Thought we'd read the book that's currently the topic on many lips at the moment – The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. It also recently won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the Best Book for South East Asia and the Pacific region and is shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award which will be announced next month

Date: Tuesday 30th June 2009
Time: 7pm
Where: Lord Dudley upstairs by the burning log cozy fire!

The scene: a suburban barbecue where a man slaps a child who is not his own.

The outcome: a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness.

Hope to see you on the 30th.

Thanks and hope you love the read.

Sophie