A man tells a bedtime story while worrying about a late-running wife's return home in the latest sub-180 book under discussion

Doors 6.30pm for a 7pm start

The Short Books Book Club is a book club focussing on titles of 180 pages or less! The fifth edition will see us discussing The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra. Mention the book club when you buy a copy from the shop and you'll get 10% off!

Verónica is late, and Julián is increasingly convinced she won't ever come home. To pass the time, he improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man tending to a bonsai tree on the weekends.

He is a narrator, an architect, a chronicler of other people's stories. But as the night stretches on before him, and the hours pass with no sign of Verónica, Julián finds himself caught up in the slipstream of the story of his life – of their lives together. What combination of desire and coincidence led them here, to this very night? What will the future – and possibly motherless – Daniela think of him and his stories? Why tell stories at all? The Private Lives of Trees, Alejandro Zambra’s second novel, now published in the UK for the first time in a revised translation by Megan McDowell, overflows with his signature wit and his gift for crafting short novels that manage to contain whole worlds.

Join us after shop hours for a chill, semi-structued chat about the book with a selection of hot and cold soft drinks offered free of charge. Feel free to bring booze or snacks, just know it'll be on a strictly BYOB and BYOS basis.

Description supplied by the event organiser.