La stagione 2019-2020 si prospetta molto interessante, anche due anteprime di film… have a look!

18-25 October 2019: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
A Gothic novella for Halloween!
First published to critical acclaim in 1886, this mesmerising thriller is a terrifying study of the duality of man’s nature, and is the book which established Stevenson’s reputation as a writer.
A London legal practitioner, Gabriel John Utterson , investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. In seeking to discover his inner self, the brilliant Dr Jekyll discovers a monster.

22-29 November 2019: The Good Liar – Nicholas Searle
Look out for the film with Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren (November!)
This is a life told back to front. This is a man who has lied all his life.
Roy is a conman living in a small English town, about to pull off his final con. He is going to meet and woo a beautiful, lonely, elderly woman. He will swiftly move in with her and together they will live the seemingly calm life of a retired couple – evenings in front of the television, a little holiday in Berlin. Then he will slip away with her life savings.
But who is the man behind the con and what has he had to do to survive this life of lies? And why is this beautiful woman so willing to be his next victim?

17-24 January 2020: Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day
In one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me
Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

21-28 February 2020: Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
XXX by Victorian standards, it initially appeared in a censored version!
Set in Hardy’s Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic.
It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d’Urberville. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy. It explores Tess’s relationships with two very different men, her struggle against the social mores of the rural Victorian world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age.

20-27 March 2020: King Lear – William Shakespeare
A Shakespearian classic!
King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It depicts the gradual descent into madness of the title character, after he disposes of his kingdom by bequeathing his power and land to two of his three daughters in exchange for insincere declarations of love, bringing tragic consequences for all. Derived from the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king, the play has been widely adapted for the stage and film, with the title role coveted by many of the world’s most accomplished actors.

17-24 April 2020: The Rotters’ Club – Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe’s iconic 1970s coming-of-age novel
Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, Jonathan Coe’s tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends’ coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up.
It features, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock, punk rock, bad poetry, first love, love on the side, prefects, detention, a few bottles of Blue Nun, lots of brown wallpaper, industrial strife and divine intervention in the form of a pair of swimming trunks.
The Rotters’ Club is set against the backdrop of the decade’s class struggles, tragic
and riotous by turns, packed with thwarted romance and furtive sex.

22-29 May 2020: poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who founded the Romantic Movement in England with his friend William Wordsworth, and was one of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan and had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism.

June 2020: Mary Poppins – P. L. Travers
You’ve seen the film, sung the songs, but have you read the original? The first book introduces the Banks family from Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, London. When the children’s nanny storms out in a huff, Mary Poppins arrives at their home, complete with carpet bag, blown in by a very strong East wind. She accepts the job and the children soon learn that their nanny, though stern, vain and usually cross, has a magical touch that makes her wonderful.
In the end, in what is perhaps the most iconic image associated with Mary
Poppins, she opens her umbrella and the West wind carries her away.

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Teacher: Jane Upchurch
Cost per lesson (including tea and cake): €18
For information: info@bookbankpiacenza.it

Booking can only be made at the Bookbank:
Monday and Tuesday : h. 16.00-19.30
Wednesday , Friday, Saturday: h 9.30-13 and 16.00-19.30
Thursday and Sunday : closed

Just to remind you of Bookbank’s Teatime rules:

– there are ONLY 10 places for each meeting
– the cost remains 18 euros, because we believe that good things should carry on and because the sacrifices we make are worth it to see you smile.
– you can consider your place booked ONLY AFTER you have paid.
– you will ONLY be refunded if you can’t make a meeting IF you give me 15 days’ notice.
– You can ONLY change the date of the meeting you have booked, IF you give me 15 days’ notice and ONLY IF the group on the chosen date is not already full.
– You can give your place to someone else, or change places with another person in another group… but you MUST remember to let me know (so I know who is coming and who isn’t!)