Art will be imitating life for a Suffolk book club this month, as a special Jane Austen book club is held ahead of a screening of the film by the same name.
The monthly Ipswich Waterstones book club began around six years ago, and regularly features between 15 and 20 members discussing titles across a range of genres.
This month, the club is celebrating the work of Jane Austen with a book club on Monday, March 19 discussing Persuasion, before heading to Ipswich Film Theatre later that evening for a screening of The Jane Austen Book Club, adapted from the book of the same name.
Ipswich Waterstones bookseller and event organiser Meg Burrows said: “It’s an evening dedicated to her really and her works as an author.
“We had International Women’s Week and did a feature on female authors – there seems to be a well-needed surge of focus on female writers and women in history.
“Jane Austen’s works are so incredible and have been adapted so many times that a lot of people who don’t get on with the books get on with the films.”
Miss Burrows said Austen’s works were always in demand because the characters and plotlines were still as relevant today as they were 200 years ago when they were published.
Much like the Jane Austen Book Club film, the Waterstones book club will feature participants discussing what Austen’s works mean to them, as well as giving readers an alternative view of the famed author’s work.
Jem Gooding, event co-organiser said: “We think it’s clever, and also it’s a slightly different take on the story if people have seen or read Persuasion a thousand times.”
The evening follows a similar format to when Harper Lee’s eagerly-awaited Go Set A Watchman was released in the summer of 2015, where the book club discussed the novel before revisiting the classic film adaptation from 1962 of To Kill A Mockingbird with a special screening at Ipswich Film Theatre.
Miss Gooding said: “We have a lot of local authors coming in, and from a high street point of view it’s nice to get people coming into the store and then take them down to the theatre and have that community relationship.”
The book club starts at 6.30pm with free entry.
The film screening takes place afterwards for a small fee.
Places for the film are limited. Email ipswich@waterstones.com
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