WICE upcoming events

LG101 The New Yorker: Short Stories (10 Aug 2026)

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:00:00 GMT

WICE’s “The New Yorker Short Story Group” is for anyone interested in reading short stories written by some of today’s very best emerging and established authors. Each discussion will focus on short stories published in The New Yorker in the preceding month.

The stories to be discussed on August 10th are:

"Testing" by Min Jin Lee

"The Twice-Widowed Khala Helai," by Jamil Jan Kochai

Visit The New Yorker Fiction & Poetry page to find a complete list of New Yorker short stories (listed in chronological order beginning with the most recently published).

Registration opens on Tuesday, 14 July.

LS081 Classic Noir Mysteries: To Be Determined (08 Sep 2026)

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The September book selection and description will be posted on or about Wednesday, 12 August (or before).

Step into the elegant, puzzle-filled world of Classic Noir Mysteries, a period from the 1920s through the early 1950s when detective fiction flourished and many of the genre’s most enduring conventions took shape. These novels are built around intricate, fair-play puzzles meant to be solved by the reader as much as by the detective. They often unfold in contained settings—country houses, quiet villages, snowbound estates—where a small cast of suspects creates both intimacy and tension. Despite the murders at their center, these stories maintain an atmosphere of charm, wit, and civility, and they introduce some of literature’s most iconic sleuths, including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Our Classic Noir Mysteries book club invites readers to explore this rich era over the course of five monthly meetings, each dedicated to one influential work. Together, we’ll examine clever plots, surprising twists, and the social worlds that shaped these beloved stories. Whether you’re new to classic detective fiction or already a fan, this group offers a warm and lively space to enjoy and discuss these timeless whodunits.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days before the group meets, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration opens on Saturday, 8 August.

LS111 The Long View: To Be Determined (11 Sep 2026)

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:00:00 GMT

"The Long View: Our Human Odyssey" is a nonfiction book group that will consider books that are oriented towards helping us understand what we—as humans—are, how we arrived here in evolutionary terms (physical, cultural, etc.), and our place in the world.

To date we have read and discussed:

"A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes,"" by Adam Rutherford.
Salt: A World History" — Mark Kurlansky
"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" — Yuval Noah Harari

Some of the other titles we are considering for future sessions are:

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" — Jared Diamond
"The Dawn of Everything" — David Graeber and David Wengrow
"The Righteous Mind" — Jonathan Haidt
"Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" — Richard Wrangham

Because these books tend to be longer than the books that are read and discussed in our monthly fiction book groups, we meet approximately every 8 - 10 weeks.

LS141 The New Yorker: Short Stories (14 Sep 2026)

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:00:00 GMT

WICE’s “New Yorker Short Story Group” is for anyone interested in reading short stories and novellas written by some of today’s very best emerging and established authors. Each monthly discussion will focus on 2 stories recently published in the New Yorker. Selections will be announced at the beginning of the month of the next scheduled meeting.

Registration opens on Friday, 14 August.

Stories for September will be announced on or about 1 September.

LS171 Living Room Players: Play To Be Determined (17 Sep 2026)

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The September play selection and description will be posted on or about Friday, 28 August (or before).

The general concept of The Living Room Players is that people receive the script by email about a week before the reading, and then roles are assigned at the meeting. Attendees sit around a living room and simply read their parts with as much theatrical flourish as they care to give (but there are no expectations of real acting).

The readings take place at a member's apartment in the Marais. The address, door code, and phone number are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered seven days before the event, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the September reading opens on Monday, 17 August.

LS181 Café Littéraire: "The Great Swindle," by Pierre Lemaitre (18 Sep 2026)

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The Great Swindle is a sweeping, picaresque epic that examines the "murky virtues of remembrance" in the hollow aftermath of World War I. The story begins in the final, desperate days of the war, when the ruthless Lieutenant Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle orchestrates a senseless skirmish, an act of treachery that binds together the fates of two subordinates: Albert Maillard, a timid former bank clerk, and Édouard Péricourt, a brilliant artist from a wealthy family. While saving Albert’s life, Édouard is hideously disfigured—becoming a gueule cassée (broken face)—and subsequently fakes his own death to avoid returning to his estranged father.

Moving from the trenches to the "glittering but dark" streets of 1920s Paris, the narrative follows the two veterans as they struggle with poverty, morphine addiction, and a society that seems to "revere its dead more than its survivors". In a cynical act of revenge against the country that abandoned them, they devise an audacious scam: selling fraudulent monuments to honor the very war heroes the nation is so eager to memorialize. Meanwhile, the villainous Pradelle launches a ghoulish swindle of his own, profiting from the exhumation and reburial of fallen soldiers in cut-rate coffins.

Lemaitre, a master of suspense, employs a dry, ironic tone to craft a "darkly comic requiem" that feels like a 19th-century novel updated with modern clinical precision. A strong discussion angle for the group is Lemaitre’s exploration of the "great swindle" of the title—whether it refers to the characters’ specific scams or the broader, abominable treatment of the ordinary soldier by a state more interested in the aesthetics of grief than the reality of its victims.

Winner of the 2013 Prix Goncourt.

The book group meets at the organizer's apartment. The directions, door code, telephone number, etc., are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails, following registration.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the September meeting opens on Saturday, 29 August.

LS251 Booker Books: "Flashlight," by Susan Choi (25 Sep 2026)

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Flashlight is a sprawling and ambitious historical saga that mines the "tides of 20th-century history" to explore the enduring ripples of family trauma. The narrative is set in motion during a summer in a coastal Japanese town, where ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk—a Korean émigré and academic—take a walk out on a breakwater. When Louisa wakes hours later, washed up on the beach, her father has vanished, an event that shatters her small family and leaves a void that reverberates across decades and continents.

The novel skillfully criss-crosses between the post-war Korean immigrant community in Japan, the rigid North Korean regime, and the quiet suburbs of America. As the mystery of Serk’s disappearance slowly unravels, the story expands to include Anne, Louisa’s secretive and increasingly isolated mother, and Tobias, the son Anne was forced to give up for adoption years earlier, who eventually drifts back into their lives. Choi balances these "intimate dramas" with "geopolitically bold" themes, moving from a poignant family mystery into a riveting exploration of identity, race, and national belonging.

Elegantly written and emotionally profound, Flashlight is described by critics as both a "capacious" historical reconstruction and a high-concept meditation on the "unreliable edges" of memory. A strong discussion angle for the group is Choi’s use of "narrative layers" and how the characters are shaped more by what they cannot see or remember than by the objective truths of their past.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and longlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Registration for the September meeting opens on Friday, 28 August.

LO021 Murder, They Read: Bloody Scotland (02 Oct 2026)

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Bloody Scotland -- An anthology of stories by notable Scottish authors providing opportunities to explore some iconic Scottish locales in the context of crime. Also this would be our first sortie into the anthology form.

"From murder in an ancient Iron Age broch and a macabre act of revenge in an 18th-century mill, to a psychological thriller set within the throng of Edinburgh Castle and a rivalry that turns deadly in an abandoned modernist ruin, these tales expose the dark and deadly connections between people and places."

https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2019/03/bloody-scotland-origin-story/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bloody-Scotland-Lin-Anderson/dp/1849176663

Availability: amazon.co.uk paperback & kindle; Momox; orderable from Shakespeare & Co

Registration opens on Saturday, 05 September.

LO121 Classic Noir Mysteries: To Be Determined (12 Oct 2026)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The October book selection and description will be posted on or about Wednesday, 9 September (or before).

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days before the group meets, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration opens on Wednesday, 9 September.

LO121 The New Yorker: Short Stories (12 Oct 2026)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:00:00 GMT

Stories for Monday, 12 October will be announced on or about 1 October.

Registration opens on Wednesday, 9 September.

LO151 Living Room Players: Play To Be Determined (15 Oct 2026)

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The October play selection and description will be posted on or about Friday, 18 September (or before).

The readings take place at a member's apartment in the Marais. The address, door code, and phone number are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered seven days before the event, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the October reading opens on Friday, 18 September.

LO161 Café Littéraire: Book To Be Determined (16 Oct 2026)

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The October book selection and description will be posted on or about Saturday, 19 September (or before).

The Café Littéraire book group reads and discusses—in English—books that were written in French and are available in translation. Books are chosen from across the French-speaking world, and have ranged from Flaubert's classic Madame Bovary to Amélie Nothomb's Fear and Trembling (Stupeur et tremblements) to Laurent Binet's HHhH.

The book group meets at the organizer's apartment. The directions, door code, telephone number, etc., are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails, following registration.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the October meeting opens on Saturday, 19 September.

LO231 Booker Books: Book To Be Determined (23 Oct 2026)

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The October book selection and description will be posted on or about Saturday, 26 September (or before).

The Booker Book group reads and discusses—in English—books that have either received, or been on the short list for, the Booker Prize.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the October meeting opens on Saturday, 26 September.

LN061 Murder, They Read: Better the Blood (06 Nov 2026)

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Better the Blood -- Michael Bennett, New Zealand.

Per amazon.com: An absorbing, clever debut thriller that speaks to the longstanding injustices faced by New Zealand’s indigenous peoples, by an acclaimed Māori screenwriter and director. Kirkus Reviews characterises the book as "a striking debut and a significant addition to Indigenous literature."

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-bennett/better-the-blood/

Availability: amazon.com in several formats; orderable from Shakespeare and Co, Momox

Registration opens on Saturday, 03 October.

LN091 The New Yorker: Short Stories (09 Nov 2026)

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:00:00 GMT

Stories for Monday, 9 November will be announced on or about 1 November.

Registration opens on Tuesday, 13 October.

LN101 Classic Noir Mysteries: To Be Determined (10 Nov 2026)

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The November book selection and description will be posted on or about Wednesday, 13 October (or before).

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days before the group meets, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration opens on Wednesday, 13 October.

LN131 The Long View: To Be Determined (13 Nov 2026)

Fri, 13 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT

To date we have read and discussed:

"A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes,"" by Adam Rutherford.
Salt: A World History" — Mark Kurlansky
"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" — Yuval Noah Harari

Some of the other titles we are considering for future sessions are:

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" — Jared Diamond
"The Dawn of Everything" — David Graeber and David Wengrow
"The Righteous Mind" — Jonathan Haidt
"Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" — Richard Wrangham

Because these books tend to be longer than the books that are read and discussed in our monthly fiction book groups, we meet approximately every 8 - 10 weeks.

LN191 Living Room Players: Play To Be Determined (19 Nov 2026)

Thu, 19 Nov 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The November play selection and description will be posted on or about Friday, 16 October (or before).

The readings take place at a member's apartment in the Marais. The address, door code, and phone number are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered seven days before the event, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the November reading opens on Friday, 16 October.

LN201 Café Littéraire: Book To Be Determined (20 Nov 2026)

Fri, 20 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The November book selection and description will be posted on or about Saturday, 17 October (or before).

The book group meets at the organizer's apartment. The directions, door code, telephone number, etc., are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails, following registration.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the November meeting opens on Saturday, 17 October.

LN271 Booker Books: Book To Be Determined (27 Nov 2026)

Fri, 27 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The November book selection and description will be posted on or about Saturday, 24 October (or before).

The Booker Book group reads and discusses—in English—books that have either received, or been on the short list for, the Booker Prize.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the November meeting opens on Saturday, 24 October.

LD041 Murder, They Read: Razorblade Tears (04 Dec 2026)

Fri, 04 Dec 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Razorblade Tears -- SA Cosby, Southeastern USA. I found this title to be absorbing and a fast read. Set in the Southeastern USA. Made a number of recommended reading lists, including Barack Obama's summer reading list. From Kirkus Reviews: "Violence and love go hand in hand in this...lean, mean crime story about 2 bereaved fathers getting their hands bloody."

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/s-cosby/razorblade-tears/

Availability: American Library in Paris, Momox (physical), orderable from Shakespeare & Co, Smith&Son, amazon.com

Registration opens on Saturday, 07 November.

LD081 Classic Noir Mysteries: To Be Determined (08 Dec 2026)

Tue, 08 Dec 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The December book selection and description will be posted on or about Wednesday, 11 (or before).

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days before the group meets, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration opens on Wednesday, 11 November.

LD141 The New Yorker: Short Stories (14 Dec 2026)

Mon, 14 Dec 2026 16:00:00 GMT

Stories for Monday, 14 December will be announced on or about 1 December.

Registration opens on Tuesday, 10 November.

LD171 Living Room Players: Play To Be Determined (17 Dec 2026)

Thu, 17 Dec 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The December play selection and description will be posted on or about Friday, 20 November (or before).

The readings take place at a member's apartment in the Marais. The address, door code, and phone number are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered seven days before the event, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the December reading opens on Friday, 16 November.

LD181 Café Littéraire: Book To Be Determined (18 Dec 2026)

Fri, 18 Dec 2026 14:00:00 GMT

The December book selection and description will be posted on or about Saturday, 21 November (or before).

The book group meets at the organizer's apartment. The directions, door code, telephone number, etc., are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails, following registration.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered by five days prior to the meeting, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

Registration for the November meeting opens on Saturday, 21 November.