Book Salad

Book Salad meets at the end of the month at 6:30pm, usually on a Tuesday, and you're very welcome to join us. To make a salad you put together different things you'd like to eat, and we do the same with reading. We try all kinds of books, by all kinds of people. We limit numbers to fifteen attendees and it's very friendly and informal.

For our sixth book of 2026, we will read 'Spies' by Michael Frayn, chosen because my colleague Robin said intriguing things about it, and I like stories about children in a grown-ups world. Also, spies are fun!

Here's the blurb:

Spies by Michael Frayn

"In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live, the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackout at night and a single random bombsite. But the two boys start to suspect all is not as it seems when one day Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family. And when the secret underground world they have dreamed up emerges from the shadows, they find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they had bargained for."

What we might read next

I am sometimes asked for a provisional reading list for the rest of our year, so here it is. I'll try to stick to it but there may be changes if something exciting comes along:

June: 'Spies' by Michael Frayn

July: 'The Man Who Was Thursday' by G.K. Chesterton

August: 'Captains of the Sands' by Jorge Amado

September: 'The Impostor and Other Stories' by Silvina Ocampo

October: 'The Sundial' by Shirley Jackson

November: 'The Blizzard' by Vladimir Sorokin

December: 'A Chess Story' by Stefan Zweig (We don't meet in December but this is the short book I've decided I'll be reading)

January: 'The Topeka School' by Ben Lerner

February: 'The Silver Bone' by Andrey Kurkov

March: ???

(Thanks to the top of Mikey's head, for posing for the photo. )