Existential Reading Group (Grenoside)

An informal, friendly, online group (of no more than 8 participants).

Please join the waitlist if the event has sold out.

July's book choice: "Soul Mountain" by Gao Xingjian

This is an unconventional novel that asks: can we ever truly know ourselves, or are we always becoming someone new? What remains when certainty, social expectations, and familiar narratives fall away? The novel explores freedom, solitude, memory, mortality, our relationship with nature, and the search for meaning in an often ambiguous world. It asks us not simply to follow a story, but to pay attention to our own experience as readers and to reflect on the ways we each construct identity, purpose, and belonging.

(This group is also available online on the same day 4.30-6.30pm)

This ongoing bi-monthly Existential Reading Group is for anyone with an interest in exploring existential themes (e.g. love, freedom, responsibility, death, meaning, hope, joy, loneliness, etc.) through literature and discussion of literature, both fiction and non-fiction.

The aim of the workshop is to enable participants to enhance their well-being through developing self-awareness, self-understanding and self-connection through reading and discussion.

The group is part book club, part philosophy group, with (hopefully) some therapeutic benefit. No experience of attending anything like this before is necessary.

What you will need: Ideally, but not essentially, to have read the book (or some of it) up for discussion, and an open, curious mind.

Teas, coffees and light refreshments (including vegan options) will be provided.

Please note: these workshops are for adults aged 18 and over. Refunds are only available up to 7 days before the event.

About the Facilitator

The facilitator, Emma Garrard, is a Biblio/Poetry Therapist and philosophy graduate with over 20 years' experience facilitating groups (more information about Emma can be found here: www.wordsforwellness.co.uk.