The records from 2015-2022 onwards are accurate, but the ones from our beginnings in 2012 to early 2015 are to an extent reconstructed and so are less exact (and a few months are missing), but I think capture most authors and topics we discussed. Early on, members of the reading group selected books held in the Special Collection so we tended to cover a number of authors at each meeting, while later on we usually focussed on a single author or a topic or genre each month. We generally take August off, but in a few early years we took July off!
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for 2021 to 2022 Reading Season
September 14: Book Exchange / Book Donation Book – a lucky dip!
October 12: Romer Wilson
November 9: Blog Book review workshop
November 16: Hard-boiled (British or American, including Hank Janson and James Hadley Chase)
December 14: Stella Gibbons
January 18: Working class / industrial fiction
February 15: Dennis Wheatley
March 15: Europe (about or translated novel from the period)
April 12: James Hilton
May 17: Caribbean fiction
June 14: Mary Westmacott
July 12: Fiction published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd
August 19 (extended meeting): Yorkshire + Derbyshire fiction + AGM JULY TBC Fifty Years and a Decade of Popular Fiction: a Celebration of the Ordinary Reader
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2020-2021 Reading Season
September. Rose Macaulay
October. Writers of Jewish Heritage
November. Dean Street Press Golden Age Crime Reprints
December. Eric Ambler
January. LGBT Fiction
February. Francis Brett Young
March. School Stories
April. Early Mills & Boon
May. Denise Robins
June. Novels from 1921
July. Dornford Yates
Reading 1900-1950 topics for the 2019-2020 Reading Season
September. Westerns
October. Racy Trio? Ethel M. Dell, E.M. Hull and Elinor Glyn
November. Comfort Reading! Maybe already has to be on your bookshelf for use in time of need?
December. Ethel Lina White
January. Phyllis Bentley – Yorkshire bestseller and celebrity
February. H. G. Wells – popular, influential and intellectual?
March. Anti-war, Pacifist, and Conscientious Objection fictions
April. Mary Stewart. Few of her novels fall into our period, but we could stretch a little into the 1960s
May. Utopias and Dystopias
June. Richmal Crompton – non-William books!
July. Naval Fictions
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2018-2019 Reading Season
September. Clemence Dane
October. Women writers of 1947: reading suggestions from the Lancashire Evening Post, 2 May 1947
December. Irish and Scottish Middlebrow – to follow up our mainly Welsh work last year
January. BAME fiction 1900 -1950
February. Books from Mary Soar’s book-list 1939-1942
March. Sylvia Townsend Warner
April. CENSORED, shocking or controversial!
May. Patrick Hamilton
June. Reading Sheffield novels
July. Short fiction from magazines / newspapers – to be supplied by reading group members.
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2017-2018 Reading Season
September. Furrowed Middlebrow Top 20 novels by women
October. Monica Dickens
November. Occupations. e.g. clerks, factory workers, lawyers, actors, miners, dancers, stockbrokers, shop-keepers, artists, governesses, farmworkers, writers, hoteliers, painters (and decorators), models, police officers, lady’s companions, architects, servants – to pick some out at random – there should be lots of choice!
December. Elizabeth Goudge or Margery Sharp
January. Phillip Gibbs
February. Religion
March. Angela Thirkell
April. Pamela Frankau
May. Transatlantic
June. Warwick Deeping
July. Celtic Middlebrow: Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scottish and Welsh fiction
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2016-2017 Reading Season
September. Ghostly and Supernatural
October. Kings of Crime
November. Authors We’ve Never Read – from the Mark Valentine donation
December. Ethel Carnie Holdsworth
January. Imperial fictions 4 – Australia
February. The People’s War (WW2)
March. Compton McKenzie
April. Books about best-sellers / popular authors
May. Winifred Holtby
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2015-16 Reading Season
September. Queens of Crime
October. Working Class Fiction (by or about)
November. Imperial fictions 1: India
December. Medical Novels
January. Imperial Fictions 2: Africa
February. Suffragette Fiction
March. Imperial Fictions 3: Middle and Far East
April. Grown-Up Novels by Children’s Writers
May. Comic Fiction
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2014-2015 Reading Season
September. A.J. Cronin and E.H. Young
October, Marganitha Laski
November. Lettice Cooper and Hugh Walpole
December. Stella Gibbons, Thomas Armstrong and H.G. Wells
January. Compton MacKenzie
February. P.G. Wodehouse, Gilbert Frankau
March. W. Pett Ridge. Eric Linklater, P.G. Wodehouse
April. Charles Williams
May. Dorothy Whipple
June. Storm Jameson, Radcliffe Hall, Rebecca West, E.M. Delafield
July. Stella Gibbons and C. S. Forester
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2013-2014 Reading Season
September. Howard Spring
October. Willy Riley
December. Henry Williamson
January. Elinor Mordant, Edward Sackville-West and Mrs Alfred Sidgwick
February. Arnold Bennett
March. Jack London
April. Elizabeth Taylor and Ivy Compton-Burnett
May. Marguerite Steen
July. Ethel Mannin and Elizabeth von Arnim
August. Dornford Yates, Warwick Deeping, A.J. Cronin
September. Yorkshire writers: Thomas Armstrong, Lettice Cooper, Phyllis Bentley
Reading 1900-1950 Topics for the 2012-2013 Reading Season
September. Georgette Heyer, Constance Holme, O. Douglas, Angela Thirkell, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Marie Corelli, Florence L. Barclay, Warwick Deeping, Nicholas Blake, E. Arnot Robertson
October. WW1.Rose Macaulay, John Buchan, Ian Hay, Charles Morgan, Margaret Kennedy, Gilbert Frankau, Ethel Mannin
November. Ronald Knox, Michael Innes, William Le Queux, J.C. Masterman, A.P. Herbert, Cyril Hare, G.D.R. and Margaret Cole, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie
December. H.G Wells, Marguerite Steen, Julia Strachey, Jan Struther, Warwick Deeping, Margaret Kennedy
January. Sheila Kaye-Smith, D.K. Broster, Jeffrey Farnol, Anthony Hope, Baroness Orczy, Sapper
February. Georgette Heyer, Rosamund Lehmann, Pamela Frankau
March. Dornford Yates, H.M. Tomlinson, E.M. Hull, C.S. Forester
April. E.M. Delafield, John Buchan, E. M. Hull, Ann Bridges
May. J.B. Priestley
July. Ian Hay
August. Michael Arlen, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Beverley Nichols, Mary Webb, Anthony Berkley, Storm Jameson, Florence Barclay, Gilbert Frankau
Reading 1900-1950 