Mary's Feminist Fiction Reading Group

Welcome to the wonderful Feminist Fiction Reading Group! A place to discover and enjoy a range of titles and themes lovingly hand picked by Mary. Woven together by feminist perspectives and critique, we will be discussing everything from unsung classics to contemporary literary fiction.

As we move in to Autumn, this is the perfect accompaniment to those darker evenings. Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes was her first novel (1926) which established her as a new literary talent and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina. Often described as a contemporary of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes, Warner and her partner Valentine Ackland were known as the Communists of Wessex. An unsung literary wonder, her quirks and oddities run throughout her writing, often leading to stories of curses, magic and witchcraft!

Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. But Lolly has a greater, far darker calling than family: witchcraft.

‘The book I’ll be pressing into people’s hands forever … It tells the story of a woman who rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favour of freedom … tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness’ - Helen Macdonald

‘Witty, eerie, tender … her prose, in its simple, abrupt evocations, has something preternatural about it’ - John Updike

‘A great shout of life and individuality … an act of defiance that gladdens the soul’ - Guardian

There’s no need to prepare or pressure to contribute at all - just bring your lovely self - but do feel free to mention a particular passage or character that you enjoyed during your reading.

Each entry place costs £5, fully redeemable as a voucher towards a copy of the book. We hope you’ll join us for some great conversation, and perhaps some baked goods!

Our Previous book group books include:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Sula by Toni Morrison
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Queens of Sarmiento Park by Camila Sosa Villada
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq
Hagstone by Sinead Gleeson?
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq
Long Petal of the Sea by Isabelle Allende
How to be both by Ali Smith
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston