Welcome to HistFest’s History Book Club! In 2025, we’re starting an exciting reading journey and we’d love you to join us. Each month, we’ll select two books to read (one fiction, one nonfiction), and at the end of the month we’ll come together over Zoom to discuss the books in more detail.
We’ll split the end of month discussion into two sessions. If you only want to read the fiction, you can join us for the fiction meeting. If you only want to read the nonfiction, you can join us for the nonfiction meeting. If you plan to read both, please join us for both.
For our inaugural month, we’ve selected two exceptional books.
Nonfiction – River Kings by Cat Jarman (2021)
Fiction – James by Percival Everett (2024)
HOW TO JOIN?
We want the book club experience to be as simple as possible. So there are just three things you need to do.
1. GET A COPY OF EACH BOOK
Feel free to enjoy the books in any format you prefer – whether that be as an audiobook, via Kindle, a traditional physical copy or from your local library.
2. SIGN UP TO ONE NONFICTION AND ONE FICTION ZOOM SESSION
To make sure groups are not too big, we have decided to run a few nonfiction and fiction sessions. Each session will be lightly structured and will last approximately 1 hour. Please note that session times are GMT.
NONFICTION SESSIONS (River Kings by Cat Jarman)
- 1PM, WED 29 JANUARY
- 5.30PM, WED 29 JANUARY
- 7PM WED 29 JANUARY
- 8.30PM, THURS 30 JANUARY
- 11:30PM (GMT) / 6:30PM (EST), THURS 30 JANUARY
- 5.30PM, FRI 31 JANUARY
FICTION SESSIONS (James by Percival Everett)
- 8.30PM, WED 29 JANUARY
- 11:30PM (GMT) / 6:30PM (EST), WED 29 JANUARY
- 1PM, THURS 30 JANUARY
- 5.30PM, THURS 30 JANUARY
- 7PM, THURS 30 JANUARY
- 7PM, FRI 31 JANUARY
If you would like to stick with the same group each month, make a note of the day and time you have signed up for. We will schedule the same times and days at the end of every month.
3. ENJOY READING!
Enjoy immersing yourself in different histories. At the beginning of January, we’ll send an email to those who have signed up to a session with a short list of talking points to consider for each title.