Feminist Reading Group: Women Living Deliciously by Florence Given (Colchester)

What would it mean to live deliciously? Not productively, not perfectly, not for anyone else's approval, but with genuine pleasure, desire and joy. Florence Given's Women Living Deliciously is a rallying call for women to reclaim their appetites: for pleasure, for creativity, for ambition, for life itself. This January, the Feminist Reading Group meets to read and discuss it together. Given takes aim at the ways women are taught to shrink: to be palatable, to apologise, to put everyone else's comfort first. Her answer is not another self-improvement plan but an invitation to want things loudly. In our session we will dig into the questions the book raises: • Why are women trained to feel guilt about wanting, and what does it cost us? • The difference between confidence and self-objectification, and why the line matters • Joy and pleasure as political acts, not guilty indulgences • What a delicious life actually looks like on an ordinary Tuesday, not just in an Instagram post Who is it for? No prior knowledge needed, only curiosity. Whether you have read the book twice or not yet opened it, you will leave with new eyes for it. Some of us will have finished the whole book; some of us will not, and that is entirely welcome here. The conversation is the point. The practical details • When: Saturday 30 January, 2pm to 3pm. The session runs for one hour. • Where: Red Lion Books, 125 High Street, Colchester, CO1 1SZ. An independent bookshop serving Colchester since 1978. Please note the shop space is not wheelchair accessible. • Tickets: Book your place through the shop's website: https://redlionbooks.co.uk/product/feminist-reading-group/ . For any ticket questions, ask for Jo at Red Lion Books. The group is currently a women and trans women only space while it establishes itself; this policy will be reconsidered in time, and we appreciate your understanding. Who leads it? Solange Gulizzi is an art and architectural historian and researcher, and the founder of The Feminist Academy, an independent feminist education and cultural platform. Her work explores power, gender and everyday lived experience, and she brings academic ideas to real-life conversations in a way that is accessible, welcoming and free of jargon. Expect a friendly hour of discussion, debate, critical thinking and a little bit of patriarchy-smashing, in the company of like-minded people. Part of The Feminist Academy, an independent feminist education and cultural platform: essays, masterclasses, reading groups and live events.