The Athenaeum Blog

The last day of business for 2019 will be Tuesday the 24th of December when we will close at 4pm. The Athenaeum will re-open on Tuesday the 28th of January 2020. All members can take a double lot of books (up to six books) to tide them over the holiday break.

We have selected our reading for 2019/20 For our next meeting on the 17th of October we are doing MI5 and Me by Charlotte Bingham For the 14th of November we are doing Relative Strangers by Pip Murdoch. Then on the 12th of December it will be The Man Who was Saturday by Patrick Bishop…. Read More

It is always lovely to get a compliment.  The ABC has been going a few years now and has settled into a small but dedicated band.  After our last meeting I received the following lovely email from one of our members. Just  wanted  you to know  how much  I  enjoy  book club.  Pretty  well all… Read More

We started weekly readings of Janet Frame’s To The Is-land in June last year and steadily worked our way through all three volumes.  In total it took us about nine months and we ended up with a small but passionate group who adored getting to know Janet Frame in this way.  We all agreed that… Read More

December got a bit crazy so we held The Cork Dork over until our first meeting of 2019. We have finalised most of our 2019 reading list starting with William Goldman’s The Princess Bride for March.  Most of us have seen the movie but I think that the original book is even better, so there… Read More

Iona’s book launch went off without a hitch.  She had a good crowd and sold a lot of books which was great to see. I have included a number of photo’s I took on the night.

It is always slightly anxiety provoking holding an event.  After the initial excitement of coming up with what you think is a good idea, you start to harbour doubts as the nominated date comes closer and all the ways that things could go wrong begin to haunt you.  So I am delighted and slightly smug… Read More

Sadly ill health forced Vincent O’Sullivan to pull out and we missed his personal insights but Phillippa Duffy from the UBS stepped up and shared the story of how she came to Dan Davin.  Her passion for Davin’s writing got us off to an electrifying start. Fiona Farrell shared the story of how as a… Read More

Jennifer Lane’s first novel All Our Secrets has won the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Crime Awards.  It is sitting on our shelves just waiting for you to take it out.

For September we are doing something different – two books by the same author: Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z by David Grann.  Grann is a writer for the New Yorker and both books started life as articles in that magazine. In October Christine choose The Dark Flood Rises by… Read More