Past events older
Older Events
Monday 17th July 2023
Film night. Apologies but this event is only open to existing members. Please contact Sheryl to book.
Monday 3rd July 2023
Book group discussion, open to all
7pm, Watershed Cafe Bar
Monday 19th June 2023
Monday 5th June 2023
Book group discussion on Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
7pm, Watershed Cafe Bar
Monday 1 May 2023
Book group discussion on The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk.
7pm, Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Wednesday 3 May 2023
UBC night out – Space Crone book talk
6pm, Bookhaus, Bristol
Ursula Le Guin is a favourite author of UBC. We will be attending this book talk at Bookhaus, join us there. From the Bookhaus event listing:
Space Crone brings together Le Guin’s writings on feminism and gender for the first time, offering new insights into her imaginative, multispecies feminist consciousness: from its roots in deep ecology and philosophies of non-violence to her self-education about racism and her writing on motherhood and ageing.
Sarah Shin, co-founder of Silver Press and editor of this book will be in conversation with Samantha Walton, author of Everybody Needs Beauty.
Monday 3 April 2023
Book group discussion – Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Thursday 9 March 2023
UBC night out!
A social outing to an event of interest happening in Bristol.
7pm
Strange Brew, Bristol
Monday 6 March 2023
Book group discussion – Walden Two by B. F. Skinner
7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Monday 6th February 2023
7pm
Book group discussion
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol, UK
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Monday 9th January
7pm. Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol.
Book group discussion
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Novella by Ursula K. Le Guin, written during the Vietnam War. A group of Terran colonisers have arrived on the forest planet Athshe, where the native Athsheans live peacefully and sustainably amongst the trees. All is disrupted by the Terrans, who are enslaving the natives and plan to clear cut the planet for timber.
For further information on the book, check out friend of UBC Kate Stable’s appearances on Radio 4 discussing The Word for World is Forest on A Good Read and Ursula Le Guin on Great Lives.
For even more background, there is also a presentation on the book by UBC convener Sheryl (me, writing this post) available to view online.
Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
Book group discussion
Monday 5 December, 7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Monday 7 November, 7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Monday 3 October, 7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
Monday 5 September, 7pm
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
7pm Monday 4th July 2022
Watershed Cafe Bar, Bristol
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
7pm Monday 6 June 2022
Watershed, Bristol
They by Kay Dick
Historic special events
Ursula K. Le Guin Appreciation Day
Back in 2016 the Bristol Utopian Book Collective collaborated with Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit), Jesse D. Vernon (of Fantasy Orchestra) and others on an Ursula K. Le Guin Appreciation Day. Le Guin is our most read author in the group and we had a great time. The event is documented in this report by Jesse, including recordings of our Kesh singing. Talk continues of doing another one some day…
Unputdownable (Bristol Festival of Literature) event
Waay back in 2011 we hosted an event as part of Unputdownable, now generally known as Bristol Festival of Literature. It was an informal affair where we chatted to people about the group and the books we had read so far. Looking at the table I can see More’s Utopia, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Fatherland by Robert Harris, and Aldous Huxley’s Island amongst others. Apols for the quality of the photos, cameraphones were sh*t in those days (and probably still called cameraphones, not smartphones, back then).
