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 fifth book of 2026, we will read '_The Go-Between_' by L.P. Hartley, a classic chosen because someone told me it was their favourite book and somehow I'd never heard of it.

Here's the blurb:

_"_When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy's awakening into the secrets of the adult world, _The Go-Between_ is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society._"_

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: '_Captains of the Sands'_ by Jorge Amado

July: '_The Impostor and Other Stories'_ by Silvina Ocampo

August: '_The Man Who Was Thursday'_ by G.K. Chesterton

September: '_The Sundial'_ by Shirley Jackson

October: '_The Blizzard'_ by Vladimir Sorokin

November: '_The Bean Trees'_ by Barbara Kingsolver

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)