Sophie Mayer

I'm very pleased to be leading the first ever Bishopsgate Institute lunchtime book club, which will be running on alternate Mondays from September 12th, 12-1pm. If you work/stufy/live in the City or East End, this is a perfect way to meet people, get engaged and -- most importantly -- read some excellent books.

As part of the 'Whose Mind is it Anyway?' season at the Institute, the book club is explored the Edge of Mind. We'll read work by poets and novelists who have experienced institutionalisation for mental illness and written about it frankly, observantly and with humour, rage and love. 

Here's the reading list:

Introductory week: excerpts from "Jubilate Agno" by Christopher Smart; "Journey Out of Essex" and letters from the asylum by John Clare (to be supplied as photocopies)

Week Two: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

Week Three: Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Week Four: Janet Frame, An Angel at My Table

Week Five: Comparisons between An Angel at My Table and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Week Six: Allen Ginsberg, Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems

All the books will be available from September at 10% discount from Clerkenwell Tales