This January, our Book of the Month is a title chosen by Goldster members. We’ll be reading and chatting about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by the Scottish author Muriel Spark on Friday 27 January, at 12pm – recently chosen as one of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the best known of all Spark’s novels, both in its own right and because of the fame of the film inspired by it. The novel, which was published in 1961, is set in 1930s Edinburgh and focuses on a group of six schoolgirls and their relationship with their awe-inspiring teacher. As Miss Brodie shapes the ways in which the 10-year-old girls start to behave and think, they become set apart from the rest of the children at their school and earn the nickname of ‘the Brodie set’ – something they carry proudly into their secondary school career. It is only in later life that Miss Jean Brodie will learn that love and blind loyalty can also lead to betrayal.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has become an icon of 20th-century literature. Whether you’re reading it for the first time, or re-reading a much-loved classic, join Lucinda Hawksley to chat about the book and all things Goldster in our monthly community Book Club event.