The Holy Name Book Club is open to all members of the community, no matter what their age or religion, who enjoy reading fiction. We meet usually on the last Wednesday in the month, although this can change. The group meets at 7pm in the Church Hall on Towers Avenue.
If you wish to join the discussions, please email Fr Campion at welcome@holynamejesmond.co.uk. And please ensure you have read the book beforehand as the discussion is confined to the book, its plot, characterisation, narrative etc.
You are welcome to the next meeting on Wednesday 29 July to discuss the novel ‘Between Two Worlds’ by Oliver Norek.
Adam Sirkis needs to flee Syria. A captain in Assad’s military police, he’s about to be exposed as a covert member of the Free Syrian Army, and he knows exactly what fate awaits him. His first move is to send his wife and daughter to Libya, where they can find a boat heading for Europe. Adam himself winds up in France in the Calais Jungle, the infamous camp for migrants seeking passage to the fabled Youké.
Bastien Miller, a police lieutenant freshly transferred to the Calais police force, arrives at about the same time. His wife is drowning in grief for her late father and their teenage daughter may never forgive them for the move. When Adam risks his life to protect a young migrant, the two officers make a deal – information on Adam’s family in exchange for intel from the Jungle. Then a body is found in the camp, and the deal becomes an alliance, uniting them in a common cause to do one good deed in a world where vice is a virtue.
A Times 19 Best Books of 2024 – A Financial Times Best Summer Book of 2024 – A Times 10 Best Crime and Mystery Books of 2024 so far – A police procedural unlike anything else in contemporary crime fiction – Sunday Times and “The greatest exponent of the policier at work today” – Mark Sanderson, The Times.
For the meeting on 3 June 12 people discussed the novel ‘Never Mind’ by Edward St Aubin. The first instalment in Edward St. Aubyn’s wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, it follows five-year-old Patrick through a single day, as the Melrose family awaits the arrival of guests. Bright and imaginative, young Patrick struggles daily to contend with the searing cruelty of his father and the resignation of his embattled mother. But on this day he must endure an unprecedented horror—one that splits his world in two. In Never Mind, St. Aubyn renders this vivid tragedy with profound grace and precision, and introduces us to the unforgettable, complex figure of Patrick Melrose. (goodreads.com)