Topping & Company Working Group

Welcome to the 'Topping & Co Working Group'!

Meeting on the last Wednesday of every month, the 'Topping & Co Working Group' will explore the rapidly changing character of work in the modern world.

From automation and AI to gig work and productivity culture, the working world is not what it used to be. Join the Topping & Co Working Group, where we will be exploring the dreams, nightmares, hopes, and frustrations of the modern workplace. We will be discussing novels set in the convenience store, university classroom, and newspaper advice column office. We will also read philosophical works on the fate of craftsmanship in the modern world, whether we should reassert our right to be lazy, and what the future landscape of employment looks like. Whether you are a student imagining your future, a retiree looking back on your career, or someone navigating their way through the ever shifting 21st century workforce, join us for a glass of wine and an evening of stimulating chat (out of earshot of any bosses).

The book group is hosted by our bookseller Michael, a former philosophy professor who has had more jobs than he’d like to admit.

For the second book of 2025, we are reading The Craftsman by Richard Sennett.

Most of us have to work. But is work just a means to an end? In trying to make a living, have we lost touch with the idea of making things well?

Pure competition, Sennett shows, will never produce good work. Instead, the values of the craftsman, whether in a Stradivari violin workshop or a modern laboratory, can enrich our lives and change the way we anchor ourselves in the world around us.

The past lives of crafts and craftsmen show us ways of working - using tools, acquiring skills, thinking about materials - which provide rewarding alternative ways for people to utilise their talents. We need to recognize this if motivations are to be understood and lives made as fulfilling as possible.

Reading Group Structure

Ticketing: Each place is £5, which can be redeemed against a copy of a reading group book.

Frequency: Each reading group will meet once a month, on a set day of the week. You do not need to commit to one group, or every meeting! Just book for those you're interested in each month, and we hope to entice you back for another one.