November Book Club - On the Calculation of Volume I

SOLD OUT please click here for our waitlist form. We have lots of copies of the book if you would like to get one with the book club discount. You don't have to be attending the book club to get the discount. Fill in the waitlist form or just pop into the shop any time!

Join us this month to discuss On the Calculation of Volume I at our November book club! 

When: 27/11/25 18:00 start 

Where: 26a Crwys Road, CF24 4NL

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You can order the book here to pick up from the shop. 

On the Calculation of Volume I - £12.99

Book club discount, 10% off - £11.69

Tickets to the book club are free but we would like you to register so that we can keep track of numbers. As it is a free event we would appreciate if you bought the book from us as that allows us to keep running events like this. However if you have a copy already feel free to sign up for just a ticket.

Once you have signed up we will send you an email confirmation (this is separate to the automatic email from Shopify to confirm payment). We will then send an email when the book is ready to pick up. This may be included in the initial email if we already have the stock.

Translated fiction book club runs every other month, the months in between we have a general book club. 

About the book:

It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for these curious twists of fate.

The first volume of the poetic, page-turning masterpiece about one woman’s fall through the cracks of time.

Tara Selter has slipped out of time.

Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November. She no longer expects to wake up to the 19th of November, and she no longer remembers the 17th of November as if it were yesterday.

She comes to know the shape of the day like the back of her hand – the grey morning light in her Paris hotel; the moment a blackbird breaks into song; her husband’s surprise at seeing her return home unannounced. But for everyone around her, this day is lived for the first and only time. They do not remember the other 18ths of November, and they do not believe her when she tries to explain.

As Tara approaches her 365th 18th of November, she can’t shake the feeling that somewhere underneath the surface of this day, there’s a way to escape.

WINNER OF THE 2022 NORDIC COUNCIL LITERATURE PRIZE

About the author:

Solvej Balle was born in 1962 and made her debut in 1986 with Lyrefugl (Lyrebird.) She went on to write one of the 1990s’ most acclaimed works of Danish literature, Ifølge loven (1993) (‘According to the Law: Four Accounts of Mankind’, translated by Barbara Haveland.) On Calculation of Volume is Solvej Balle’s return to literary stardom after nearly 30 years.

About the translator:

She translates fiction, poetry and drama from Danish and Norwegian to English. She has translated works by many leading Danish and Norwegian writers, both classic and contemporary, including Henrik Ibsen, Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann and Carl Frode Tiller. Her English-language translation of On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.