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Summer Reading Challenge 2025
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Book Club

Our friendly Book Club meets on the third Tuesday of the month in the Library at 3.30pm. We welcome anyone who enjoys reading and likes
talking about books. We don't do 'lit crit' but we discuss why we like/didn't like the book choice. We exchange tips on recent reads that we think others might enjoy, and then wander on to a wide range of subjects. You don't have to buy the books – we take turns to choose a book from a Cambridgeshire Libraries multi-copy list. If you are interested in joining us, send a request to Sally via info@haddenhamlibrarycambs.co.uk or give your contact details to a Library Volunteer.

 

Upcoming read:

Next month on 21st August at 3.30 pm in the library, we'll be reading 'Zami: A new Spelling of my Name', a 1982 biomythography (?!) by American poet Audre Lorde, which combines history, biography, and myth. We can provide you with the book. Do get in touch if you'd like to join us!

 

To join us, speak to a Library volunteer, or drop a line to info@haddenhamlibrarycambs.co.uk.

1984, by George Orwell

 

We have had a distinctly dystopian theme going on with our recent book choices. Following last month's chilling 'Our Missing Hearts' by Celeste Ng, this week we tackled George Orwell's '1984' which many, but not all, of us had read before. This was chosen as it is an important book, but we honestly hadn't realised this is the 75th anniversary year of its publication (8th June 1949).


Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair) began thinking about writing it in 1943 in the midst of World War II, but it was a faltering process. He buckled down to it in 1946 on the Scottish island of Jura, finally finishing it in December 1948 when he was extremely ill with tuberculosis. '1984' is undoubtedly a masterpiece and - scarily - it hasn't really dated. Orwell described it as a "satire", and a display of the "perversions to which a centralised economy is liable," while also stating he believed "that something resembling it could arrive." We all know that in too many parts of the world, much of it already has...


The brutal analysis of a totalitarian state terrified us all. It is wholly believable, and many of us found the predictions so accurate it was difficult to read. Some of our group treated it like medicine, interspersing it with lighter reading, although one person finished it and went straight onto 'The Handmaid's Tale' - not recommended!


The only part of '1984' that really drew criticism is when the main character Winston Smith is reading a book by Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the state. It was so detailed and overly complicated that it rather ruined the flow. However, one person described this as the '3D' part of the story as you become Winston by reading the book he is reading.


We also all confessed our room 101 items: heights, spiders x3 (although one was Tarantula specific), wasps, snakes x2, and losing family.

 

We gave ‘1984’ 7 thumbs up out of 11.

 

Our next book is the 2015 psychological thriller 'The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins, which we will be discussing on 16th July. All are welcome to join us!