The Really Popular Book Club is Cambridge University Libraries' book group. Everyone is welcome to come and discuss a really popular book with the group, library staff, and an expert on the novel. Hosted on Zoom, the book club is completely free and open to everyone, people attend from all over the world. 

The Really Popular Book Club celebrates the huge range of books at Cambridge University Library. We have more than 8 million books and as a legal deposit library we keep a copy of every book published in the UK, and have done since 1710.

A mystery is afoot in the third instalment of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, The Bullet That Missed. The residents of Fairhaven retirement village set about solving two murders ten years apart. Our wonderful sleuths encounter money launderers, TV stars, and an ex-KGB colonel in pursuit of a cold case which is hotting up. 

Our special guest for the evening will be Jim Kelly. Jim is a former Fleet Street journalist and author of sixteen crime novels. His first series - set in the Fens of Cambridgeshire - won a ‘Dagger’ from the Crime Writers’ Association. He lives in Ely with Midge Gillies, a writer and historian.

To aide the conversation, we have prepared three 'thinking points' to consider when reading The Bullet That Missed:

1. How does the reading experience of cosy crime differ from the adrenaline and pace of gritty noir?
2. What are the benefits to the reader of crime books written in a series, as opposed to the ’standalone’ crime novel?
3. What are the upsides, and downsides, for the reader of having a team of detectives - a club - trying to solve a fictional crime?

If you haven't attended one of our book club events before, you can find more information here.