Event: Classics Book Club at Hatchards, Piccadilly; Japanese Ghost Stories

The Classics Book Club meets on the first Thursday of each month here at Hatchards, Piccadilly. This book club will instead take place one week ahead of schedule, on Thursday, 29th October.

This month’s book is: “Japanese Ghost Stories” by Lafcadio Hearn.

The dead wreak revenge on the living, paintings come alive, spectral brides possess mortal men and a priest devours human flesh in these chilling Japanese ghost stories retold by a master of the supernatural.

Lafcadio Hearn drew on the phantoms and ghouls of traditional Japanese folklore – including the headless ‘rokuro-kubi’, the monstrous goblins ‘jikininki’ or the faceless ‘mujina’ who stalk lonely neighbourhoods – and infused them with his own memories of his haunted childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland to create these terrifying tales of striking and eerie power. Today they are regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.

Tickets include £3 off the purchase of next month’s Book Club book.