Reading Group: Normal People

Wednesday 8 January, 19.30-21.00, & Saturday 11 January, 15.30-17.00

In January the Reading Group will discuss Normal People, the award-winning novel by Irish author Sally Rooney.

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

The 2018 Waterstones Book of the Year and the 2018 Costa Novel of the Year, Normal People is a fresh, powerful love story for the 21st Century. It prompted the New York Times to call Sally Rooney "the first great millennial novelist".

The Reading Group is free and you don't need to book in advance. Reserve a copy of Normal People HERE