Sustainability Book Club

Rooted in Words is back at the Coffee House at Derby Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday 4 November, from 2pm to 3pm. It's the museum's sustainability-focused book club, which meets on the first Wednesday of every other month in the Coffee House. Each session starts with a book or an essay that offers a different perspective on green narratives, and from there the group opens up as a climate café: a relaxed, judgement-free space to discuss sustainability in everyday life and within the museum environment.

The reading for the November session is Eden by Tim Smit. If you've not come across it, it's the one that fits the club's focus on green narratives. The group then moves into that climate café format, where the conversation can drift from the book to how sustainability plays out in your own life, and even how it works inside a museum. All levels of knowledge are welcome, and you can come along just to listen without any pressure to join in if you're not feeling the talking part.

It's worth keeping in mind that this is part of a wider reading list for 2026/2027. Along with Eden, the club will be working through Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the 1962 book credited with exposing the effects of the pesticide DDT. If you're interested in the environmental side of things, that's a heavy hitter to have on the horizon.

Rooted in Words meets on the first Wednesday of every other month, so this is just one of several sessions. The November one runs from 2pm to 3pm at the Coffee House at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, and it's free to attend.