GREAT CRIME – 1: The murders in the bookcase: a review by Leo van Zanen This year, Mayflower Bookshop presents a literary lecture series on GREAT CRIME, starting with a literature review by Leo van Zanen as an introduction to this series on Sunday February 22, 2026. Van Zanen will give an overview of the […]
Mayflower Book Club reads Prophet Song by Paul Lynch Open bookcub, sessions in English
Open book club, sessions in English. PLEASE NOTE: This session will be on TUESDAY instead of wednesday.
GREAT CRIME – 2: Lawyers as Rebels or Collaborators: The Case of To Kill a Mockingbird The second lecture in Mayflower Bookshop’s Great Crime series will be given by Tony Foster of the Department of English at Leiden University. Please note that this lecture will be in English. His talk, titled “Lawyers as Rebels or […]
Our April Book of the Month is the New York Times bestseller The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. This novel is set in Tehran, Iran, and spans three decades, starting in the 1950s. It follows Ellie, whose family falls from riches, and her kind, brave friend Homa. The book follows the two girls […]
On Thursday May 7, join us at Mayflower Bookshop for an evening of poetry by students and alumni of the LAK Poetry Workshop at Leiden University. The aim of the evening is to share poetry, provide a platform for poets to try out new material, and give everyone interested an opportunity to gather and meet […]
Instead of a designated book, the group will come together for a relaxed social. Everyone is encouraged to bring a beloved title and share what made it meaningful.
Wim Tigges on Crime & Dickens Charles Dickens was fascinated with crime, and in particular with punishment. These are at least subsidiary themes in all of his novels and in many short stories, where petty and great criminals occur in plenty, from deceitful Mr. Jingle in The Pickwick Papers to the alleged murderer John Jasper […]
Our June Book of the Month is Eleanor Shearer’s debut novel River Sing Me Home. In Barbados of 1834, a slave called Rachel is told she is free. Reality proves to be different, however, and she flees her plantation to search for the five children taken from her and sold. Rachel traverses across the Caribbean […]
The Art of Making a Forgotten Cup of Tea by Faizah Muhammad. Open Book Club, sessions in English, please sign up: bookclub@mayflowerbookshop.nl
Next in our Great Crime series: Louis Smit on Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (lecture in Dutch)