Janet Ferguson explains why you should join Wokingham Literary Society and some of the highlights to tempt you this month.

Looking for something new to do during those long dark winter evenings?

Wokingham Literary Society will begin the New Year on Thursday, 17th January, with a talk by Martin Hughes entitled Comedy Thrillers.

The speaker will explain that it is far more common to hear the phrase “comedy thriller” referring to films than books. For comedy, do we need pictures as well as words? Is it because of the ability of pictures to combine attractive people and amusing lifestyles amid sad and scary events while words alone remain too close to the event’s sad and serious nature? Martin will look mainly at three books which amuse us even amid their thriller plots; Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, Christopher Brookmyre’s The Sacred Art of Stealing, and P.G.Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning.

The society’s second speaker on Thursday, 31st January is Jill Swale who will look at The Language of Persuasion – the techniques from famous speeches, literature and the press. Jill plans to explain why Tony Blair’s “Education, education, education”, Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (“of the people, by the people, for the people”), are so effective and well-remembered. She’ll look at how writers use loaded language and rhetorical questions to sway the reader, appealing to particular emotions.

New members and visitors welcome. £2 on the door.