Secret Book Swap | No. 9 - Currie October 2025
Books We Swapped:
Unwritten Woman – Hannah Lavery
In this bold and lyrical collection, Lavery re‑claims the stories of women who were left in the margins, from those in Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde to women of colour navigating Edinburgh’s hidden histories. With poetry that oscillates between outrage and tenderness, she issues a call to rethink whose voices we read and rememberEleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
Eleanor lives a meticulously ordered life until one random act of kindness cracks her routines and forces her to confront a past she’s suppressed. With humour, heartbreak, and surprising warmth, this novel traces her awkward, courageous climb toward connection and healing.Weyward – Emilia Hart
Across three timelines, three women—Kate, Altha and Violet—grapple with confinement, inheritance, and their place in a world that fears powerful women. Linked by blood and bound to nature, their stories echo through Weyward Cottage, where secrets linger in roots and birdsong. With gothic notes and a spell of earthy resilience, this is a tale of magic, survival, and the wildness that refuses to be tamed.The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
Spanning decades, Allende spins the saga of the Trueba family, weaving together politics, love, ghosts and revolution in a Latin American landscape. With a rich cast of unforgettable characters, this magical realist masterpiece captures the sweep of history and the pulse of memory.Unexpected Gifts: Stories of Change
This anthology brings together voices from around the globe reflecting on mid‑life inflection points—when routines break, assumptions dissolve, and unexpected change emerges. Through essays and short stories, the contributors show how transformation often arrives wrapped in ordinary moments.Broken Country – Clare Leslie Hall
When Odàna returns to her remote island to care for her dying grandmother, she uncovers long‑buried secrets about the land, the sea and her own lineage. Hall’s atmospheric novel is a study in heritage, grief and the landscapes we carry inside us.Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
Part memoir, part life‑guide, McConaughey shares anecdotes from his acting career, fatherhood and reflective solo road‑trips. He distills moments of struggle into “greenlights” of going‑forward and offers a playful blueprint for living with authenticity and grit.The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
In 12th‑century England, the building of a grand cathedral sets off a web of ambition, love, betrayal and faith. Follett’s epic novel combines sweep, depth and historical drama as characters from peasants to nobles chart lives beneath changing skies.Boudicca’s Daughter – Elodie Harper
Torn between the Roman world and Celtic loyalties, Boudicca’s daughter Idonea navigates a dangerous journey from oppressed Celt to reluctant leader. Harper re‑imagines the revolt led by Boudicca through the eyes of a woman caught between worlds—charged with vengeance, survival and legacy.The Missing – Jane Casey
Jenny Shephard is twelve years old and missing. Her teacher, Sarah Finch, knows better than most that the chances of finding her alive are diminishing every day. As a little girl Sarah's older brother went out to play and never come home. The strain of not knowing what happened to him tore her family apart. When Sarah finds Jenny's body, beaten and abandoned in the woods near her home, she is drawn into the heart of the investigation and a media storm.
Her presence at the scene arouses suspicions. But it is not just the police that are watching her...Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch
Maverick PC Peter Grant is recruited into London’s secret magical underworld, where the River Thames is both a suspect and a weapon. Told with humour and creative flair, Aaronovitch turns urban fantasy into a detective story steeped in city‑myth and bureaucratic absurdities.The Light We Lost – Jill Santopolo
Lucy and Gabe meet on 9/11 and share a passionate connection. Over years of ambition, tragedy and geographic distance, they repeatedly cross paths, each time asking: what is the cost of love—and what do we owe to the dreams we abandon? Santopolo writes a tender, bittersweet meditation on love, choice and memory.
Our Guest , Katie Ailes
Dr. Katie Ailes is a poet, educator, producer, and dancer based in Edinburgh. She serves as the Education and Access Director for I Am Loud CIC, Scotland's premiere spoken word organisation, and has delivered hundreds of events, workshops, and digital materials with them since 2015.
She has performed and published her poetry across the UK and internationally; her poem "Outwith" was recognised in the Scottish Poetry Library's 'Best of the Best Scottish Poems' list (2019) and in 2023 she featured as the Glastonbury Festival Poet in Residence.
A leading researcher of performed poetics, her PhD (2020) innovated a taxonomy for performed and perceived strands of authenticity in UK spoken word, and she serves on the advisory board of the Embodied Voices Research Network.
Katie is also a classically trained dancer and choreographer interested in the intersection between speech and movement.
I’ve admired Katie since first seeing her perform with Loud Poets at the Storytelling Centre earlier this year.
Katie is as lovely as she is talented and after hearing about our group she said she'd love to come along and join us for an evening to will talk about her writing, storytelling through performance and share one of her poems with us.
We are so grateful to you Katie for joining us. Thank you
Banned Book Reading
Misery, Stephen King
This month we talked about Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls, one of TV’s most famous book lovers. Over seven seasons she’s rarely seen without a book in hand, and fans have tracked every single title she reads or mentions. That list includes more than 400 books, and it’s become a kind of reading challenge for fans around the world.
When we compared Rory’s list to PEN America’s latest Index of School Book Bans, we found that 38 of her books — almost one in ten were impacted by the bans in U.S. schools.
We talked about how this fits into a much wider pattern. Since 2021, U.S. schools have recorded over 22,000 book bans, with nearly 7,000 in the past school year alone. The bans now cover 23 states, and in some districts, even a single parent complaint can see a title removed.
Looking at the lists, many of the banned titles are the same ones that shaped readers like Rory: 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Kite Runner, Beloved, Slaughterhouse-Five, and the author who now tops the list, Stephen King, with more than 200 bans across 87 of his titles.
The one that stood out to me was Misery, (not least because it’s an all time favourite of mine) which became our banned book reading for the night. It’s one of King’s most intense and unsettling novels, the story of Paul Sheldon, a novelist held captive by his “number one fan,” Annie Wilkes.
For our reading, we shared a tense scene where Paul begins to realise the danger he’s in and how completely he depends on Annie for his life and pain relief. It’s disturbing, but also a powerful reminder of how fear and power can twist even acts of care.
Join us at future secret book swaps: