Blokes + Beer + Books = Good Times!
I’ve been an avid reader for longer than I can remember, but I’ve never been a member of a book club. That changed this month!
From a mental health and wellbeing perspective, it’s important for men (and women) to socialise with friends and find a safe space to relax and unwind and talk about how they’re feeling. This is something us men are, traditionally, pretty poor at; only opinions on football are allowed! So, when one of my dad friends approached me and asked if I thought a book club aimed at men was a good idea, I gave a resounding yes.
The Crwys Book Club was born
There were five of us at the inaugural ‘Crwys Book Club’, which was held in the village pub. We even have our own logo! Illustrated by the awesome T.S Wolfe, one of my fellow founders.
However, despite our enthusiasm (and surprise that we’d actually organised something), none of us had been members of a book club before, so this was all new to us. That is perhaps surprising when you consider that the other members include an English teacher, a former English teacher and lecturer in American Literature who is now a librarian, and another former teacher who has just read 35 Discworld novels on the bounce. So, fair to say we’re all readers, but for whatever reason, traditional book clubs haven’t felt like a space for us.
Until now.
It was a great night and we had a few beers and discussed our reading tastes and what we think could work. We each have young children and wives so finding time to read colossal books every month, for example, might not work. Although, we were quickly sidetracked by the pub quiz that happened to be on that night but, thankfully, not before we agreed on our first read and a few general principles going forward.
And the inaugural Crwys Book Club read is…
*Drum roll, please*
Flesh by David Szalay, which was announced this week as the 2025 Booker Prize winner.
Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. Their encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István barely understands, and his life soon spirals out of control.
As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the 21st century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.
Flesh asks profound questions about what drives a life, what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.
I’ve put in my order and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in before discussing it at the next book club meeting in January 2026.
Stay tuned for updates!
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