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Join us on Thursday at 3PM to chat about the book!

Parsons Pleasure

by Roald Dahl

Read the Book as a PDF: Parsons Pleasure

Listen to the Book: Parsons Pleasure

This week in the Book Club we will be reading 'Parsons Pleasure' by Roald Dahl. Boggis is a skilled antiques dealer who has a small shop in Chelsea, London. He manages to make a profit each year by buying valuable furniture cheaply from unsuspecting country people while posing as a clergyman and president of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. 

One trip sees him exploring Buckinghamshire where he find hidden away in a old farm house a Chippendale Commode, one that matches the three famous existing pieces known as 'The Chippendale Commodes'. Certain of the pricless nature of the peice, he proceeds to haggle the famer down as low as he can go.

This story explores not only the nature of greed and honnesty but in a brilliantly Dahl fashion is filled with great humour, insightfuly real characters, and most important of all...a twist! 

Every Thursday at 3PM we will explore a new book and tale from various different writers. Read the book in advance or listen to our available audio recordings of the stories and then join us for a chat about the story and its deeper themes and meanings.

About the Author

Roald Dahl is the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and a treasury of original, evergreen, and beloved children’s books. He remains for many the world’s No. 1 storyteller.

Born in Llandaff, Wales, on 13th September 1916 to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg, Dahl was named after Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who had been the first man to reach the South Pole just four years earlier. A heroic start in life. But his early years were blighted by the tragic deaths of his older sister, Astri, and his father.

Wanting the best for her only son, his mother sent him to boarding school - first to St Peter's, Weston-super-Mare; then, in 1929, to Repton - where many bizarre and memorable events would later be recounted in Boy. Pupils at Repton were invited to trial chocolate bars, a memory that stayed with Dahl throughout his life, inspiring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Despite his death in 1990 Dahl’s own life story continues to play out through his fiction. In many of his stories the reader experiences Dahl’s metamorphosis into his own characters – with similarities seen between Dahl and several of his heroic creations in his children’s books.

How to join the club to chat

The zoom link to join will apear above on this page at 3PM on Thursday. To join you will need a phone/tablet or laptop with a built in camera and microphone (most modern devices come with this) you may need to download the zoom app onto your phone if you are using a phone to join.

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