Nothing says relaxing summer reading like the nostalgia of a familiar story – and that’s what we’re reading this book club! Every book on our selection was a rewritten classic. The winning book, and the one we will be discussing, is The Hours by Michael Cunningham, a retelling of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.

In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel. A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to escape and read her precious copy of Mrs Dalloway. And Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich village apartment in 1990s New York to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend.

The Hours recasts the classic story of Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway in a startling new light. Moving effortlessly across the decades and between England and America, this exquisite novel intertwines the worlds of three unforgettable women.

Join us on 5th August at our temporary location (we’re still looking for a new permanent place, after Mabel’s closed down – if you have any suggestions please message Book Club co-ordinator Bea on Twitter at @bea_a_bea) of the cafe at Waterstones Piccadilly Circus. Book Club is free and welcomes both members and non-members.