Our group was formed in October 2016 and has been meeting regularly ever since.

You can check if this group has spaces through the 'Beacon' Members System or send an email by just clicking the Group Coordinator's email address above.


Previous Reviews
We read only five stories per month, which usually totals about 70-80 pages. We feel there isn't enough time to discuss more than five and, frankly, we like the fact that the number of pages isn't onerous. To give you a flavour of the sort of short stories we read, please see our year to year selections below:

In 2019 we continued with A Glimpse of Truth but are now testing the waters of classic science fiction short stories (three per month) and a highly reviewed contemporary single author book of shorts by Lesley Nneka Arimah, UK born, of Nigerian descent and currently living in the US (two per month).

In 2018 we started to make our way through A Glimpse of Truth, edited by David Miller, a whopping collection touted to be 100 of the finest short stories ever written. We took a needed break midyear, so we switched gears and read Greek Myths, dished up in Stephen Fry's Mythos.

In 2017 we read: Norse Myths, a Penguin British short story anthology, African short stories (unfortunately the publisher has stopped the series) and a whopping collection edited by David Miller — authors from long ago until now.

In 2016 we read the following stories (some from the Penguin Book of British Short Stories: 2, edited by P. Henshaw and the rest from other sources):

• Roald Dahl, Someone Like You
• J G Ballard, The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D
• Angela Carter, The Courtship of Mr Lyon
• Beryl Bainbridge, The Longstop
• A S Byatt, Racine and the Tablecloth
• P G Wodehouse Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court — the hunters get hunted!
• R Aichman Bind your Hair — a sort of Dionysian drama which poked fun at landed British country folk.
• V S Naipaul The Perfect Tenants — a good discussion on whether this story was timeless or historical, but certainly a story about human pettiness.
• Elizabeth Taylor In and Out of Houses — no time to discuss!
• Zadie Smith The Embassy of Cambodia — I think we liked this the best and it was the most contemporary. It was about the plight of one immigrant ....and badminton!