The First Wednesday Book Club – Jonathan Coe: Bournville

The First Wednesday Book Club

A deep dive into great books we really love in conversation with their authors.

For the 2026 National Year of Reading we are delighted to be launching LAR’s First Wednesday Book Club, a conversation on the first Wednesday of each month with a writer about one of their books, sometimes a new publication, and sometimes a classic from their back catalogue. The format is a 45-minute interview followed by a half-hour audience Q&A and a book-signing. All the events are open to everyone. If you’d like to read the books beforehand they can be purchased at a special LAR discount from our partner, Stanton Stephens at Castle Books, and may be borrowed from Ludlow Library.

The series is curated and chaired by Peter Florence, Director of The Conversation at St Martin in the Fields in London and founder of book festivals from Brazil to Bangladesh via London and Hay.

Jonathan Coe: Bournville

Bournville is a brilliantly funny story about Britain and Englishness and chocolate that sweeps four generations of one family from VE Day in 1945 and the 1966 Word Cup Final to Brexit and Covid. It’s one of the most generous and heartwarming state-of-the-nation novels in contemporary literature from the Birmingham writer who has won both the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, for his biography of BS Johnson Like a Fiery Elephant, and the Bolllinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction for The Rotters Club.

European Festivals Forest 

We are working to mitigate our event's carbon footprint with simple and transparent climate action. Please help us by planting a tree for just £2 in the European Festivals Forest. You can opt in at checkout.