redefined distinction between humans and the rest of the world, which is silenced in human discourse. To discuss the limits and possibilities of seeing nature’s perspective, let us read attempts at giving nature a voice.
Required reading: none!
Short read: “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” by Ursula K. Le Guin
Longer read: The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
Extra Reading: Watership Down by Richard Adams, Saga of the Swamp Thing (Volume 1) by Alan Moore and varied artists, Great Apes by Will Self.
Option 2: Revisiting Colonial History
The stories written by the empires that colonised large parts of the words often reduced the humanity of the people they subjected, erased the cultures they destroyed and ravaged the landscapes they exploited. Postcolonial literature is the field of studying these narratives and the counter-narratives that appeared to rectify the image of colonised people. Without understanding the crimes and cruelty of these systems, modern conflicts cannot be fully understood.
Required reading: none!
Short read: The Ultra-Black Fish by Victoria Adukwei Bulley (found here and here)
Longer read: The Rabbits by Shaun Tan.
Extra Reading: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land by Aimé Césaire, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, The Black Lake / Oeroeg by Hella Haasse.