Join me to explore the 21st Century Bildungsroman – here’s why!

12 October 202529 September 2025 by Nancy Goldstein

I’m Professor Nancy Goldstein, the latest facilitator to join the Salon team, starting with a study I’ve called Education and its Discontents: the 21st-Century Bildungsroman, running from 9 November to 14 December (Sunday evenings, 3.30 – 5.30 pm GMT).

We will be discussing a pair of brilliant, articulate, tragic and surprisingly funny memoirs that read like thrillers: the 2006 graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by cartoonist (and McArthur Genius Award winner) Alison Bechdel, and Tara Westover’s Educated (2018). As background, the Broadway production of Fun Home won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Educated debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was named one of the NYT 10 Best Books of 2018.

As a way of introducing myself to the Salon, I’m offering three bite-sized ‘taster’ studies during October for the price of a pay-what-you-want donation to José Andres’ World Central Kitchen, which feeds hungry people in war and emergency zones all over the world, from Gaza and Ukraine to Pakistan. It’s entirely up to you to decide where, or whether, or how much to give: perhaps the price of your last flat white or pint?

Joining one (or all) of these ‘tasters’ before deciding to enrol in a six-session study is easy:

All readings for ‘tasters’ can be finished in under an hour and texts are available free online.
Each live online session runs for just 90 minutes.
We’ve carefully scheduled sessions on different days and times in the hope that everyone who wants to attend can find at least one that fits their schedule!

To register please click on one of the links in the session titles below so we can send you the Zoom link to join the discussion plus any additional online materials.

Taster #1: Portrait of the Artist as a Very Different Young Man – Two Selections from Ernest Hemingway’s First Short Story Collection: In Our Time (1929) – Thursday, 9 October, 6.00 -7:30 pm (UK)

It was novelist Margaret Atwood, best known for her dystopian feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), who convinced me to give Hemingway a serious try. During an interview with Rachel Martin on National Public Radio in 2024 (you can listen here), Atwood explained:

Margaret Atwood: “There’s a Hemingway story in which a young man is having a campout with his girlfriend, and she realizes that things aren’t the same and she says, ‘What’s wrong?’ and he says, ‘It’s not fun anymore.’ So I think there are points in your life — for everybody’s life — when they think, ‘It’s not fun anymore.’ It’s a pretty crushing thing to say.”

Rachel Martin, NPR: “I guess, but like, I don’t know. Ernest Hemingway I don’t want to hold up as my romantic role model.”

Margaret Atwood: “It’s not a question of romantic role model: it’s a question of good story writer. And no matter what you may think of Hemingway’s private life, which I know too much about, In Our Time is one of the game-changing story collections of the 20^th-century. He was a nightmare as a husband and romantic partner, but that’s . . . a different thing.”

So I read In Our Time, and . . . Atwood really had a point. I found the incisive younger Hemingway, with his modernist sensibility and his consciousness about whiteness, womanhood, class, sex, love, race and privilege a fascinating, welcome surprise. I think he will be to many other participants too.

Taster #2: Poets in Recovery – Monday 13 October, 2.30 – 4.00 pm (UK)

Raymond Carver, who was born into an impoverished family towards the end of the Depression (1938), is widely considered to be one of the greatest 20th-Century American short story writers. He was also one of its most notorious drunks, with multiple hospitalizations for his alcoholism, plus a doctor’s warning that he wouldn’t live past 40 if he didn’t stop. Carver finally got sober in 1977.

For this study, we will be comparing Carver’s criminally neglected poem Yesterday, Snow (from sometime in the early 80s and available only as a PDF that will be sent to all registrants) with Portrait of the Alcoholic Three Weeks Sober (2016) by Kaveh Akbar.

The young Iranian American poet’s debut novel, Martyr! – which also addresses addiction, grief and art – made waves last year as a National Book Award Finalist for Fiction and was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Taster #3: Portrait of the Artist as a Very Different Young Man – Two Selections from Ernest Hemingway’s First Short Story Collection: In Our Time (1929) – Tuesday 21 October, 1.00-2.30 pm (UK).

Why read W.G. Sebald?

3 September 2025 by Lewis Ward

When W. G. Sebald died in 2001 his status as the pre-eminent European author of his generation was at its height. For Susan Sontag, he represented rare proof that ‘literary greatness is still possible’, and he was widely tipped for the Nobel Prize. Part of his appeal was that, appearing at the end of the 20th century, his prose fictions memorialised the victims of that century and helped us to understand the impact of its horrors and vicissitudes.

A quarter of a century on, why read – or re-read – Sebald today? There has been an increasing othering of people in the current political and social climate around refugees and asylum seekers. As Rowan Williams wrote in a recent Guardian piece, ‘To speak as though these people are anything other than ordinary is to reinforce the violence they have already experienced, the refusal to see them humanly.’ Sebald can help us find the antidote to this lack of understanding and humanity. In a different context, but one with universal applications, Sebald sought an empathic connection with the victims of 20th century history, the displaced and the deracinated. His unique literary project found new ways to establish a personal connection – through his listening narrator-figure, his ‘bricolage’-like combination of multiple sources, his haunting use of photographs, and his determination to let people speak for themselves. As a member of the generation of Germans who grew up in the shadow of World War II, Sebald’s key insight came when he came face to face with his first Jewish victim of the Holocaust in the 1960s, which he later expressed as Truth can only really be grasped through the encounter with real individual persons. Sebald found ways to stage this encounter in literature of profound beauty and insight.

Join us in a reading of The Emigrants (1993) this autumn to explore Sebald’s achievement in depth.

March 2026

Jean Paul Sartre - The WallSINGLE MEETING STUDY, MONDAY 2 MARCH, 6.00-8.00 PM (GMT)2026mon02mar6:00 pm8:00 pm6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyPhilosophy & Literature Event Organized ByEmilia SteuermanLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyOne-off EventDurationTwo hours

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*The Third of May, Francisco Goya, Museo del Prado, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

In this single meeting study we will read the title story in The Wall, Sartre’s only collection of short fiction, published in 1939. Generally considered to be Sartre’s masterpiece, the story takes place during the Spanish Civil War, in a prison cell as some partisans await their execution.

Sartre is known for his difficult philosophical works (Being and Nothingness) and some very long literary excursions (The Roads to Freedom). The Wall however is a different proposition. In this short story Sartre shows how philosophy is really about our lived experience and how philosophy and literature are one and the same. Thus, though we will encounter the main themes of his existentialist ideas, it is Sartre the literary writer who shines here. We will become captivated by this masterful narrative which mixes horror and humour, tragedy and comedy, and which culminates in a surprising finale.

JOINING DETAILS:

Single meeting study led by Emilia Steuerman

Monday 2 March, 6.00-8.00 pm (GMT)

£40 for two-hour meeting

Recommended edition: The Wall, ISBN13: 978-0714548517

N.B. Priority in booking will be given to participants in The Existentialist Salon

Organizer

Emilia Steuerman

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2 March 2026 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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ULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE - The twelfth section of our Slow Read (Episode 17: Ithaca)2026tue03mar2:30 pm4:30 pm2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMDurationThirteen meetings

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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

*The Return of Odysseus, Pinturicchio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

There is a fierce group of Ulysses readers who will soon be winding up a ‘Slow Read’ that commenced in August 2022. This has been a joyous adventure: many readers have been there from the start; some joined part way along; some left then rejoined as their lives demanded . . . We settled into a lovely rhythm of 3-4 presenters of assigned passages each week and danced through 7-9 pages per week as led by the presenters. Each presenter has their own style – illuminating rabbit warrens that the text directs us into; giving an overall thematic consideration; focusing on favourite or most challenging passages, connecting the passage to a larger arc or enquiry that Joyce engages . . .

What this has allowed all of us to do is to slow down and attend to the richness and complexity of Joyce’s language. We have discovered so much along the way, and our weekly meetings have felt like a romp not just through Ulysses but through much of our collective culture’s knowledge, as sedimented and fractured in the book.

We aim to complete this journey around Easter 2026. What will we do then? Some have voiced interest in rolling back through the Big U again – starting in Autumn 2026. Others suggested an exploration of Joyce’s early works – Stephen Hero for example and his play Exiles. We may start a new round of Finnegans Wake. What might interest you in a reading of Joyce on Tuesday afternoons?

Toby Brothers

THE CURRENT STUDY:

First published on 2 February 1922 – James Joyce’s 40th birthday – UIysses was immediately controversial, described by one Irish critic as “The most infamously obscene book in ancient or modern literature”.

The Slow Read is an opportunity to read and relish of one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. The ‘Slow’ approach has proved popular within the Salon as we are not driven by completion of the text within a defined timescale, rather we focus on full enjoyment of the material. In a typical session we might discuss – inter alia – the immaculate conception (who does or does not have a navel?), language as a tool of colonialism (and how to subvert it), space between thought and speech, amor matris, cubist paintings, Thoth (Egyptian bird-headed god), changing understandings of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s sex life, the occult, cypher jugglers, Norse mythology, the dialectic within Stephen’s head, the Daedalus-Icarus myth . . . We are all here for the tangents!

Toby Brothers, Salon Director, explains in more detail:

Every time I run a study of Ulysses, there is SO much we do not get to consider: I know we may still not get to everything, but the Slow Read – served in tranches of two-hour sessions – is an opportunity to go deeper and wider in this amazing work than ever before in Salon studies. As long as there is continued interest, I will keep offering this study, even after Molly finally drifts off . . .

I offer many resources for reading around, but the richness of our work comes from contributions and independent research from participants. This study is particularly opportune given the abundance of new resources available thanks to the 2022 Ulysses centenary, including the offerings of the recently published Cambridge Centenary Ulysses, the brainchild of Catherine Flynn.

The Ulysses Slow Read has become one of my most fascinating encounters with literature. At the start I did not know exactly how it would work out, but with a game group and a text of ENDLESS possibilities, we find so much each week that challenges us and expands our understanding of the book, of ourselves, of our movement through time, of our struggle to be understood . . .

Every week, three or four participants take a deep dive into a section of text (typically 2-3 pages) and each reader’s offering reflects their individual style: some lean on the textual and virtual correspondences, others look closely at what is being revealed in psychological or epistemological terms, others use the knottier passages for reflection and questions, sometimes someone will sing part of it, some emphasise the poetry and beauty of the writing. All members of the group respond to each presentation and come away with enriched context and understanding.

In conversation with Paul Caviston, one of the lead Joyceans, we discussed how the Ulysses Slow Read Group works best as a ‘Slow Open Group’: a group with a relatively stable core of members that can also adapt to new participants as and when someone leaves. The group size is capped at ten and, as far as possible, we try to balance the numbers of men and women. We are also open to readers who wish to sample the experience by joining for a minimum of three sessions. This option requires prior discussion with Salon Director, Toby Brothers.

To give an idea of the pace of our reading, our current cycle aims to finish at the end of Summer 2026, that’s four years from when we started. We hope to welcome new members to bridge the ending of one cycle and the beginning of the next. This is our model of open-ended rolling exploration.

The main requirement for joining the group is to have read Ulysses at least once and to have a passion for the text. New participants create new relationships to the book and to each other, with exploration undertaken in a spirit of openness which gives space for each person’s voice to be heard.

Central to the ethos of the group is its capacity to enable conflicting and often polarised views to co-exist. This allows complexity and ambivalence to evolve while resisting the pull towards certainty and fixity of positions – a key aspect of Joycean scholarship that is central to any reading of Ulysses.

Our reading practice, based on ‘Sounding Out’ the text, is open to members using differing theoretical frameworks, and we try to make these frameworks of meaning as overt as possible as we read. We read aloud, paying close attention to text and texture of the work. Listening to each other reading taps into an archaic sense of reverie, allowing emotional intensity to surface. Many people on first reading are overwhelmed by myriad styles and arcane terminologies and debates. This often obscures the emotional heft of Ulysses and readers can get bogged down in ‘decoding’ or ‘thematizing’ or developing overly elaborate ‘metaphysical / psychoanalytic / philosophical’ schemes within which they try to pin down or encapsulate the book.

So, the Slow Read sure ain’t for the faint hearted, but we laugh a lot in our current group and that’s no mean feat!

Published with thanks to Paul Caviston

JOINING DETAILS:

This is the twelfth section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group. We have reached Episode 17: Ithaca.

There will be 13 two-hour sessions on Zoom, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 13 January and ending on 7 April 2026.

If you are interested in joining this study but have not participated in the first eleven sections please email toby@litsalon.co.uk but please also see the message at the top of this page about a possible new study starting in the second half of 2026.

The total cost for this section with all notes and resources is £390.00, we expect to read an average of 8 pages per week.

Please have available these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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Salon Director

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3 March 2026 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Middlemarch - George Eliot8 MEETING STUDY, 5.00-7.00 PM, 27 JANUARY - 17 MARCH 20262026tue03mar5:00 pm7:00 pm5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByKeith Fosbrook & Sarah SnoxallFrequencyWeeklyDurationEight two-hour meetings

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“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.“

George Eliot, Middlemarch

In Middlemarch, Eliot probes the complexity of human nature and studies the idea of vocation: the call to find meaning through work in a provincial world. First published in instalments in 1871-1872, the novel continues to be loved and admired by readers and writers in the present day, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver admits to rereading it “at least once per decade, because it’s about everything, for every person, at every age”.

Much of the power of the book lies in its portrayal of intensely personal stories against the much broader backdrop of political and social life in Britain in the 1830s, a time of profound societal change. According to co-facilitator of our study Sarah Snoxall, “I love the dilemma–how is an intelligent woman going to be intellectually stimulated in a time when there are so few options for women?” This reflects Eliot’s own story: why does she write under a male pseudonym? Her female protagonist settles on marriage to an older man, a scholar and (she hopes) a mentor– ironically making an intellectual choice about the desire of the heart. What ensues is her struggle to be the person she aspires to being in a world which values none of the ideals that interest her.

Eliot is deeply psychological in her writing, exploring the inner workings of people’s minds. Why do individuals make the choices they do? Why do they often choose as partners people so unsuited to them? As in Daniel Deronda, Eliot is very interested in intellectual/spiritual passion – how religious scholarship can inform or transform a life – but while she is attracted to the dispassionate discipline of religious wisdom, she also knows that earthly love is what sustains us. This tension, between moral ideal and human behaviour, is the drive of the novel and probably makes the most sense in its historical context: a time of great intellectual inquiry, the Victorian obsession with self-improvement. Yet it isn’t that different from the self-improvement obsessions of our own time . . .

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight-week study led by Sarah Snoxall and Keith Fosbrook, live on Zoom

£320 for eight two-hour meetings, including background resources

Tuesdays, 5.00-7.00 pm (UK), 27 January – 17 March 2026

Recommended edition: Middlemarch by George Eliot (Norton Critical Editions, ISBN 13: 978-0393877199)

Organizer

Keith Fosbrook & Sarah Snoxall

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3 March 2026 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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'Loosening the ligaments': A LitSalon community of writersSIX FACILITATED ONLINE MEETINGS TO SUPPORT CREATIVE WRITING PRACTICE, JANUARY-MARCH 20262026tue03mar5:00 pm7:00 pm5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyCreative Writing Event Organized ByAlison CableLIVE ON ZOOMDurationSix meetings

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“But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do I must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink.”

Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

An invitation to writers of all levels (beginners are as welcome as the more experienced) — to loosen the ligaments, put perfection aside, and write for the quiet joy of discovery; to share a space where words unfold boldly, imperfectly, and in response to curiosity.

Rooted in the ethos of the London Literary Salon — where close reading and conversation open pathways to deeper understanding — this writing series, facilitated by Alison Cable, extends the same spirit of inquiry into creative practice. An invitation to explore writing as a way of thinking, feeling, and knowing.

Each block of three months offers a gentle rhythm of practice: a facilitated Anchor Session followed later in the month by a companion Open Writing Session, where you can return to your work, deepen the ideas sparked in the workshop, and write alongside others in quiet company.

How it works

Anchor Session (first Tuesday of each month, 5.00-7.00 pm, UK time):
A guided workshop exploring a theme, text, or prompt through discussion, short exercises and optional sharing. These sessions provide inspiration and direction for your writing practice.

Open Writing Session (third Tuesday of each month, 5:00–6:30 pm, UK time):
A lightly held, communal writing space in which you can develop your ideas, try new forms, or simply write in the company of others. Optional check-in and sharing at the end.

Block Pass: £105 for three months (includes three Anchor Sessions and three companion Open Writing Sessions). This block encourages continuity and engagement, with sessions scheduled monthly to help you build a routine.

Single Sessions: please enquire.

Block 1: January – March 2026

Anchor: 6 January | 3 February | 3 March

Open: 20 January | 17 February | 17 March

Block 2: April – June 2026

Anchor: 7 April | 5 May | 2 June

Open: 28 April | 19 May | 23 June

Block 3: July – September 2026

Anchor: 7 July | 4 August | 1 September

Open: 21 July | 18 August | 15 September

Block 4: October – December 2026

Open: 20 October | 17 November | 22 December

Anchor: 6 October | 3 November | 1 December

Organizer

Alison Cable

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3 March 2026 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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17March 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

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“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n”: Encounter Milton’s Epic Vision in Paradise LostEIGHT MEETING STUDY, TUESDAYS 5-7.30 PM (UK), 3 MARCH - 21 APRIL 20262026tue03mar5:00 pm7:30 pm5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyPoetry Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandLIVE ON ZOOMDurationEight two-and-a-half-hour meetings

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THIS STUDY IS FULLY BOOKED BUT WE ARE CONSIDERING OFFERING A SECOND OPTION, PLEASE EMAIL US IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO THE WAITING LIST.

*Satan Calling Up His Legions, William Blake, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

Step into the vast cosmos of John Milton’s Paradise Lost in this immersive eight-week study. More than a poem, Milton’s epic is a world unto itself, one with vaulted heavens, smouldering hells and a fragile Eden. It presents a realm where every choice tips the balance of creation. This study invites curious minds to lose themselves in the epic’s grandeur and wrestle with the questions it refuses to let go: what does it mean to rebel? To obey? To be free? To fall?

Over eight two-and-a-half-hour sessions, we will traverse all twelve books of Paradise Lost, tracing Milton’s visions of angels in revolt, serpentine deceits, and humankind on the brink of catastrophe. Each week, close reading of key passages will spark lively conversation about the poem’s grand themes: freedom and fate, temptation and grace, the allure of evil, and the possibility of redemption. Along the way, we shall uncover the thunderous music and daring invention that defines Milton’s verse.

This study is as much about experience as analysis. Reading this great work aloud will enable us to feel the powerful rhythm, sharpen our thinking in the heat of dialogue, and discover together how a 17th-century poet still speaks to us with urgent clarity. Participants will not just read Paradise Lost. They will inhabit it, wrestle with it, and carry its fire forward.

Whether you come for epic storytelling, moral philosophy, or the sheer intoxication of language, this study promises a journey that is as challenging as it is exhilarating. Experience or rediscover Milton’s masterpiece and join us as we explore what it means to “awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight-week study, live on Zoom, led by Dr Julie Sutherland

Eight two-and-a-half-hour meetings, Tuesdays, 5.00-7.30 pm (UK time)

3 March – 21 April 2026

£320 for eight meetings and background notes and resources

We will use the Penguin Classics edition: Paradise Lost by John Milton, edited by John Leonard (ISBN-10: ‎ 9780140424393)

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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3 March 2026 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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ULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE13 JANUARY - 16 JUNE 2026, 5.30 Pm - 7.30 pm (UK time)2026tue03mar5:30 pm7:30 pm5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationTwenty-one meetings

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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

*Portrait of James Joyce by Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1934, National Gallery of Ireland, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.*

“. . . Joyce’s contribution to a new way of writing particularly as it affects narrative theory, the role of the reader, and how stories are told from inside the consciousness of the individual. So both the external world we associate with history and the internal world that rightly belongs to the private world of consciousness are redrawn by Joyce in a manner that is both original and at times dependent on sources outside the novel.”

David Pierce in Joyce’s Portrait: A New Reading

We offer an opportunity to read one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. This study is suitable both for people who have not yet entered the pages of Ulysses and those who have already read it at least once. Our work with this book will widen your perspective and deepen your experience of the power of language.

There is a strong argument for studying this huge and intimidating text – book list chart-topper of 100 greatest books of all time, critics’ darling, most lauded/least read, the book that many literary academics dedicate their lives to studying – but you will only know for yourself by diving in. I believe the best way to study it is with a group of hungry, curious readers who all contribute to evoking meaning, through their questions as well as their insights.

The good news: reading Ulysses is fun. And I don’t mean in a frustrating, overly-analytical see-how-much-you-know-way. The language is amazing – even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps, especially when I don’t understand it, because meaning sneaks in through more than my critical faculty. Meaning slides in through sound, through the lushness of the language, through the filmy and substantial images, and suddenly I find myself transported from a walk on a beach to a contemplation of the origins of man – thanks, James Joyce.

Any time spent studying Joyce leaves one a better reader – a broader thinker – even if all the references, repetitions, epiphanies and allusions are not immediately understood.

Here are comments from two Ulysses participants:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skilfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvellous work was immense.“

JOINING DETAILS:

We are offering this study from 5.30 -7.30 pm (UK time), comprising 21 meetings starting on Tuesday 13 January and finishing on Tuesday 16 June 2026, with four possible Sunday afternoon meetings (4.30-6.30pm on 8 February, 15 March and 14 June) and NO meetings on 5 and 12 May.

The total cost for the 21 meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £550

Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

REDUCED COSTS: we are committed to making our studies as affordable as possible. We have a fund in place to support anyone who would like to register for a study but finds the cost difficult to afford. We can’t promise to help, but please email us at litsalon@gmail.com in confidence if you would like to request a reduction in the cost of a study.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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3 March 2026 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time Vol. II - Within a Budding Grove (afternoon)ELEVEN MEETINGS, WEDNESDAYS, 3.00-5.00 PM GMT, 21 JANUARY-8 APRIL 20262026wed04mar3:00 pm5:00 pm3:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUALFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

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“When we are in love, our love is too big a thing for us to be able altogether to contain it within ourselves. It radiates towards the loved one, finds there a surface which arrests it, forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this repercussion of our own feeling which we call the other’s feelings and which charms us more then than on its outward journey because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves.”

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the great mountains of Modernism. We spent eight weeks reading the first volume of the work, now we turn to Volume II: Within a Budding Grove (recommended edition: Vintage Classics, translators D.J Enright, C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin). This study is designed for people who have already read Volume I.

Here is how one salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: ”This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealized experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

Proust also uses his curious and attentive narrator to uncover the ombre — the part of the self that hides in the shade or shadow. As we come to know the characters in the narrator’s world, each turns out to have aspects that reveal a savagery or laziness or discrepancy that was not what appeared on the surface. Of course, as soon as Proust reflects this to the reader, we recognize this truth of human nature: all carry a shadow, an untoward or simply unmanageable part of the self that we struggle to contain. In Proust’s world, these aspects are equally a part of the coherent self. This has me thinking a great deal about how carefully we construct the social self, and how we temper what simmers beneath the surface.

In Volume II, Proust will continue to explore class structures and awakening sexuality. As we considered in Volume I, the form of love as Proust conceives it is an entity not necessarily shared between the lovers – but may often be a projection from one onto the love object – and therefore limited in how much that love depends on the actuality of the other in its conception.

STUDY DETAILS:

11 meeting study, 21 January – 8 April 2026 (N.B. within this period there will be one week, date to be confirmed, with no meeting)

Wednesdays, 3.00-5.00 pm (UK)

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

£385 for 11 meetings

Recommended edition: Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, translated by D.J. Enright, C.K. Scott Moncrieff, T. Kilmartin, Vintage Classics, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0099362319

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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4 March 2026 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Dante's Inferno14 JANUARY - 25 MARCH 20262026wed04mar5:30 pm7:30 pm5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Poetry Event Organized BySean ForesterVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

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*Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi retrovai per una selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita

In the middle of the journey of our life
I awoke within a dark wood
where the straight way was lost

So begins Dante’s epic journey. The Inferno takes us into the depths of Hell, where we meet such remarkable characters as Francesca, Ulysses and Ugolino and hear their stories of passion, pride and hatred. Dante writes in the first person as a very human voyager, reacting with strong and varied emotions to the characters before him, as the reader might. As we pass through an array of landscapes, each peculiarly appropriate to the sins of the inmates there, Dante presents a psychological study of what leads men and women into destructive behaviours. How can we understand good and evil? Dante challenges us with the big questions.

Like Joyce, Dante is an ideal author for an in-depth study at the LitSalon. The Divine Comedy has multiple meanings that provide rich material for discussion. The poem weaves together myth, theology, history and the contemporary life of Dante’s time. For his epic poem Dante created a new and beautiful poetic form – terza rima. This form interlocks the rhymes from stanza to stanza in a binding forward movement. For preference, we will read the English translation by John and Jean Hollander with its excellent notes, but as an alternative the Robin Kirkpatrick translation may be more readily available. In addition to reading in translation, facilitator Sean Forester will help you experience a few select examples of the original Italian.

Join us as we read one of the classics of world literature. Find out for yourself why T.S. Eliot declared “Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them.”

STUDY DETAILS:

Eleven meeting study (on Zoom) led by Sean Forester

Wednesdays 5.30-7.30 pm (UK)

14, 21, 28 January, 4, 11, 18, 25 February, 4,11,18, 25 March 2026

£385 for 11 sessions, to include opening notes and resources

Recommended editions, The Inferno by Dante Alighieri:
- Random House USA, translated by Robert & Jean Hollander, ISBN-13 : ‎ 978-0385496988 (N.B. this is a US edition and not always easy to source in the UK)
- Alternatively, in the UK: Penguin Classics, translated by Robin Kirkpatrick, ISBN-13 ‏: ‎ 978-0140448955

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

4 March 2026 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time Vol. II - Within a Budding Grove (evening)ELEVEN MEETINGS, WEDNESDAYS, 5.30-7.30 PM GMT, 21 JANUARY-8 APRIL 20262026wed04mar5:30 pm7:30 pm5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUALFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

Event Details

“When we are in love, our love is too big a thing for us to be able altogether to contain it within ourselves. It radiates towards the loved one, finds there a surface which arrests it, forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this repercussion of our own feeling which we call the other’s feelings and which charms us more then than on its outward journey because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves.”

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

STUDY DETAILS:

11 meeting study, 21 January – 8 April 2026 (N.B. within this period there will be one week, date to be confirmed, with no meeting)

Wednesdays, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK)

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

£385 for 11 meetings

Recommended edition: Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, translated by D.J. Enright, C.K. Scott Moncrieff, T. Kilmartin, Vintage Classics, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0099362319

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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4 March 2026 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL

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Moby DickNINE MEETING STUDY ON ZOOM, 22 JANUARY-19 MARCH 2026, 4.30-6.30 PM (UK)2026thu05mar4:30 pm6:30 pm4:30 pm - 6:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersFrequencyWeeklyDurationNine meetings

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“I am half way in the work . . . It will be a strange sort of book, tho’, I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho’ you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—and to cool the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”

Herman Melville

Following the success of our first Moby Dick Afloat study in July 2025 (see our Gallery for more information), we are pleased to offer an nine-week online study of this extraordinary book in January 2026.

First published in 1851, Moby Dick ranks on almost any list as one of the greatest works in the English language. Its three famous opening words ‘Call me Ishmael . . .’ and the image of the one-legged Ahab in mad pursuit of the great white whale, have become cultural icons. This grand—and occasionally grandiose—tale of adventure unites the many voices of Herman Melville in a mongrel mix of epic poetry, Shakespearean tragedy, encyclopaedic cataloguing, biblical oratory and not a small dose of comedy. With Moby Dick, Melville presents an insightful study of obsession, madness and charismatic leadership that anticipates many of our contemporary conversations about democracy, cosmopolitanism, capitalism and environmentalism.

Toby Brothers has led studies of Moby Dick on land and at sea. She explains: “More than anything, this epic work is about what we can know and what exceeds our conscious knowledge and moves into the mystic space of awe. The whale, in Ishmael’s telling and in direct encounter, is unfathomable. In both size and inhabiting the massive space of the oceanic depths, it eludes human measurement and control. Although thousands of years of hunting and killing have seemingly tried to know the whale through destruction, it has somehow survived. Many readers who have joined previous Moby Dick studies have admitted to trying to read this vast and weird book and feeling they were bogged down in ‘all the whale talk’. Admittedly, there is a whole chapter dedicated to an attempt to order the whale through a taxonomy of various species, but once you understand that it is a humorous take on scientific attempts to reduce these magnificent mammals to a human scale, even this chapter becomes a pleasurable read. And, of course, Melville is doing so much more than detailing the encounter between hunter and whale, his book has been read as a barely submerged critique of slavery, of the colonial impulse, of white supremacy. Melville celebrates male relationships and intimacy and reminds us of how nature’s power can hypnotise – a lone sailor facing the midnight sea stares into his own soul in reflection of its depths. To quote from the book: ‘Anything down there about your souls?’”

In 2019 celebration of the 200th year since Herman Melville’s birth generated rich responses and reconsiderations of this amazing book. Philip Hoare (mentioned below as one of the curators of the Moby Dick Big Read project) writes on the importance of this work in our contemporary moment in this article Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: Six reasons why Moby Dick is the novel for our times.

“The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important.”

Philip Hoare

Artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare convened and curated a unique whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, the dedicated contemporary art space at Plymouth University. This grew into an extraordinary compilation of art and voices (Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and more) – The Moby Dick Big Read – to illuminate each chapter, inspiring and inspired by this vast book.

SALON DETAILS:

Nine-meeting virtual study on Zoom starting 22 January 2026

Thursday afternoons, 4.30-6.30 pm (UK time)

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Salon Director

Recommended edition: Moby Dick (Norton Critical Edition, Third Edition 2018), by Herman Melville, edited by Herschel Parker; W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN-13: 978-0393285000

Cost £360, includes opening notes and weekly preparatory notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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5 March 2026 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Poetic Form:Rhyme & ReasonFIVE LIVE ONLINE MEETINGS, 5 MARCH - 2 APRIL 6.30-8.30 PM (UK)2026thu05mar6:30 pm8:30 pm6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyPoetry Event Organized ByNancy GoldsteinLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationFive two-hour meetings

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*Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

We can love poetry our whole lives without any knowledge of poetic forms, conventions or prosody. That’s part of its magic. But understanding a bit more about them — as most poets do — adds another layer of pleasure and appreciation to something we did not think we could possibly love more.

The tools we’ll begin using in this accessible five-week study give us delicious new ways to eavesdrop on poets as they speak not only to us but also to one another, to tradition, to history and to convention. We will consider definitions and examples of five primary poetic forms and explore how each poet’s making or breaking of its conventions illuminates the two to three poems we read in each session.

Enjoy the beauties of Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, then get in on Wallace Stevens’ joke, as well as his deeper meaning, when he spoofs stereotypes about American cultural barbarism 99 years later in Anecdote of the Jar.

Watch James Merrill flex by linking seven sonnet variations together in The Broken Home, his formal skill and wit bring stability and order to the familial and cultural chaos this autobiographical poem recounts.

In One Art, Elizabeth Bishop, like Dylan Thomas before her, commandeers the incantatory, dance-inspired Villanelle form to rage against a series of losses, including the suicide of Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares, her longtime lover. Tim Seibles mixes the strict, previously snow white form with the Blues to mourn his African-American parents in All the Time Blues Villanelle.

William Cowper (Epitaph on a Hare) and Alan Ginsberg (To Aunt Rose) subvert elegiac conventions originally rooted in patrician Ancient Greece. Cowper by solemnly eulogising the merits of his pet hare; Ginsburg by recasting the life of his “nobody” Newark-based working class Jewish communist immigrant aunt as the stuff of legend.

Each week we’ll delve into a variety of poems — some traditional and some intent on breaking the mould; some old and some new — all are available for free online (or in one or two cases through facilitator handouts).

Week-by-week reading schedule (Thursdays 6.30-8.30 pm UK):

5 March: Sonnet

12 March: Villanelle

19 March: Elegy

26 March: Ode

2 April: Sestina

JOINING DETAILS:

Five week live online study led by Dr Nancy Goldstein

Thursday 5 March to 2 April, 6.30-8.30 pm (UK)

Five weeks £175 (individual sessions can be booked at £40 each, please email us for more information)

Organizer

Nancy Goldstein

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5 March 2026 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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LIVE ON ZOOM

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Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Volume 6: FINDING TIME AGAIN (early)THE FINAL VOLUME OF PROUST'S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, 11 MEETINGS LIVE ONLINE, 9 MARCH-15 JUNE 20262026mon09mar1:00 pm3:00 pm1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

Event Details

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust

With this final volume of In Search of Lost Time we reach the end of the journey for the groups that have been studying Proust for the past two years, and I complete my eighth tour through this mountain of modernism. Each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments.

If you are interested in reading Proust from the beginning, please watch our website for the next Proust cycle that will commence early in 2027 and make sure you are signed up for our newsletter in which we announce new studies.

Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: ”This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays 1.00-3.00 pm (UK)

Eleven meeting virtual study (on Zoom) from 9 March – 15 June 2026 (N.B. no meetings on 13 April, 4 May, 11 May and 8 June 2026)

Recommended edition: Penguin Classics Finding Time Again (Patterson/Prendergast) ISBN: 9780141180366 (the Vintage Classics edition: Time Regained ISBN: 978009936271 5 is also acceptable)

£330 for 11 meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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9 March 2026 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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16March 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm23March 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm30March 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm6April 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm20April 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm27April 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm18May 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm25May 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm1June 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm15June 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

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Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Volume 6: FINDING TIME AGAIN (for second-time readers)THE FINAL VOLUME OF PROUST'S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, 11 MEETINGS LIVE ONLINE, 9 MARCH-15 JUNE 20262026mon09mar3:30 pm5:30 pm3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby BrothersVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

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Marcel Proust

With this final volume of In Search of Lost Time we reach the end of the journey for the group of second-time readers that has been studying Proust for the past two years, and I complete my eighth tour through this mountain of modernism. Each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments.

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays 3.30-5.30 pm (UK)

Eleven meeting virtual study (on Zoom) from 9 March – 15 June 2026 (N.B. no meetings on 13 April, 4 May, 11 May and 8 June 2026)

Recommended edition: Penguin Classics Finding Time Again (Patterson/Prendergast) ISBN: 9780141180366 (the Vintage Classics edition: Time Regained ISBN: 978009936271 5 is also acceptable)

£330 for 11 meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

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9 March 2026 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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16March 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm23March 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm30March 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm6April 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm20April 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm27April 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm18May 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm25May 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm1June 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm15June 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

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Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Volume 6: FINDING TIME AGAIN (later)2026mon09mar6:00 pm8:00 pm6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Ralph KleinmanVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEleven meetings

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Marcel Proust

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers & Ralph Kleinman

Mondays 6.00-8.00 pm

Eleven meeting virtual study (on Zoom) from 9 March – 15 June 2026 (N.B. no meetings on 13 April, 4 May, 11 May and 8 June 2026)

Recommended edition: Penguin Classics Finding Time Again (Patterson/Prendergast) ISBN: 9780141180366 (the Vintage Classics edition: Time Regained ISBN: 978009936271 5 is also acceptable)

£330 for 11 meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Ralph Kleinman

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9 March 2026 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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April 2026

T.S. Eliot's The Waste LandFIVE MEETINGS LIVE ON ZOOM, LED BY KARINA JAKUBOWICZ, SUNDAYS, 5 APRIL - 3 MAY 6.00-8.00 PM (UK)2026sun05apr6:00 pm8:00 pm6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyPoetry Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationFive meetings

Event Details

*Portrait of T.S. Eliot, 1923, Emil Otto Hoppé, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

In this early Springtime study we will read T.S. Eliot’s groundbreaking modernist poem The Waste Land. Over the course of five weeks we will celebrate the poem’s complexity, dig into its intertextuality and – above all – observe how it resonates with us today.

Questions we might consider include: ‘How does this poem present modernity?’, ‘How does it explore the concepts of waste and the environment?’, ‘Is it a product of gritty realism or sublime mysticism?’ and, last but not least, ‘Why does it endure?’

JOINING DETAILS:

Five-week study on Zoom led by Karina Jakubowicz

5 April -3 May, Sunday evenings 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)

£200 for five two-hour meetings

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

5 April 2026 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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'Loosening the ligaments': A LitSalon community of writers - Block 2SIX FACILITATED ONLINE MEETINGS TO SUPPORT CREATIVE WRITING PRACTICE, APRIL-JUNE 20262026tue07apr5:00 pm7:00 pm5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyCreative Writing Event Organized ByAlison CableLIVE ON ZOOMDurationSix meetings

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“But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do I must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink.”

Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

How it works

Anchor Session (first Tuesday of each month, 5.00-7.00 pm, UK time):
A guided workshop exploring a theme, text, or prompt through discussion, short exercises and optional sharing. These sessions provide inspiration and direction for your writing practice.

Open Writing Session (third Tuesday of each month, 5:00–6:30 pm, UK time):
A lightly held, communal writing space in which you can develop your ideas, try new forms, or simply write in the company of others. Optional check-in and sharing at the end.

Block Pass: £105 for three months (includes three Anchor Sessions and three companion Open Writing Sessions). This block encourages continuity and engagement, with sessions scheduled monthly to help you build a routine.

Single Sessions: please enquire.

Block 1: January – March 2026

Anchor: 6 January | 3 February | 3 March

Open: 20 January | 17 February | 17 March

Block 2: April – June 2026

Anchor: 7 April | 5 May | 2 June

Open: 28 April | 19 May | 23 June

Block 3: July – September 2026

Anchor: 7 July | 4 August | 1 September

Open: 21 July | 18 August | 15 September

Block 4: October – December 2026

Open: 20 October | 17 November | 22 December

Anchor: 6 October | 3 November | 1 December

Organizer

Alison Cable

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Time

7 April 2026 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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LIVE ON ZOOM

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Virginia Woolf in Alfriston 2026! Study 1 - Flush & FreshwaterFOUR DAY TRAVEL STUDY, 9-12 APRIL 20262026thu09apr(apr 9)4:00 pmsun12(apr 12)12:00 pm4:00 pm - 12:00 pm (12)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Karina JakubowiczWingrove House, High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TDFrequencyOne-off EventDurationSix meetings over four days

Event Details

This will be our fourth year offering opportunities to read Virginia Woolf in East Sussex, a county which in many ways became the writer’s spiritual home and where we can consider her work surrounded by some of the countryside she loved best. In 2026 we will have two long weekend studies in Alfriston, the first (9-12 April) focusing on her 1933 ‘biography’ of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel Flush, together with her only play, Freshwater (1935); the second (16-19 April) exploring her 1941 novel Between the Acts.

Woolf is often viewed as a London writer, but much of her time was spent at her countryside home in the depths of the South Downs. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this landscape to her writing. Freshwater was first performed at Vanessa Bell’s London studio in Fitzroy Square, but it built on the playacting tradition that began at Bell’s countryside home, Charleston in Sussex. Similarly, Flush owes itself to a hybrid of urban and rural experiences, containing some of Woolf’s best reflections on what it means to escape the horrors of city life. While London has greatly changed since the 1930s, Alfriston still looks much as it did in Woolf’s time. Being there makes it possible to imagine a world where Lytton Strachey could be spotted on the high street and Duncan Grant might appear at the pub. To help aid this imaginative process there will be opportunities to visit relevant heritage sites including Monk’s House (the house near Rodmell that the Woolfs purchased in 1919 and used as their rural retreat) and Charleston Farmhouse.

Virginia Woolf’s life writing is one of her greatest legacies, although some examples are better known than others. While many readers will know of her biography of Roger Fry, far fewer will have read the satirical comedy Freshwater with its raucous portrayal of 19^th century celebrities, and although Orlando is a famous the world over, Woolf’s remarkable life story of a cocker spaniel named Flush is rarely studied at length. This salon allows readers to indulge in these two wonderful works, with a slow reading of Flush taking place over three days and an afternoon on Freshwater which will include a live performance devised by attendees.

“Spaniels are by nature sympathetic; Flush, as his story proves, had an even excessive appreciation of human emotions. The sight of his dear mistress snuffing the fresh air at last, letting it ruffle her white hair and redden the natural freshness of her face, while the lines on her huge brow smoothed themselves out, excited him to gambols whose wildness was half sympathy with her own delight.”

Virginia Woolf, Flush

Photograph of Karina Jakubowicz with Toby’s spaniel, Scout, at Alfriston in 2025, shown by kind permission of Janet Minichiello

“The play came off last night, with the result that I am dry-brained this morning, & can only use this book as a pillow. It was said, inevitably, to be a great success.’

Virginia Woolf,
Diary IV, 19^th January, 1935

In 2026 we mark the centenary of the period when Woolf began to immerse herself in life writing. Having tested her new narrative form in Jacob’s Room (1922) and moved on to the more successful Mrs Dalloway (1925), she began to consider how her work might overlap with the genre of the elegy, a phase of experimentation that culminated in the fictionalisation of her parents in To the Lighthouse (1927). This was followed by the brisk and daring Orlando (1928) a work that deliberately ripped at the seams of the biographical form. Having explored the limits of the gendered, human life, she then progressed to Flush (1933), a sensitive portrayal of canine existence that roots itself in the non-human world. This humorous and occasionally dark portrayal of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog inverts a hierarchy of importance where famous poets are purportedly more important than their pets.

Woolf continued in this irreverent vein by completing her only play, Freshwater, in 1935. This work was designed to be performed for and by her immediate family, and revels in satirising her maternal ancestors and all of their famous friends. Throughout the play, Woolf affectionately thumbs her nose at the previous generation while also exploring how attitudes towards creativity and artistic endeavour may have shifted in the intervening years.

Toby and Karina will guide attendees through these two works, moving through Flush first. There will also be opportunities to consider the life and work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and a selection of her poems will be provided for this purpose. We will then have our own performance of Freshwater with time to discuss Woolf’s interest in family history and her preoccupation with plays and playwriting. Reading these texts side by side will encourage us to consider Woolf’s views of the 19^th century, her interest in the non-human and natural world, and her unique sense of humour. Woolf is not often regarded as a comedic writer, but these two works prove she had a wonderful eye for the bathetic and the absurd.

JOINING DETAILS:

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Flush & Freshwater 2026’ as the subject line. To reserve a place please use the form below to pay an initial deposit of £50. Full payment may be made later by bank transfer.

Four-day in-person study facilitated by Toby Brothers and Karina Jakubowicz

Thursday 9 – Sunday 12 April 2026, Alfriston, East Sussex

This is an opportunity to enjoy the locale, including visiting Charleston House, Charleston in Lewes and Monk’s House, as well as joining with other readers in discussing Between the Acts and its relationship to Woolf’s other works. We will also research outings in the area based on exhibits that will be available at the time of our visit, these will be added to the schedule as we confirm the best options.

As in previous years, we are in conversation with our fellow enthusiasts at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, who have created a great community that celebrates reading and the art of books in wonderful ways. Together we will offer an event celebrating Woolf, Flush and Freshwater during our stay there.

£500 for twelve hours (or more) of study in six meetings spread over four days, plus accommodation costs (please see details below).

Please note that participants are responsible for booking their own travel, accommodation and any insurance required.

We will stay at Wingrove House, a 19th century colonial-style country house hotel set in the beautiful and historic village of Alfriston, East Sussex in the South Downs National Park. We will be within easy reach of sites associated with Bloomsbury, making it the ideal choice for Woolf-related Salons. We expect the cost per night, including breakfast, to start at £206.00 per room, rising to a maximum of £244.50 (charges vary across a range of accommodation). These rates are discounted for London Literary Salon participants, so please reserve your room as soon as possible after registering your place on the study and mention the London Literary Salon when booking.

Recommended editions: Flush by Virginia Woolf, Oxford World’s Classics ISBN-13: 978-0199539291; Freshwater: A Comedy, Houghton Mifflin ISBN-13: 978-0156335409

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

9 April 2026 4:00 pm - 12 April 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

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Flush & Freshwater 2026 DEPOSIT (£450 balance payable by bank transfer at a later date)

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Kazuo Ishiguro - The UnconsoledEIGHT-WEEK STUDY, LIVE ON ZOOM, 13 APRIL - 1 JUNE 2026, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK)2026mon13apr5:30 pm7:30 pm5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByLewis WardLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEight meetings

Event Details

‘Clearly, this city was expecting of me something more than a simple recital. But when I tried to recall some basic details about the present visit, I had little success . . .’

Somewhere in Europe, celebrated pianist ‘Mr Ryder’ has arrived at his hotel, where he is greeted with a high pitch of expectation. During the next few days he encounters many demands on his time, both personal and professional, and is whisked around the city and surrounding countryside in a way that is both bewildering and strangely dreamlike. Time and space appear malleable, apparently led less by the laws of physics than those of the emotions. Assailed by troubling memories of childhood, Ryder gradually realises that his upcoming performance will be about much more than the challenging postmodern music he will play . . .

When The Unconsoled was published in 1995, readers of Ishiguro’s previous works, and in particular those who loved his Booker-winning The Remains of the Day, reacted with a mixture of bafflement, confusion and sometimes downright hostility. Just what was this exactly?

While James Wood famously wrote: ‘Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel has the virtue of being unlike anything else; it invents its own category of badness’, the New York Times Book Review described it as ‘the most original and remarkable book he has so far produced’ and, writing in The Times, Rachel Cusk declared it ‘A masterpiece. It is above all a book devoted to the human heart.’

Many have read The Unconsoled in relation to Kafka, assuming it was intended to emulate that writer’s work in some way. Other reference points suggested by readers include cubism and surrealism (in particular the work of Giorgio de Chirico), or the logic (or illogic) of dreams and nightmares; others have read it as a series of music-like ‘variations’ on a theme, or as a magical realist allegory, or an exposure of the wounding and trauma at the heart of modern society. Michael Wood pithily called it a ‘long metaphor for deferred and displaced anxiety’.

There is much pleasure to be had in the reading of this book. The absurd sometimes descends into hilarious farce, and Ishiguro’s celebrated prose is as delightfully lucid as ever. The cumulative effect of the strange narrative shifts, impossibly overheard conversations, and increasing anticipation is ultimately extremely moving.

On this eight-week study we will also take time to consider the background to Ishiguro’s writing of the novel. The enormous success of The Remains of the Day led to the author going on an 18-month international book tour, with its attendant disorientation and confusing, absurd demands on his time. Ishiguro has also said that the book’s genesis was a comment from his wife that dreams are a kind of universal language, which sparked his interest in ‘the grammar of dreams’. As he worked, he says, he ‘started to see parallels between memory and dream, the way you manipulate both according to your emotional needs at the time’. Thus, like all his work, this can be read as a study of memory, and how it can dominate our lives, for both good and ill.

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight week study, live on Zoom, led by Lewis Ward

Mondays, 5.30-7.30pm (UK), 13 April – 1 June 2026

£280 for eight meetings

Recommended edition: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, Faber & Faber, ISBN 9780571283897

REDUCED COSTS: we are committed to making our studies as affordable as possible. We have a fund in place to support anyone who would like to register for a study but finds the cost difficult to afford. We can’t promise to help, but please email litsalon@gmail.com in confidence if you would like to request a reduction in the cost of a study.

Organizer

Lewis Ward

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Time

13 April 2026 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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20April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm27April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm4May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm11May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm18May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm25May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm1June 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

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Virginia Woolf in Alfriston 2026! Study 2 - Between the ActsFOUR DAY TRAVEL STUDY, 16 -19 APRIL 20262026thu16apr(apr 16)4:00 pmsun19(apr 19)12:00 pm4:00 pm - 12:00 pm (19)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Karina JakubowiczWingrove House, High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TDFrequencyOne-off EventDurationSix meetings over four days

Event Details

As one of the key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, Woolf is often seen as a London writer, but she and her husband Leonard had an abiding love for the South Downs. Together they purchased Monk’s House near Rodmell in 1919 and used it as their writer’s retreat. Virginia wrote some of her major works there and the Sussex landscape was integral to her writing as she tried to capture what she saw as its unsurpassable beauty. There are a number of other Bloomsbury outposts in the area: in 1916 Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell, moved to Charleston Farmhouse with the painter Duncan Grant, while John Maynard Keynes and his wife Lydia Lopokova also settled locally.

“Here came the sun—an illimitable rapture of joy, embracing every flower, every leaf. Then in compassion it withdrew, covering its face, as if it forbore to look on human suffering. There was a fecklessness, a lack of symmetry and order in the clouds, as they thinned and thickened. Was it their own law, or no law they obeyed?”

Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts

In this novel Virginia Woolf’s lyric prose and gorgeous vision combine to consider the sense of exhaustion that punctuated the Modernist period leading up to the Second World War. According to Edward Mendelson: “Everything comes to an end in Between the Acts, and then, as the book itself comes to an end, something unknowable begins.” The book includes a pageant composed of imaginary episodes from 1,000 years of English history, together with a close examination of the intricacies of village life in England in the days leading up to World War II. As always, it is Woolf’s penetrating consideration of intimate relationships and the places where language fails — but something else transcends — that lift this work from “the doom of sudden death hanging over us” that one of her characters describes.

“She wanted to expose them, as it were, to douche them, with present-time reality. But something was going wrong with the experiment. ‘Reality too strong,’ she muttered. ‘Curse ‘em!’ She felt everything they felt. Audiences were the devil. O to write a play without an audience – the play”

Between the Acts

Miss La Trobe – passionate, demanding, visionary and frustrated playwright/director/producer of the pageant – yearns to have the self-satisfied people of the village and the great homes see themselves for what they are. She believes – as I believe – that art can illuminate people to themselves, make them grasp the history that precedes them, understand the contemporary moment in light of that history and drive out complacency, make the audience feel the horrors and the miracle of the world they occupy. The book is filled with moments of passion exploding, of submerged violence, of desires frustrated.

The setting of Between the Acts ‘somewhere in the south of England’ at Pointz Hall, could be a village very much like Alfriston. Among the possible activities we will include for our retreat may be a pageant of our own: how might we construct a mirror to ourselves—a historical enactment of the phases of progress and stagnation that have brought us to this moment in time? We will consider closely how Between the Acts uses the particularities of the setting -Pointz Hall, the surrounding countryside, unpredictable weather, the cultivated and wild spaces – to reflect how the backdrop of our daily performance of living impacts and sets the rhythm for our habits and encounters.

JOINING DETAILS:

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Between the Acts 2026’ as the subject line. To reserve a place please use the form below to pay an initial deposit of £50. Full payment may be made later by bank transfer.

Four-day in-person study facilitated by Toby Brothers and Karina Jakubowicz

Thursday 16 – Sunday 19 April 2026, Alfriston, East Sussex

This is an opportunity to enjoy the locale, including visiting Charleston House, Charleston in Lewes and Monk’s House, as well as joining with other readers in discussing Between the Acts and its relationship to Woolf’s other works. We will also research outings in the area based on exhibits that will be available at the time of our visit, these will be added to the schedule as we confirm the best options.

As in previous years, we are in conversation with our fellow enthusiasts at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, who have created a great community that celebrates reading and the art of books in wonderful ways. Together we will offer an event celebrating Woolf and Between the Acts during our stay there.

£500 for twelve hours (or more) of study in six meetings spread over four days, plus accommodation costs (please see details below).

Please note that participants are responsible for booking their own travel, accommodation and any insurance required.

We will stay at Wingrove House, a 19th century colonial-style country house hotel set in the beautiful and historic village of Alfriston, East Sussex in the South Downs National Park. We will be within easy reach of sites associated with Bloomsbury, making it the ideal choice for Woolf-related Salons. We expect the cost per night, including breakfast, to start at £206.00 per room, rising to a maximum of £244.50 (charges vary across a range of accommodation). These rates are discounted for London Literary Salon participants, so please reserve your room as soon as possible after registering for the study and mention the London Literary Salon when booking.

Recommended edition: Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf, Oxford World’s Classics ISBN-13: ‎978-0199536573

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

16 April 2026 4:00 pm - 19 April 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

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Book this Salon

Between the Acts 2026 DEPOSIT (£450 balance payable by bank transfer at a later date)

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Niccolo Machiavelli - The PrinceSIX-MEETING LIVE ONLINE STUDY, 16 APRIL - 21 MAY 2026, 5.30-7.30PM GMT2026thu16apr5:30 pm7:30 pm5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyHistory,Philosophy & Literature Event Organized ByVivien KogutLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationSix two-hour meetings,Six weeks

Event Details

“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

Since it was first written and circulated in 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli’s treatise on statecraft and how the often brutal politics of his time and place – Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – really worked has remained notorious. Intended as a guide for rulers whose political fortunes could rise and fall with alarming speed and devastating consequences, Machiavelli examined questions that echo down the centuries. How to acquire power? How to keep it? How to inspire loyalty? Is it better to be feared than loved?

Over six meetings we will explore Machiavelli’s often harrowing calculations and consider how alive and controversial they may seem today. To what extent do his ideas remain relevant to our own politically turbulent and uncertain times? How much has really changed over the last five hundred years?

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week live online study of Machiavelli’s The Prince, led by Vivien Kogut on Zoom

Thursdays, 5.30-7.30pm GMT

16 April – 21 May 2026

£210 for six two-hour meetings, to include background materials and opening notes

Recommended edition: The Prince: A Norton Critical Edition, with introduction by Wayne A. Rebhorn, ISBN 978-0393936919

Organizer

Vivien Kogut

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Time

16 April 2026 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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23April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm30April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm7May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm14May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm21May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

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Lost Illusions by Honore de BalzacTEN-MEETING LIVE ONLINE STUDY, 16 APRIL - 25 JUNE, THURSDAYS 7.00-9.00 PM (UK)2026thu16apr7:00 pm9:00 pm7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature Event Organized ByRalph KleinmanLIVE ON ZOOM

Event Details

Henry James called Balzac “a final authority on human nature” and said that he “took in more of human life that anyone since Shakespeare.” James referred to Balzac as “really the father of us all.”

If you’ve read James, you will find this extremely surprising because neither Balzac’s life nor his fiction bear any resemblance to James’s own.

Honoré de Balzac (1799 – 1850) lived his chaotic life to the fullest. Life was one long adventure. Many mistresses, and perhaps some boyfriends too (his sympathetic picture of gay male characters is referred to more than once in Proust’s oeuvre), illegitimate children, crazy business schemes, debtors’ prison, law school (he dropped out), parties, travel – he never stopped. He was his own greatest creation.

In his spare time, Balzac managed to complete 91 novels, all of which are part of his lifetime literary project, La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy). If you hear echoes of Dante, don’t be surprised, Balzac always compared himself to the literary greats. Charles Robb, one of Balzac’s modern biographers, wrote of La Comédie humaine: “Balzac’s epic of modern life is the last attempt by any writer to comprehend and educate a whole world in its diversity, to offer a complete, unified, scientific picture of society and human experience.”

I know that in prior material for the Literary Salon I referred to Flaubert as the inventor of literary realism. I’m not stepping back from that, but the birth of literary realism wasn’t an immaculate conception: Balzac was there at its beginning.

Our work with Balzac’s La Comédie humaine continues with Lost Illusions (Les Illusions Perdues). Why? Mostly because the three-novel series (Le Père Goriot, Les Illusions Perdues, and Les Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes) form a unified work that covers all of Balzac’s preoccupations. Each work, brilliant in its own right, is amplified in proximity with the others, uplifted into the highest stratosphere of French literature.

And, as a bonus, we’ll spend more time with Eugène de Rastignac and Vautrin from Père Goriot.

JOINING DETAILS:

10-meeting study led by Ralph Kleinman

Thursdays, 7.00-9.00 pm (UK), 16 April – 25 June 2026

Recommended edition: Lost Illusions, translated by Herbert Hunt, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780140442519

£350 for 10 two-hour meetings

Organizer

Ralph Kleinman

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Time

16 April 2026 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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23April 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm30April 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm7May 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm14May 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm28May 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm4June 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm11June 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm18June 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm25June 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

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Lolita by Vladimir NabokovSIX MEETING STUDY, LIVE ONLINE, LED BY NANCY GOLDSTEIN, 23 APRIL - 28 MAY 20262026thu23apr6:30 pm8:30 pm6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByNancy GoldsteinLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationSix two-hour meetings

Event Details

Now more than ever it seems right to read Vladimir Nabokov’s masterpiece, Lolita (1955). The man who famously described himself as “an American writer, born in Russia” understands his adopted country as only an immigrant can.

Born into Russian nobility, Nabokov fled for his life twice: first escaping the 1917 Revolution for Berlin and Paris, and then, in 1940, fleeing Nazi-era Paris for New York City alongside his Jewish wife, Véra. A respected lepidopterist, Nabokov spent years working at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.

The immigrant, the scientist and the novelist brought all he knew about camouflage, metamophosis, mimicry, migration and classification to his writing.

Lolita combines Nabokov’s keen observations of the new, post-World War II superpower that was late 1940s America with his scalpel-like dexterity with the English language.

One of the world’s most banned books? Yes.

A savage send-up of a country awash in Norman Rockwell imagery and pop psychology? A land where clueless elites become intellectually complicit in a world that infantilises adults while sexualising children? Yes.

Narrated through the notoriously unreliable perspective of one Humbert Humbert, aka Paedophile-in-Chief? Yes.

Hilarious and infuriating by turns, but always mesmerising? Yes.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-meeting study led by Dr Nancy Goldstein

23 April – 28 May 2026

Thursdays, 6.30-8.30 pm (UK time)

£240 for six two-hour meetings

Recommended edition The Annotated Lolita (Penguin Modern Classics, 2000): ISBN: 978-0141185040

Organizer

Nancy Goldstein

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Time

23 April 2026 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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30April 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm7May 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm14May 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm21May 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm28May 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

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The Aeneid on the Greek island of Agistri2026thu30apr(apr 30)5:00 pmthu07may(may 7)12:00 pm(April 30) 5:00 pm - (May 7) 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyClassical,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane WymarkAgistri, GreeceDurationSeven days

Event Details

We are currently planning our fifth visit to the enchanting island of Agistri on the Saronic Gulf to read the classical literature of Greece and Rome. In 2026 we will study Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, reading these extraordinary and enduring works in the midst of a land and seascape that can only enhance the experience. Check out our ‘Gallery’ page to see photos from our 2025 studies on the island.

The warrior Aeneas fell to his knees but kept himself propped up with one hand firmly on the ground. Black night covered his eyes. Aeneas, lord of men would certainly have died right then and there, had not his mother Aphrodite noticed. She threw her white arms around him and embraced him and wrapped him up inside her glimmering dress to keep him safe from weapons, so no Greek would gallop up and hurl a spear of bronze to pierce his chest and take his life away. She took her darling son away from battle.

Iliad, Book 5

As with the Odyssey, the Oresteia and Euripides’ Trojan Women, the story of the Aeneid starts with the fall of Troy and its aftermath. However, unlike these earlier works, the Aeneid – written between 30 and 19 BC – belongs to a different language and to the Roman Empire. Escaping the burning city, Aeneas travels across the Mediterranean and ultimately to Italy, where his descendants will go on to found the city of Rome. In continuing the story of Aeneas, Virgil created a foundational myth so profound and enduring that when Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, he chose the poet to be his first guide to the afterlife.

The opening books of the poem contain the full story that Homer did not give us: the clanging of the Greek warriors inside the wooden horse, the anger of the decimated Trojans turned against Helen as the city collapses around them, the vision of Aeneus – son of Venus – leading his own son by the hand and carrying his father on his back as he flees.

In the figure of Aeneas, we find both the survivor of a city lost to war and the leader of a colonising force, prompting us to ask questions about identity and nationhood that continue to resonate in our own time. How do we justify the indifference of power? How can we guarantee that force is used responsibly? Virgil shows us how fine is the line between mastery and brutality. The Aeneid is a masterpiece of epic poetry, full of beautiful language that transports us to the world of the Aegean and beyond.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Virgil’s Aeneid on the island of Agistri: 30 April – 7 May 2026

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond and Jane Wymark

Cost: £880 for the Salon study, to include a preparatory meeting in April (on Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

Before you arrive on Agistri we will ask you to read The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Books, ISBN: 9780143105138.

Payment: we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £50 on registration to secure your place using the booking form below. The balance of £830 will be payable by bank transfer (we will supply bank details), due by 31 January 2026.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

Waiting list: if the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

BOOKING & ENQUIRIES

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2026 – Odyssey’ as the subject line.

ADDITIONAL COSTS TO BUDGET FOR

Room and half board (breakfast and dinner each day) will be arranged by each participant with the hotel and paid for directly to them. A deposit to cover two nights accommodation will be required by the hotel on booking. We will send you full contact details for payment on registration. We have set out the anticipated charges below, but these may be subject to change at the time of booking at the discretion of the hotel.

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – are estimated below on the basis of figures available in July 2025 but may be subect to change:

Single – €80 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per day

Double – €90 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €100 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Please consider sharing accommodation with another participant as this helps us to ensure everyone can stay on site; double and triple rooms offer split levels and so allow sharers a significant degree of privacy.

Flights to Athens: when booking please make sure you can arrive in Piraeus by 15.00 local time on the first day of your study to catch the ferry. We will not be meeting formally on the final day of each study, so you have choices about your return (ferries are frequent and the travel time to Piraeus is one hour).

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Insurance: we hope this will be entirely redundant, but we ask you to arrange your own travel and health insurance to protect you in case of anything untoward happening. We will ask you for details of the insurance provider and reference number, as well as your mobile phone number and details of next of kin to add to our (confidential) records for use during the study.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane Wymark

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Time

30 April 2026 5:00 pm - 7 May 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Book this Salon

Booking deposit £50 to be paid on registration. The balance of £830 to be paid by bank transfer by 31 January 2026.

All places are booked

May 2026

The Odyssey on the Greek island of Agistri2026sat09may(may 9)5:00 pmsat16(may 16)12:00 pm5:00 pm - 12:00 pm (16)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyClassical,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Alison Cable & Susanna TaggartAgistri, GreeceFrequencyOne-off EventDurationSeven days

Event Details

We are currently planning our fifth visit to the enchanting island of Agistri on the Saronic Gulf to read the classical literature of Greece and Rome. We will study Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, reading these extraordinary and enduring works in the midst of a land and seascape that can only enhance the experience. Check out our ‘Gallery’ page to see photos from our 2025 studies on the island.

“Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so many roundabout ways
To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy’s hallowed keep;
Many the peoples whose cities he saw and whose ways of thinking he learned,
Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart
As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.”

The opening lines of Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey

In May 2026, we’ll be returning to our Greek home-from-home for the fifth year running, to study Homer’s Odyssey for one week. The Odyssey is a meditation on identity, homecoming and finding your place in the world. Full of complex relationships and people – including a wealth of female characters – the work considers the guest-host relationship and how we interact with difference. The story is also a collection of thrilling adventures featuring our ‘hero’ pitted against fantastical monsters, seductive sorcerers and the forces of nature.

This year sees the publication of an extraordinary new translation of The Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn. This work is notable for the precision and care that Mendelsohn brings to his word choice and meter when translating the original Greek in order to maintain the subtlety, richness and nuance of the original.

Homer’s works form the foundation of Western civilisation, and their influence is still current in the modern world so, even on a first read, the characters, themes and events can feel familiar. While both works stand alone, if you’ve read the Iliad, you’ll find references to its themes and characters and endings for the stories of many of the key players. On the island, we’ll be reading Homer in the land where it was written and performed, and where the setting reflects and illuminates the beauty of the language and themes. Each year we find that studying as part of a residential group creates new, rich understandings and connections with both the work and each other.

This will be the third time we embark on reading the vivid and gripping Odyssey on Agistri. Our study will use Homer’s epic poem to consider closely the guest-host relationship, the defining struggle of humans against overwhelming nature, the struggle to know ourselves in foreign spaces, our understanding of the heroic, and the role of myth and epic in lived experience.Facilitators for the study are Salon Director, Toby Brothers, together with Alison Cable and Susanna Taggart. Susanna, who combines her love of Ancient Greek literature with professional life as a clinical psychologist, will bring to the discussion thoughts about the psychological challenges of post-combat living for returning soldiers, their loved ones and communities.

As a complement to the textual study, writer and facilitator Alison Cable will lead creative writing and off-loom weaving sessions inspired by Penelope, who weaves both as duty and as an act of quiet resistance. Participants will be invited to engage with The Odyssey in a layered, playful way—through hands-on, intuitive making with fibre, found materials and words. Writing will be sparked by poetry responding to The Odyssey and by Margaret Atwood’s novella The Penelopiad, which gives Penelope her own voice—not just as the faithful wife, but as a subtle subversive, spinning her version of events. Between the textual study, the weaving, the poetry and the retelling, we’ll have rich material to draw from when we put pen to paper ourselves.

The venue we have chosen for our stay on the beautiful and quiet island of Agistri is a small family-run hotel that is easily accessible (just one hour by ferry from Athens). It provides the perfect setting for our study, offering a relaxing atmosphere, excellent food and opportunities for additional cultural and recreational activities. As one former participant said: “The beauty and pleasure of the surroundings soothed my soul, leaving me feeling refreshed and connected to the literature and the group in ways I couldn’t have experienced at home.” Do come and join us!

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Homer’s Odyssey on the island of Agistri: 9-16 May 2026

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Alison Cable and Susanna Taggart

Cost: £880 for the Salon study, to include a preparatory meeting in April (on Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

Before you arrive on Agistri we will ask you to read Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation of The Odyssey (Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780241733585). Ian McKellen’s audio reading of Robert Fagles’ translation is also a great way to experience The Odyssey that we recommend as preparation for the study.

Payment: we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £50 on registration to secure your place using the booking form below. The balance of £830 will be payable by bank transfer (we will supply bank details), due by 31 January 2026.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

Waiting list: if the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

BOOKING & ENQUIRIES

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2026 – Odyssey’ as the subject line.

ADDITIONAL COSTS TO BUDGET FOR

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – are estimated below on the basis of figures available in July 2025 but may be subect to change:

Single – €80 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per day

Double – €90 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €100 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Alison Cable & Susanna Taggart

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Time

9 May 2026 5:00 pm - 16 May 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Agistri, Greece

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Booking deposit £50 to be paid on registration. The balance of £830 to be paid by bank transfer by 31 January 2026.

All places are booked

T.S. ELIOT - FOUR QUARTETSFIVE MEETINGS LED BY KARINA JAKUBOWICZ, LIVE ON ZOOM, WEDNESDAYS 6.00-8.00 PM (UK)2026wed13may6:00 pm8:00 pm6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyPoetry Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczVIRTUAL - ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationFive meetings

Event Details

*Portrait of T.S. Eliot by Ellie Koczela, Creative Commons*

Four Quartets (1943) was written at the end of T.S. Eliot’s poetic career and is considered by some to be his greatest work. The Four Quartets reflects the four seasons and the four elements, with each section having its own attendant landscape. These include the gardens of Burnt Norton, the open fields of East Coker, the small group of rocks that make up The Dry Salvages, and the village of Little Gidding. All of these spaces reflect facets of England in the 1940s while also serving as Eliot’s internal environment, a place where he wrestles with the themes of death, nature and time. The backdrop of the Second World War adds an eerie pertinence to Eliot’s musings as he contemplates his own demise, yet the poem is rarely despairing. ‘What we call the beginning is often the end,’ he states, ‘And to make an end is to make a beginning./ The end is where we start from.’

Contrary to Eliot’s suggestion, we will start at the beginning and work our way to the end (perhaps to look back on the beginning with new eyes). The study will take place over five weeks.

JOINING DETAILS:

Five meeting study led by Karina Jakubowicz live on Zoom

Wednesdays, 13 May – 10 June, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)

£200 for five two-hour meetings

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

13 May 2026 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

20May 6:00 pm27May 6:00 pm3June 6:00 pm10June 6:00 pm

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Sophocles: Four Great Tragedies2026sun17may4:00 pm6:00 pm4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyClassical,Drama Event Organized BySean ForesterLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationSeven meetings

Event Details

*Oedipus and the Sphinx of Thebes, photograph by Carole Raddato, Frankfurt, Germany*

Greek tragedy has a timeless quality. As Virginia Woolf writes in her essay On Not Knowing Greek, ‘the stable, the permanent, the original human being is to be found there. . . . In the Electra or the Antigone we are impressed . . . by heroism itself, by fidelity itself.’

Revenge, betrayal, lust, murder— but also courage, compassion, honour: Sophocles shows the heights and depths of human emotion. We are moved today by the tension between reason and emotion, fate and free will, law and individual conscience, just as people were in classical Athens.

This LitSalon study will go deep into the world of Sophocles as we read Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. And we will explore the philosophy of tragedy with Aristotle’s Poetics and A. C. Bradley’s essay Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven meeting live online study led by Sean Forester

Sundays, 17 May – 28 June 2026, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK time)
- 17 May – Oedipus Rex
- 24 May – Oedipus, Aristotle’s Poetics
- 31 May – Antigone
- 7 June. – Antigone, Hegel on Tragedy
- 14 June – Philoctetes
- 21 June – Oedipus at Colonus
- 28 June – Oedipus at Colonus, Tragic Painting and Sculpture

£245 for seven meeting study on Zoom

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

17 May 2026 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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All places are booked

The Odyssey, HomerTWELVE-MEETING STUDY, LIVE ON ZOOM, 19 MAY - 4 AUGUST 20262026tue19may5:00 pm7:00 pm5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyClassical Event Organized BySusanna Taggart & Caroline HammondLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationTwelve meetings

Event Details

“Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so many roundabout ways
To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy’s hallowed keep;
Many the peoples whose cities he saw and whose ways of thinking he learned,
Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart
As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.”

The opening lines of Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey

“This may be the best translation of The Odyssey yet.”
Edith Hall, The Telegraph

Following their twelve-week study of The Iliad, facilitators Susanna Taggart and Caroline Hammond will tackle The Odyssey in the same format, covering two books per session, allowing time to look at the text from many angles: its historical context, the debates surrounding its authorship, its literary and psychological subtexts and its enduring influence on modern culture in the English-speaking world and beyond. We will combine a close reading of the text and a wider focus, including poems and art inspired by the epic, consideration of the psychology of war and return, and images of museum exhibits.

Published in 2025, the celebrated author, critic and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn’s acclaimed translation has brought The Odyssey to new life. Readers have praised this line-for-line translation for capturing the epic’s formal qualities – meter, enjambment, alliteration and assonance to produce a work full of the beauty and music of the original as well as its archaic grandeur.

“The plot of The Odyssey is not long in the telling. A man has been away from home for many years. Poseidon is always on the watch for him; he is all alone. As for the situation at home, his goods are being laid waste by the Suitors, who plot against his son. After a storm-tossed journey, he returns home, where he reveals himself, destroys his enemies, and is saved.”

Aristotle, Poetics, translated by Daniel Mendelsohn

Writers from Dante to James Joyce to Margaret Atwood have been inspired by the story of Odysseus and his quest to return home after ten years of war. In Homer’s telling, the world of Odysseus is both vast and intimate with the smallest details – from flowers growing outside Kalypso’s cave to the performance of everyday household tasks – rendered in vivid detail. It is a story that asks questions about what it means to be human, particularly when Odysseus has been stripped of the context that has previously defined him: he is a warrior whose war is long over, a leader who has lost all of his men, a father who has missed his son growing up and a husband lost to his wife. Join us to explore the complexity and difficulty of this central character and why the poem remains at the heart of our shared literary culture today.

JOINING DETAILS:

Twelve two-hour meetings live on Zoom, led by Caroline Hammond and Susanna Taggart

Tuesdays, 5.00 -7.00 pm (BST), 19 May – 4 August 2026

Optional one-hour session for final reflections on Tuesday 11 August

Recommended edition: The Odyssey: A New Translation by Daniel Mendelsohn, ISBN: 9780241733585. Please note, the paperback edition will be released on 23 April 2026.

£420 for twelve meetings with two facilitators, to include opening notes and resources.

Organizer

Susanna Taggart & Caroline Hammond

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Time

19 May 2026 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

26May 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm2June 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm9June 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm16June 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm23June 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm30June 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm7July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm14July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm21July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm28July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm4August 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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All places are booked

June 2026

Jane Eyre on the moors: reading, walking & writing in the Peak District2026thu18jun(jun 18)1:00 pmmon22(jun 22)12:00 pm1:00 pm - 12:00 pm (22)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyCreative Writing,Literature,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Alison CableEdale, DerbyshireFrequencyOne-off EventDurationFive days

Event Details

*By Bridleway to Edale by Dave Dunford, Creative Commons*

The London Literary Salon invites you to join a five-day study based in Edale, in the Peak District National Park in June 2026. There we will explore Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre through landscape, literature and creative practice. This long weekend will be a living conversation between text, location and lived experience — an invitation to read, write and walk in immersive engagement with Brontë’s novel and the moors that inspired it.

How might we read Jane Eyre today — as a story of selfhood and rebellion, but also as a text shaped by gender, empire, class and desire? This immersive study combines literary discussion, reflective writing, and walking on the moorland paths that inspired Brontë’s novel. A short train trip to Hathersage, the village closely linked to the novel, will offer further insight into the places that inspired Brontë’s writing. Participants will also have the opportunity to walk the 8 km Jane Eyre Hathersage Trail, tracing the village, architecture and landscape that shaped Brontë’s imagination.

Toby Brothers will lead our literary discussions, guiding us through the rich text with reflections that include psychological, feminist, postcolonial and queer readings of Jane Eyre. Alison Cable will co-facilitate and offer walking and creative writing sessions, encouraging reflection, response and imaginative engagement with both text and landscape. Together, we will explore the familiar and the overlooked: Jane’s struggles for autonomy, the silences within the text, and the ways literature continues to resonate with questions of freedom, identity and justice in our own lives, here and now.

According to the poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich:

‘The concern of the tale is not with social mores, the social mores may occur among the risks and challenges encountered by the protagonist. Neither is it an anatomy of the psyche, the faded chemistry of cosmic forces. It takes its place between the two: between the realm of the given, that which is changeable by human activity, and the realm of the fated, that which lies outside human control: between realism and poetry.

‘The world of the tale is above all a “vale of soul making”, and when a novelist finds herself writing a tale it is likely to be because she is moved by that vibration of experience which underlies the social and political, though it constantly feeds into both of these. In her essay on Jane Eyre, critic Q.D. Leavis perceives the novel’s theme as “. . . an exploration of how a woman comes to maturity in the world of the writer’s youth”. I would suggest that a novel about how a man “comes to maturity in the world of the writers youth” would not be dismissed as lacking in range or in Woolf’s words, “a sense of human problems”. I would suggest further that Charlotte Bronte is writing not a bildungsroman but the life story of a woman who is incapable of saying “I am Heathcliff” because she feels so unalterably herself. Jane Eyre, motherless and economically powerless, undergoes certain traditional female temptations, and finds that each temptation presents itself along with an alternative –the image of a nurturing or principled or spirited woman on whom she can model herself, or to whom she can look for support.‘

Adrienne Rich, Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman (published in the Norton Critical Edition of Jane Eyre)

While Virginia Woolf wrote that the Brontes:

‘. . . seized those aspects of the earth which were most akin to what they themselves felt or imputed to their characters, and so their storms, their moors, their lovely spaces of summer weather are not ornaments applied to decorate a dull page or display the writer’s powers of observation – they carry on the emotion and light up the meaning of the book.’

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader (1916)

We will be based in Edale, with accommodation confirmed at The Gathering, a combination of glamping ‘lodges’ and barns, with options for shared or single rooms. Walking across the hills and moors will offer space for thought and inspiration, but all activities are optional: indoors, we will read, write and talk together, fostering immersive engagement with text and the landscape. To round out the evenings, participants may choose to join the local pub quiz or a folk music night, taking advantage of the lively sense of community and place.

SAMPLE SESSIONS INCLUDE:

Morning literary discussion with Toby Brothers: close reading of key passages, exploring Jane’s journey, moral choices and the novel’s social and political contexts.

Afternoon creative writing and walking with Alison Cable: guided reflective walks on the moors, using the landscape as inspiration for short writing exercises and prompts.

Short train trip to Hathersage: experiencing the village that inspired Brontë, with an optional walk to Stanage Edge, passing ‘Vale Hall,’ ‘Thornfield’ and ‘Moor House’, and the added bonus of Robin Hood’s cave and the gravesite of Little John.

Evening reflection sessions: sharing insights, discussing emergent themes, experimenting with creative responses, and optional participation in pub quiz, bonfire, and folk night.

JOINING DETAILS:

Five-day study in Edale, Derbyshire led by Toby Brothers and Alison Cable

18-22 June 2026

£550 for the study and background notes, plus £105 for three days half board (breakfast and lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday), total cost £655

Additional costs: participants are responsible for arranging and paying for their own travel, glamping accommodation at The Gathering, additional meals and insurance. Group bookings for accommodation and optional guided walks must be arranged in advance.

We strongly recommend reading or re-reading Jane Eyre in preparation for the weekend so the language, ideas and vision of the text are fresh.

An initial non-refundable deposit of £50 secures your place, with the balance of £605 (including breakfasts and lunches) payable by 1 May 2026.

Any refunds will be at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to an administration charge.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Alison Cable

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Time

18 June 2026 1:00 pm - 22 June 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Edale, Derbyshire

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BOOKING DEPOSIT OF £50 TO BE PAID ON REGISTRATION. THE BALANCE OF £605 IS PAYABLE BY 1 MAY 2026.

All places are booked

July 2026

“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n”: Encounter Milton’s Epic Vision in Paradise LostEIGHT-MEETING STUDY, LIVE ONLINE, 14 JULY - 1 SEPTEMBER 2026, 5.00-7.30 PM (UK)2026tue14jul5:00 pm7:30 pm5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyPoetry Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEight two-and-a-half-hour meetings

Event Details

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight-week study, live on Zoom, led by Dr Julie Sutherland

Eight two-and-a-half-hour meetings, Tuesdays, 5.00-7.30 pm (UK time)

14 July – 1 September 2026

£320 for eight meetings and background notes and resources

We will use the Penguin Classics edition: Paradise Lost by John Milton, edited by John Leonard (ISBN-10: ‎ 9780140424393)

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

14 July 2026 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

21July 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm28July 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm4August 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm11August 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm18August 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm25August 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm1September 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm

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Shakespeare's Measure for MeasureEIGHT-WEEK STUDY, LIVE ON ZOOM, 15 JULY - 2 SEPTEMBER, 5.00 - 7.00 PM (UK)2026wed15jul5:00 pm7:00 pm5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyDrama Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandLIVE ON ZOOMFrequencyWeeklyDurationEight meetings

Event Details

*Measure for Measure in Tales from Shakespeare, Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

Join Julie Sutherland to explore the moral complexity, political intrigue and dark humour of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in this eight-week full-text study. Often called a ‘problem play’, it resists easy categorisation: not a traditional comedy or tragedy, it confronts audiences with the messy realities of justice, sexual morality, corruption and the abuse of power.

In Measure for Measure, Duke Vincentio temporarily relinquishes power to the strict and seemingly righteous Angelo, who enforces Vienna’s laws with alarming severity. As the city grapples with corruption and sexual coercion, the characters—most notably the virtuous Isabella—navigate dilemmas of conscience, mercy and authority. Shakespeare exposes the tension between law and morality, highlighting the dangers of judging others when those in power are themselves deeply flawed.

Throughout the play, Shakespeare blends moments of comedy with unsettling moral questions, creating a world that is both vividly real and painfully ironic. Biblical themes of judgment and mercy echo throughout, challenging audiences to consider the balance between justice and forgiveness, while the looming, imperfect marriages at the play’s conclusion underscore the uncertainty of human happiness.

Over the course of eight meetings, we will read the entire play aloud, examining its rich language and provocative themes to gain a deep understanding of Shakespeare’s artistry. At the same time we will revel in the ways Measure for Measure reflects both the Elizabethan world and issues that remain startlingly modern.

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight-meeting study live on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesdays, 5.00-7.00 pm BST, 15 July – 2 September 2026

Recommended edition: Measure for Measure, The New Oxford Shakespeare, ISBN 13: 978-0192865861

£280 for eight two-hour meetings

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

15 July 2026 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

LIVE ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

22July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm29July 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm5August 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm12August 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm19August 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm26August 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm2September 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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All places are booked

August 2026

Moby Dick Afloat in 2026!2026sat29aug(aug 29)3:00 pmfri04sep(sep 4)9:00 am(August 29) 3:00 pm - (September 4) 9:00 am(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Travel Event Organized ByToby BrothersMallaig, ScotlandFrequencyOne-off EventDurationSix days

Event Details

Following the success of our first study at sea in July 2025 – see more about this amazing trip on our Gallery – we are pleased to announce that we plan to launch Moby Dick Afloat again in the summer of 2026 (29 August – 4 September).

“Toby is inspiring. We never feel unconfident and we feel safe to think aloud. As a field trip, this is genius.”

Horatio Clare writing in the Financial TImes (2 August 2025) about Moby Dick Afloat 2025

Places are strictly limited by space on board, so please click here to email us if you are interested in knowing more about the possibility of joining next year’s voyage.

This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to complete reading one of the greatest books ever written in the English language – an extraordinary story of obsession and maritime adventure – over the course of a six-day voyage aboard a traditional sailing ship. Five online meetings (on Tuesdays in late July and early August) will introduce Moby Dick, followed by six study sessions at sea on the Eda Frandsen, a lovingly restored and maintained gaff cutter, originally built in Denmark in 1938. Our unique study will stimulate readers’ imaginations and complement their appreciation of Herman Melville’s text with practical experience of seafaring life under sail.

“I am half way in the work . . . It will be a strange sort of book, tho’, I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho’ you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—and to cool the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”

Herman Melville

First published in 1851, Moby Dick ranks on almost any list as one of the greatest works in the English language. Its three famous opening words ‘Call me Ishmael . . .’ together with the image of the one-legged Captain Ahab in mad pursuit of the great white whale, have become cultural icons. This grand—and occasionally grandiose—adventure tale unites the many voices of Herman Melville in a mongrel mix of epic poetry, Shakespearean tragedy, encyclopaedic cataloguing, biblical oratory, and not a small dose of comedy. Melville presents an insightful study of obsession, madness and charismatic leadership that anticipates many of our contemporary conversations about democracy, cosmopolitanism, capitalism and the environment.

In 2019, celebration of the 200th year since Herman Melville’s birth initiated a particularly auspicious moment to study this great work, generating rich responses and reconsiderations of a truly amazing book. Philip Hoare (mentioned below as one of the curators of the Moby Dick Big Read project) writes on the contemporary importance of this work in the article linked here: Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: Six reasons why Moby Dick is the novel for our times.

“The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important.”

Philip Hoare

Together, artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare convened and curated a unique whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, the dedicated contemporary art space at Plymouth University. This grew into an extraordinary compilation of art and voices (Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and more) – the Moby Dick Big Read – to illuminate each chapter, inspiring and inspired by this vast book.

Photo: *Moby Dick Afloat 2025*, © Sarah Saunders

SALON DETAILS:

The study will involve five two-hour online preparatory meetings on Zoom (on Tuesdays in July and August), followed by a six-day study trip with six nights on board the sailing ship Eda Frandsen.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Salon Director

Recommended edition: Moby Dick (Norton Critical Edition, Third Edition 2018), by Herman Melville, edited by Herschel Parker; W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN-13: 978-0393285000

The cost for five online meetings, opening notes and the six-night voyage with study sessions led by Toby will be £1,950 per person payable in advance.

Participants will be responsible for arranging their own travel to and from our departure and end point, the port of Mallaig on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, as well as personal insurance to cover their trip.

Please note that the voyage will involve sharing confined living and sleeping space while onboard. We do not require you to have nautical skills, but some time spent on sailing boats or camping would be useful so you know what to expect.

Even in summer it is possible that there may be rough seas and weather, so please consider carefully your general level of health and fitness and whether you are likely to be adversely affected by these conditions.

Places are strictly limited and we are not using our normal booking form for this study. Please email toby@litsalon.co.uk if you are interested in the possibility of joining next year’s voyage.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director...

Salon Director

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Time

29 August 2026 3:00 pm - 4 September 2026 9:00 am(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Mallaig, Scotland

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September 2026

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse – four day study in St Ives 20262026sat26sep(sep 26)5:00 pmtue29(sep 29)12:00 pm5:00 pm - 12:00 pm (29)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Sarah SnoxallSt Ives, CornwallFrequencyOne-off EventDurationFour days

Event Details

We have a well-established Salon tradition of spending some time each autumn on the Cornish coast reading Virginia Woolf’s work and enjoying one of the places she loved and in which she spent significant parts of her childhood. This year we are again offering two Woolf studies in St Ives: To the Lighthouse from 26 to 29 September and The Waves from 2 to 5 October 2026.

In this, our seventh travel study devoted to reading To the Lighthouse in the magical environment that inspired it, the experience will be made even more special by the book’s impending centenary. First published on 5 May 1927, this extraordinary work rewards reading and re-reading, revealing new facets of Woolf’s world with every encounter. Toby Brothers, founder of the London Literary Salon and co-facilitator of the study, reveals that even after more than twenty readings she still learns from the book, finding new resonances and greater understanding to share with study participants new and old.

Woolf’s reputation as one of the key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, means that many see her primarily as a London writer, yet the Cornish coastal town of St Ives – where she spent many childhood summers – serves as a prism through which we can explore her perspectives on landscape, domesticity and identity, and their relevance to her time and our own.

“This is something I have dreamed of doing since I first read Woolf’s magical book To the Lighthouse – it has haunted me always. The opportunity to study this work with a keen group of minds in the place that is so crucial to the writing is simply delicious.“

Toby Brothers

During our visit you will have opportunities to visit the iconic Tate St Ives gallery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, built between 1988 and 1993 on the site of an old gasworks, and the Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Garden. If weather allows, there will be an optional boat trip to Godrevy Lighthouse and we also hope to look at Talland House, Woolf’s childhood summer home (now privately owned). Until Virginia’s mother, Julia Stephen, died in 1895, the elegant house overlooking St Ives Bay would be the Stephens’ family home for several months of each year. Although the complete family never returned to St Ives after their mother’s death, her children travelled back in 1905 following the death of their father in the previous year.

“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills – then my bowl without doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying in bed, half-asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach; and then breaking, one, two, one two, behind a yellow blind . . . If I were a painter I should paint these impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers.

“Here is the past and all its inhabitants miraculously sealed as in a magic tank.

“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. The past sometimes presses so close that you can feel nothing else.”

Virginia Woolf, “Sketch of the Past”, begun in June 1939

“What is the meaning of life? That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Feedback from participants in previous St Ives studies:

“The studio where the discussion took place is a beautiful, extraordinary place, the participants were imbued with the light and landscape, creating a friendly and committed atmosphere. The two facilitators were wonderful . . .”

“The collaboration between participants and facilitators was rich indeed, and I wonder how it was accomplished that everyone in the group was so insightful and intelligent and I might even say soul-searching . . . I also think it was just a superb group of people.”

Read Salonista Leah Jewett’s account of a Salon Study in St Ives here.

SALON DETAILS:

The cost of the study is £600. Please use the form below to secure your place with an initial registration deposit of £60.00. Once you have registered we will then send you details for payment of the balance owing (£540.00) to complete your booking by bank transfer.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Sarah Snoxall

Our meetings will take place in the fabulous Porthmeor Studios

26 to 29 September 2026 (this will enable approximately 14 hours of study)

Recommended edition: To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, with introduction by Hermione Lee, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780241371954

The cost of £600 covers facilitation, notes and critical resources (N.B. travel, food and accommodation are NOT included and participants are responsible for arranging their own travel, accommodation and insurance).

We recommend booking your accommodation at the earliest opportunity. Places where previous participants have enjoyed staying include No 4 St Ives, 3 Porthminster Terrace, Blue Sky, The Olive Branch, Rivendell and the Harbour View Hotel, there may also be options with Airbnb. PLEASE check web details and compare review sites before you book to make sure your needs will be met.

More on the study:

As one of the primary modernist works, To the Lighthouse demonstrates Woolf at play with language; testing the ability of language to truly reflect human experience by recording the life of the mind not just action. One of the characteristics of modernist writing is a shifting centre of narrative perspective, reflecting a questioning of ultimate and moral authority at a time experiencing the dissolution of Imperialism and absolute values.

Writing from the edge of the violent shift from the Victorian to the Modernist era, Woolf’s ambivalence is demonstrated in her work. She struggles against the boundaries and structures of the Victorian age while holding a great longing and nostalgia for the noble traditions of the time. Her model, Mrs. Ramsey, (queen-like) holds her daughters to the awe of the noble men that surround her and allows them to “sport with infidel ideas…of a life different…in Paris perhaps; …for there was in all their minds a mute questioning of deference and chivalry…though to them all there was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the manliness in their girlish hearts…” (To the Lighthouse, pages 10-11).

This quote also demonstrates the Modernist reworking of absolute truth…it is not a question of either this (a male-dominated world) or that (a world of female emancipation): the apparently rigid gender roles borrow from each other — “manliness in their girlish hearts”, “Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection…” — there is another imperialism here, an intimate imperialism of female over male. The truth in this work is not rigid (although Mr. R would like it to be) but can be permeated, blended — seen from another view.

Re-reading Hermione Lee’s biography of Virginia Woolf (a review of which is quoted below) has me turning over the search one makes for lost childhood, often for a place that might hold a time but, of course, never does. For Woolf, that search included a grappling with the impact and idealisation of the parent figures — especially the lost mother, whose influence and contradictions continue to wrap around the child inside. Virginia Woolf and a few of her siblings returned to the house in St Ives (that we are lucky enough to visit) years after her mother’s death and the sale of the house. They were like ghosts, sneaking around the gardens, peering in the windows: as though searching for their lost selves and a past that can never be recaptured. That visit — and the need to lay to rest her grief-enwrapped memories of her mother — was the catalyst for To the Lighthouse.

For those who want to go further, here is an excerpt from a review of Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf:

“Ms. Lee documents the evolving perception of her subject from ”the delicate lady authoress of a few experimental novels and sketches, some essays and a ‘writer’s’ diary, to one of the most professional, perfectionist, energetic, courageous and committed writers in the language.” She does this without recourse to the politicised agendas of the academy or special pleading (all of Woolf’s flaws are on display here); this account sets itself above the fray, the better to home in on the glittery and elusive creature at its centre — the prize catch in what one critic has described as the Bloomsbury pond. From its very first page, Ms. Lee’s book is informed by current thinking on how to approach the writing of someone’s life: “There is no such thing as an objective biography, particularly not in this case. Positions have been taken, myths have been made.” But it is also infused with a very personal passion for her subject, which enables the author to cut crisply through the labyrinth of theories that have sprung up…”

– Daphne Merkin, This Loose, Drifting Material of Life

Although To the Lighthouse is not autobiographical, many critics and readers have found close parallels between Woolf’s early life and the world presented in the book. As we go into the read, it may help you to have a sense of Virginia Woolf and her precarious position as a visionary on the edge of a violently changing world. I will have more biographical notes for you when we start.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Sarah Snoxall

Learn More

Time

26 September 2026 5:00 pm - 29 September 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

View in my time

Location

St Ives, Cornwall

Other Events

Book this Salon

Booking deposit £60 to be paid on registration, the balance of £540 will be payable by end of July 2026.

Enquire before you buy

October 2026

Virginia Woolf’s The Waves – four day study in St Ives 2026FOUR DAY TRAVEL STUDY, 2-5 OCTOBER 20262026fri02oct(oct 2)5:00 pmmon05(oct 5)12:00 pm5:00 pm - 12:00 pm (5)(GMT+01:00) View in my timeType of studyLiterature,Travel Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Sarah SnoxallSt Ives, CornwallFrequencyOne-off EventDurationFour days

Event Details

We have a well-established Salon tradition of spending some time each autumn on the Cornish coast reading Virginia Woolf’s work and enjoying one of the places she loved and in which she spent significant parts of her childhood. This year we are again offering two Woolf studies in St Ives: To the Lighthouse from 26 to 29 September (when we will also celebrate the approaching centenary of the first publication of the book in May 1927) and The Waves from 2 to 5 October 2026.

“Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night; who turn over in their sleep, who utter their confused cries, who put out their phantom fingers and clutch at me as I try to escape—shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.”

Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Reading Virginia Woolf requires a release of the faculty we have so carefully trained to be grounded in time and fact. Her fluid and probing prose allows such a deep and troubling glimpse into the human heart that one comes away wiser and broader than before. This is not my first floating into The Waves, what I have already experienced makes me want to swim far out into her embracing world of character and reflection.

We invite you to join us in St Ives to explore this lovely place and share the work with a group of other keen minds.

I love this review of The Waves from Goodreads:

‘My umpteenth reading of The Waves and it still floors me. There’s not a wasted word here: Woolf’s attention to rhythm—she was listening to Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat Minor, Opus 130 while writing this novel, and Beethoven’s nuances are found in her prose at all turns—and the ways in which she questions subjectivity, interpersonal relations, the ways in which we are connected and yet disparate from those around us are on display here more so than in any of her other fictional works.

‘The last section is sadly not as famous as the last section in Joyce’s Ulysses, but it may well be even more gut-wrenchingly brutal in its philosophical underpinnings and the ways in which Woolf engages with poetics to sustain the flow of her inquiries into what it means to be human. On each reading there is something more to be found here, something more to be learned, something to relish and treasure, some keen diamond-edged truth that slices just as much as it illuminates.’

Feedback from participants in previous St Ives studies:

Read Salonista Leah Jewett’s account of a Salon Study in St Ives here.

JOINING DETAILS:

The cost of the study is £600. Please use the form below to secure your place with an initial registration deposit of £60.00. Once you have registered we will then send you details for payment of the balance owing (£540.00) to complete your booking by bank transfer.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Sarah Snoxall

Our meetings will take place in the fabulous Porthmeor Studios

2 to 5 October 2026 (this will enable approximately 14 hours of study)

Recommended editions: The Waves by Virginia Woolf, Vintage Classics, ISBN-13: ‎
978-1784870843 or Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: 978-0241372081

The cost of £600 covers facilitation, notes and critical resources (N.B. travel, food and accommodation are NOT included and participants are responsible for arranging their own travel, accommodation and insurance).

We recommend booking your accommodation at the earliest opportunity. Places where previous participants have enjoyed staying include No 4 St Ives, 3 Porthminster Terrace, Blue Sky, The Olive Branch, Rivendell and the Harbour View Hotel, there may also be options with Airbnb. PLEASE check web details and compare review sites before you book to make sure your needs will be met.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Sarah Snoxall

Learn More

Time

2 October 2026 5:00 pm - 5 October 2026 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

View in my time

Location

St Ives, Cornwall

Other Events

Book this Salon

Booking deposit £60 to be paid on registration, the balance of £540 will be payable by end of July 2026.

Enquire before you buy