This month we look at the books of James Baldwin…
North Books’ alternative book club edges away from the usual convention of only inviting readers to discuss a single book (though this can happen from time to time) to opening up our evenings to a more general celebration of our shared love of storytelling and the people behind the words on the page.
Thoughts in the pot so far include asking readers to choose any work from a given writer to encourage a wider discussion of the author’s creativity and output. We are also interested in dedicated genre events as well as putting poets, journalists, songwriters and historians in the mix. Fiction, non-fiction and everything in between.
It’s a book club but it’s an evolving one. It will be one thing one month and something else the next time we meet – always, though, it will belong to the group and it will be shaped by you. The only common denominator will be words – and a conversation about them.
JOIN US
Participation is free if the book is purchased in advance from North Books at a 10% discount. Otherwise it is £5 on the night. To join the group, please email Jules on jules@northbooks.co.uk.
THE WORK
Next session’s reading suggestion is the work of James Baldwin - who is being celebrated 100 years since his birth.
On our ninth evening, Wednesday 7 August, let's talk about the books of James Baldwin. Hailed as a gifted pupil at an early age, Baldwin discovered a particular passion for writing during his teens and at 13, he wrote his first article, Harlem – Then and Now, for a school magazine. He went on to be one of the most significant writers of American literature, famous for novels including Giovanni's Room (1965) and If Beale Street Could Talk (1974).
He was also a leading voice in the Civil Rights Movement, known for his insightful work that gave voice to the African American experience and sought to educate white Americans on what it meant to be Black.
In the decades following his death in 1987, the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter and ongoing discourse on race, social inequality and sexuality show that there is still a long way to go on the march to equality – and Baldwin's words are often to be found at the centre of these conversations.
Read on for some of his most prescient, and often still painfully true, musings on literature, race, self-belief, prejudice and more.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
All available to order via Bookshop.org or in the bookshop on request.