Cross-Genre Reading Group Book Salad

Welcome to the 'Book Salad'!

This is one of the three Topping & Co. St Andrews book groups. Meeting on the last Tuesday of every month, the 'Book Salad' will explore a range of stories across multiple genres.

This book group is a salad - to make a salad you put together things you'd like to eat that are each different in some way. Instead of reading one kind of book over the months, we can mix our genres. We will read mostly imaginative fiction, with at least one non-fiction title, and perhaps a graphic novel, and there will be writers from different ages and backgrounds. 

This group is hosted by David, who says 'I choose books that feel imaginative and expressive and that jump out at me. I like variety and I think of books as transport to somewhere interesting and different.'

November's book is: The Empusium

In September 1913, a young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone - or something - seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target. A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.

Reading Group Structure

Ticketing: Each place is £5, which can be redeemed against a copy of a reading group book.

Frequency: Each reading group will meet once a month, on a set day of the week. You do not need to commit to one group, or every meeting! Just book for those you're interested in each month, and we hope to entice you back for another one.