The Booker Bookies book club at the Ipswich Public Library welcomes those with a love (whether blossoming or cultivated) for English literature, especially recognizable works of "literary fiction" published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The selections for Booker Bookies are fiction titles that have either won the Booker Prize or were shortlisted entries. Booker Prize entries are often literature that feature diverse and challenging stories, characters, and settings. Book club members should be prepared to read and discuss novels that may feature mature content.

Join Assistant Library Director Stephen this month for a discussion of Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, the 2020 Booker Prize winner. Physical copies will be available to pick up in the Library and an eBook version is also available through Overdrive and Libby. 

"1981, Glasgow. The city is dying. Poverty is on the rise. When her philandering husband walks out, leaving her with three children, Agnes turns to alcohol for comfort. The children try their best to save her. Yet one by one they have to abandon her in order to save themselves. Shuggie still holds out hope. But Shuggie has problems of his own, despite all his efforts to pass as ‘normal’. Agnes wants to protect her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everything. And everyone." 

Background: "The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. It is a prize that transforms the winner’s career. The winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors. Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a global readership and can expect a dramatic increase in book sales."

Please include either an email address or phone number with your registration so that you can be notified if the book club meeting is canceled or postponed due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances.