To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to Rachel Mann (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it).

The book is published by Canongate and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99.

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit here.

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Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

About the book: To Calais, In Ordinary Time is a work of historical fiction set in England in 1348. It covers the story of a group of travellers journeying towards Calais across England as the Black Death sweeps across Europe. Written in a way to capture the authenticity of spoken medieval English, the language is interspersed with Middle English words. The young noblewoman’s language is marked by Norman French, the learned proctor’s language is punctuated with Latinisms, and the language of the down-to-earth adventurous ploughman is more Saxon. It is a novel about life, love, death, and war, set during a time of turbulence and uncertainty across Europe.

Click the play button above to listen to this podcast. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.