Reading with Spiritual Eyes Book Chat

The Roscoe Library has a book club, Reading with Spiritual Eyes, based on works of fiction. You’re invited to join with us ...
About this Event

The Roscoe Library has a book club, Reading with Spiritual Eyes, based on works of fiction. You’re invited to join with us as we discuss Ghost Cities by Siang Lu. Our discussion will be face-to-face and via Zoom. Please ensure that you register so we can keep in touch with further details closer to the event.

What? Book chat

Where? Lecture Room 2 + Zoom

When? Tuesday 8 September 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

How? Facilitated discussion / Drinks & nibbles provided

Who? All welcome, but do please let us know if you're expecting to join us.

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Perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, Ghost Cities is a profound and highly imaginative novel that cleverly draws on Chinese history to explore the absurdity of modern life and work.

Ghost Cities – inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China – follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney’s Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn’t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work.

How is his relocation to one such ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed – then re-created, page by page and book by book, all in the name of love and art?

Author Information

Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and ABIA-winning author of The Whitewash. He is the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram.

Ghost Cities was shortlisted for eight additional awards, including the ALS Gold Medal, The Voss Literary Prize and The Age Book of the Year. In 2026, Ghost Cities was published with Simon & Schuster’s Summit UK and US imprints, and in 26 territories in translation thereafter.

Siang is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.