Piranesi
Book Club
Four meetings around a strange, short and beautiful novel: a man, an endless house and a sea that comes and goes. Read it alone, in pairs or round a table.
Susanna Clarke's Piranesi (2020) is a short, strange novel about a man who lives alone in a House of endless halls, with statues in every one and the tide moving through the lower floors. It is calm, mysterious and beautifully written, and readers argue about what it means, which makes it ideal for a book club.
Each of the four meetings takes one part of the book and gives you a summary to read, a simple tool for talking about it, the language you need, and plenty of speaking. Use them one-to-one, in pairs or with a group. The meetings discuss the whole book, including the ending, so finish reading before the last one. The summaries are written in our own words, and the book itself is not quoted at length.
The map — click a meeting
Four meetings, one book. Prefer another book? See Persepolis Book Club.
Who it is for
Adults who read for pleasure and want to talk about what they read: members of book clubs, one-to-one readers and anyone who wants a real conversation in English about a real book. The language level is C1, and the book itself is easy to read but subtle. You need no knowledge of fantasy or literary terms; each meeting explains what you need.
The series
The four meetings
How each meeting works
Ten words, worked out before you read.
The part of the book and its background, in three parts, with a talking point after each.
A simple way to talk about the book, a chance to try it, and where it breaks.
The grammar and phrases you need to write and talk about it.
Timed speaking tasks, then harder questions.