Bondi Literary Salon January Breakfast Book Club: The Rachel Incident

Join the Bondi Literary Salon for a very special Breakfast Book Club, hosted by Lucy Pearson! In our gathering, we will be discussing the new novel from Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident.

WHEN: Wednesday, 10th January, 2024, at Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore, please arrive at 6.45am for coffee and nibbles, then we will make our way down to Bondi Beach - weather permitting. 

TICKETS: Admission; $25.00 (excluding external fees). Your ticket includes a coffee and nibbles.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR • A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three

About The Rachel Incident

“If you’ve ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you’ve ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start…if you’ve ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time…In short, if you’ve ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did.” —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever.  Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

About the Author

CAROLINE O’DONOGHUE is the New York Times best-selling author of All Our Hidden Gifts, her YA debut fantasy, which has been published in more than twenty territories around the world. She has written for The Times and The Guardian, and is the host of an award-winning podcast, Sentimental Garbage. She was born in Ireland and lives in London. The Rachel Incident is her first adult novel to be published in the U.S.

About the Host

Lucy Pearson has been an avid and ardent reader for as long as she can remember. After graduating with a degree in double English, she went on to read the BBC’s Top 100 - a feat which introduced her to some of her all time favourite books. 

She started her blog, The Literary Edit in 2012, for which she won the London Book Fair’s inaugural Book Blogger of the Year award. In 2019 she co-founded The Bondi Literary Salon with G&A.

Her favourite book is A Little Life and her favourite authors include Daphne Du Maurier, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche,

About Bondi Literary Salon

Bondi Literary Salon was established in 2018, it is the in-house book club of beloved Bondi institution, Gertrude & Alice. The Bondi Literary Salon endeavors to explore the vast world of literature each month, with a selection that reflects a focus on diverse writers and stories; delving into both classic and contemporary fiction, as well as non-fiction. 

Our philosophy has always been to use language and literature not only as a tool for connection and community, but as an insight to worlds we have not had the pleasure of visiting ourselves. We welcome all - young and old, those with a life-long love of literature, or whose relationship may be only beginning. Join us in the unmatched comfort of an after-hours bookstore, accompanied by wine and cheese, for an evening spent discussing books and building community.

About Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore

Rated as one of the top 10 bookstores in the world by National Geographic, Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore is an oasis for writers, readers, and coffee lovers. Books overflow from the shelves of their store, featuring a mix of new, second-hand, antiquarian and rare books. Stay a while & enjoy some home made chai, and amazing coffee, and unearth a book treasure or two. Read more about the bookstore's story here, and about the real Gertrude & Alice here.