A 900-page portrait of nineteenth century provincial life, George Eliot’s masterpiece Middlemarch frequently tops polls for the greatest novel of all time – as voted by writers, academics and critics.

Virgina Woolf called it ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people’ and, more than a century later, Martin Amis declared it ‘a novel without weaknesses.’

Set just before the Reform Act of 1832 and the arrival of railways, England is on the brink of massive social change. Eliot’s characters too want to change the world. But the reality of their ideals ends up changing them.

Join us to discuss whether Middlemarch lives up to its reputation as the greatest novel in the English language.

The Lit & Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

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November 24 book club: 1984, George Orwell (contemporary fiction).

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Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Tuesday October 27

Book: Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Chief Librarian’s Office, Third Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD

Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, successful businessman Joe Keller has made a comfortable life for his family. But when a figure returns from his past, secrets are revealed and the price of the American dream is laid bare.

All My Sons was Miller’s first successful play on Broadway, launching his career, winning him a prestigious Tony award, and establishing him as one of America’s greatest dramatists. As much an exploration of the primacy of family as it is an indictment of greed, and capitalism, the play explores the tension between self-interest and idealistic integrity and is remembered as one of Miller’s greatest works.

Join us to discuss whether All My Sons continues to deserve its place in the hall of fame.

The Lit & Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

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October 27 book club: Middlemarch, George Eliot (classic fiction).

November 24 book club: 1984, George Orwell (contemporary fiction).

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Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Tuesday September 29

Book: All My Sons, by Arthur Miller

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Chief Librarian’s Office, Third Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD

Thomas Hardy is unquestionably one of our greatest writers. Though he was a poet principally, today he is more known for his novels: such masterpieces as Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge. He’s celebrated for his vivid portrayals of rural life and tragic explorations of fate, class and rigid social norms – the latter of which both got him into trouble and marked him out as ahead of his times.

We’ll be discussing his 1878 novel The Return of the Native – no less of a masterpiece – which opens with a mesmerizingly mythic description of Egdon Heath, thereby setting up the tension with the modernity of the characters and challenging their freedom to shape the world as they wish.

Join us to discuss whether The Return of the Native continues to deserve its place in the hall of literary fame.

The Lit & Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

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September 29 book club: All My Sons, Arthur Miller (play).

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Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Tuesday August 4

Book: The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Activity Room on the Lower Ground Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD

In January 2002, former Tory politician and Secretary of State for International Development Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan. He survived off his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, his wits, and the kindness of strangers. Along the way Rory met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was adopted by a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honour of Afghanistan’s first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair followed – mapping out places in between.

Tom Bissell, for the New York Times, called the book recounting the journey, The Places in Between, ‘A flat-out masterpiece’. Join us in our discussion of the book to see if you agree. The Lit & Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

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July 28 book club: The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy (classic fiction).

September 29 book club: All My Sons, Arthur Miller (play).

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Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Thursday 2nd July

Book: The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Chief Librarian’s Office, Third Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD

Elizabeth Gaskell, one of Britain’s most highly regarded Victorian novelists, lived at 84 Plymouth Grove in Manchester when the city was the epicentre of an industrial and social quake. It’s little wonder her books often depicted socially-conscious portrayals of industrial life in Manchester, class conflict, and the experiences of women.

She’s perhaps best known for her novels Cranford and North and South, as well as her celebrated biography of her contemporary and friend Charlotte Brontë. We’ll be discussing her last – and unfinished – novel Wives and Daughters: a story of romance, scandal and intrigue set in a gossiping English village during the early nineteenth century.

The Manchester Lit&Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

Save the date and start reading

May 26 book club: A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh. (Contemporary fiction)

June 30 book club: The Places in Between, Rory Stewart (Non-fiction)

Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Tuesday April 28

Book: Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Chief Librarian’s Office, Third Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD