October Book Club - Life of M (WEDNESDAY)

For October's book club, we'll be reading Life of M by Rachel Cusk.

A little while ago, I told the actor M that I was thinking of writing her autobiography. She liked the idea. She's a good sport. Would you just make it up? she said.

The film star M is one of the most recognizable faces of our time. Her image is everywhere. It has been like that since she was a child.

With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. M may live in the same places as real people. She may meet her friends or collect her children from school or walk her dogs as they do. But it seems the rules of reality have melted away.

Now, a writer has decided to pay close attention to M's life, in the hope of understanding who she really is. It is hard not to feel ugly next to M, hard not to feel insignificant. But what truths-about the very experience of living-might this proximity allow the writer to briefly capture? Is M to play a character in the book, or is it the writer who is acting the role of M?

In this astonishing, explosive novel, Rachel Cusk hunts for the nature of truth without ever swerving away into self-deceptions. She investigates who we are, and pretend to be, at this late stage of modern life when we are hypnotized, more and more effectively, by the images we see everywhere. She shows us that the real value of life might lie not in beauty but in ugliness; in having a self that has survived the violence of the world. Life of M is a beautiful piece of music, audible in a world of noise and spectacle.

The book is included with your ticket! Book your spot online, and we’ll pop a copy of the book aside for you to come in and collect when it’s convenient.

Your ticket also includes small batch, natural sodas from Mischief Brew and snacks, and a $2 donation to Literacy For Life, a First Nations-run charity training local people to deliver literacy classes in their communities.

Book club tickets are non-refundable. Store gift cards cannot be used for events (yet!).

Reading and writing on the unceded land of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples. We respect and acknowledge Elders past and present, and all First Nations storytellers. Every story on our shelves sits alongside the world’s oldest living stories, reminding us that stories are not just read, but also lived and passed on.