12.30pm – 1.30pm : A blazing, genre-bending masterpiece from one of the most inventive writers of our time.

Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own…

When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story?

Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.

Anna Funder is the author of Stasiland and All That I Am – both international bestsellers, published in more than twenty-four countries – and the novella The Girl with the Dogs. Stasiland, hailed as a ‘classic’, tells true stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of others who worked for the Stasi.

Anna’s novel All That I Am is an homage to four German anti-Hitler activists living bravely but precariously in exile in London in the 1930s. All That I Am won many literary awards including Australia’s most prestigious, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

This read will also be a great follow up to last month’s read Animal Farm by George Orwell. O’Shaughnessy had a profound influence on his work but died aged 39. She and Orwell composed Animal Farm together.

5.30pm – 7.00pm : Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945.It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Through the story of the animals’ revolution and its aftermath, Orwell assesses the failures of the communist revolution in Russia.

This read will also be a great follow up last month’s read Wifedom by Anna Funder, which recreates the marriage of Orwell and Eileen O’Shaughnessy who had a profound influence on his work but died aged 39. She and Orwell composed Animal Farm together.