PLEASE NOTE THAT PLACES FOR THIS READING GROUP ARE VERY LIMITED. IF
YOU BOOK A PLACE AND CAN’T MAKE IT, WE WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU
COULD LET US KNOW AS SOON AS YOU CAN SO THAT WE CAN OFFER YOUR PLACE
TO SOMEONE ELSE.
The Edinburgh reading group is back! Whether you are a casual reader
or a voracious consumer of literature, you are more than welcome to
join us. For our first season back, we will focus on the emergent
genre of climate fiction. USE THIS PAGE TO BOOK FOR OUR FOURTH
MEETING, WHERE WE’LL BE READING YOKO TAWADA’S _THE LAST CHILDREN
OF TOKYO
[https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/books/yoko-tawada/the-last-children-of-tokyo/9781846276705/].
_
‘The climate crisis’, writes Amitav Ghosh, ‘is also a crisis of
culture, and thus of the imagination’. That is to say, how do we
talk about the climate crisis when its scope is so unfathomable?
Climate fiction might provide a solution. By exploring the
environmental, social, and psychological consequences of ecological
emergency in the familiar format of the novel, climate fiction can
help us to make some sense of the incomprehensible.
For the first two months, we will look at novels depicting how climate
breakdown is manifesting itself in the present, and the impact it is
having on conditions in both high- and low-income countries. We will
then move on to speculative novels, which ask us to imagine how
society might look after surviving ecological collapse. We will end on
the theme of hope, and the idea that climate fiction can mobilise our
desire for change.
BREAKDOWN
4th April – _Oil on Water_ by Helon Habila (2010)
2nd May – _Weather _by Jenny Offill (2020)
SPECULATION
6th June_ – The Drowned World_ by J.G. Ballard (1962)
4th July – _The Last Children of Tokyo_ by Yoko Tawada, trans.
Margaret Mitsutani (2018)
HOPE
1st August – _Parable of the Sower_ by Octavia E. Butler (1993)
The reading group will meet on the first Monday of every month. A
place at the reading group is £5, and this can be redeemed on the
night against the purchase of any book in the bookshop. Join us for
wine, nibbles and great conversation!
