Slade House by David Mitchell will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 16 November.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.
You can win 10 copies of this fantastic book for your reading group! We even have an exclusive extract for you to read first.
Slade House
Born out of the short story David Mitchell published on Twitter in 2014 and inhabiting the same universe as The Bone Clocks, this is the perfect book to curl up with on a dark and stormy night.
Turn down Slade Alley – narrow, dank and easy to miss, even when you’re looking for it. Find the small black iron door set into the right-hand wall. No handle, no keyhole, but at your touch it swings open. Enter the sunlit garden of an old house that doesn’t quite make sense; too grand for the shabby neighbourhood, too large for the space it occupies.
A stranger greets you by name and invites you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t.
This unnerving, taut and intricately woven tale begins in 1979 and reaches its turbulent conclusion around Hallowe’en, 2015. Because every nine years, on the last Saturday of October, a ‘guest’ is summoned to Slade House. But why has that person been chosen, by whom and for what purpose? The answers lie waiting in the long attic, at the top of the stairs…
Selection panel review
Our reading panel of staff from The Reading Agency and public library staff loved Slade House – here are some of their comments:
“I’d never read a David Mitchell book before but Slade House had me captivated from the first few pages. A haunting and engaging ghost story that spans 5 decades, it had me on the edge of my seat and every now and then laughing out loud. The author’s attention to detail was wonderful and as the story progressed I found myself reminiscing about things from my childhood. Mitchell’s eclectic mix of characters were well developed and the only problem was that it ended too soon.”
“David Mitchell is a multi skilled writer who uses an experimental perspective to tell a story. Although I sometimes find his work challenging I found Slade House an intriguing page turner. It managed to stir my imagination and I easily devoured the book. Beautiful storytelling with touches of cleverly woven chills along the way”
About the author
David Mitchell is the author of the novels Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and The Bone Clocks. He has won the John Llewellyn Rhys, Geoffrey Faber Memorial and South Bank Show Literature Prizes, and been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize. In 2003, David Mitchell was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
A word from David
“I’m honoured that a novel of mine has been chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club a second time, and I hope that everyone who enters the small black iron door into Slade House with Reading Groups for Everyone has a memorable experience. Memorable in a good way. (Just don’t eat or drink anything offered by your hosts, or your stay might be longer than you intended.) Also, a big thank you to the hundreds of librarians across the UK and Ireland who take it upon themselves to run reading groups for the cultural health of their communities. You are the champions of something profound and precious.”
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 16 November to hear a live interview with David talking about his book.
Win 10 copies of the chilling Slade House for your reading group – just visit our Noticeboard.
Have you read Slade House or any other books by David Mitchell? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter, or post a review. You can also follow author David Mitchell on Twitter.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website
