Found in Translation is our newest book club which started in late 2025.
The group meets on the third Wednesday of every alternate month from 5pm to 6.30pm in the bookshop (please note new timing for 2026). Occasionally the date is moved to accommodate holidays.
Books will be chosen in advance and will rotate around the globe; specifically with the aim of looking at how words are interpreted in translation.
JOIN THE CLUB
The book club meetings are seated events, so places are limited, and events can get pretty full. Please email Jules on jules@northbooks.co.uk to add your name to the list. Participation is free and if the book is purchased in advance from North Books a 10% discount is offered.
At North Books, 4 Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye on Wednesday 23 September, 5-6.30pm.
THE BOOK
July’s bookgroup met in the bookshop garden room to reflect on year one’s reads.
For this, our first meeting of the group’s second year, we will look at the latest Pushkin translation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (photo above). We’ll also be discussing other earlier translations of this title in order to compare and contrast the changing views of society. Let us know if you are interested in finding out more…
'One of the undisputed classics of contemporary European literature' Independent
'A monumental writer' Sunday Telegraph
A stunning fresh translation of one of the most powerful stories of desire and undoing in modern literature
Erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach lives a life of structured routine. One day, as he puzzles over his stubborn writer's block, Aschenbach has a dazzling vision that leaves him with a restless urge to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.
On checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture.
Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in the city, Aschenbach chooses to stay close to Tadzio, his mind swirling with mad desire.
Classical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, Death in Venice is an enormously powerful story of one man's undoing.
Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand picked from around the globe.
Translated by Lesley Chamberlain
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was perhaps Germany's most famous twentieth-century writer. Born to a merchant family in Lübeck, Mann was preparing to enter the family business when his father suddenly died and the business was liquidated. The Manns moved to Munich, where Mann began his literary career with the epic novel Buddenbrooks (1901), which was a huge success.
Further novels and stories followed, including Death in Venice (1912) and The Magic Mountain (1924); five years following publication of the latter novel, Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When Hitler came to power, Mann fled to Switzerland, and from there he escaped to California at the outbreak of the Second World War. He is buried in Switzerland, where he spent his final years.