1. Memory and perspective
Choose a passage where the narrator looks back on an earlier version of himself. What does the later perspective add to the scene?
Go further: Which details describe what happened, and which show a later interpretation?
Reader resources · Prepared by the website team
Reading Time together.
Twelve questions. A simple meeting plan. Space for your own answers.
A memoir invites us to follow one person’s account of a life while bringing our own questions to the page. This original guide offers a way to discuss Thomas Murphy’s Time with a book club, a friend or in your own reading journal. Choose the questions that interest you; a meeting does not need to cover them all.
The prompts explore the book’s publicly described themes of Liverpool, loss, choices and change. They are questions from the website team for use with your own copy. Your interpretation should come from the passages you read. For more context before you start, see the book questions and edition guide.
Before you begin
Agree how far everyone has read before discussing events. If some readers are partway through, set a clear stopping point and save later developments for another meeting. Keep page references from your own edition and add a chapter or a few identifying words if other readers use an ebook.
Bring one passage you want to discuss, one question you still have and one detail you would like to revisit. Read the passage quietly together before debating it. That gives everyone a shared starting point, including people who remember the scene differently.
Allow people to pass on a question. The book’s themes include grief and difficult experiences; nobody needs to share a personal experience to contribute. A useful invitation is ‘What did you notice in the writing?’ rather than a request for someone to explain their own life.
Twelve conversations to start
Select two or three main questions. Use a follow-up when the conversation needs a more precise example, rather than moving quickly through a list.
2. Liverpool and belonging
Find a detail about a home, street or community. What does it show you about belonging in that particular moment?
Go further: Would a reader who has never visited Liverpool understand the same thing? What makes the setting clear?
3. The presence of absence
Where does an absence matter to the way you understand a relationship or decision? Ground your answer in a passage.
Go further: Does the writing express the absence directly, or do you notice it through an action or detail?
4. Choices and pressures
Identify a decision you want to discuss. What circumstances does the account make visible around it?
Go further: Which parts of your explanation come from the page, and which are assumptions you have brought to it?
5. Consequences for others
When an action has consequences, whose experiences are described and whose remain outside the account?
Go further: How can you discuss the narrator’s perspective while also recognising other people affected?
6. Understanding and responsibility
Choose a moment where understanding someone’s circumstances raises a difficult question about responsibility.
Go further: Can your group explain the circumstances without treating that explanation as the final answer?
7. Time and pace
Where did you read slowly, pause or return to an earlier page? What about the writing caused that response?
Go further: Did the pace of your reading match the importance of the event, or did a small detail hold your attention?
8. Voice and distance
Find a sentence or short passage that feels distinctive in voice. Describe the effect in your own words.
Go further: Does the voice create closeness, distance, uncertainty or reflection for you? What in the wording supports that?
9. Hope and change
Choose a moment that suggests change to you. What action or shift in understanding makes that reading convincing?
Go further: Does another passage complicate the change or make it seem incomplete?
10. A question left open
What did you still want to understand at the end? Explain why that question matters to your reading.
Go further: Is it something the account might answer on a second reading, or something outside its perspective?
11. The meaning of Time
Return to the title after finishing. Which meaning of time now feels most significant to you?
Go further: Use two different moments from the book to explain your choice.
12. A changed first impression
Look at a note you made early in the book. Has your view changed? Identify the passage that changed it.
Go further: If your view stayed the same, what later detail strengthened it?
A simple one-hour meeting
| Time | What to do |
|---|---|
| 0–10 minutes | Share first reactions and agree which two or three questions to explore. |
| 10–25 minutes | Read one chosen passage together. Separate what it describes from the meaning each reader gives it. |
| 25–45 minutes | Use the selected questions. Invite a different interpretation and ask what detail supports it. |
| 45–55 minutes | Return to an earlier assumption or compare a second passage. |
| 55–60 minutes | Let each person name an idea that changed or a question they want to keep. |
For a shorter meeting, discuss one passage and one question. For a larger group, begin in pairs so more people have a chance to speak, then ask each pair to bring back a single observation. You can change the schedule when a useful conversation develops.
When readers disagree
Ask each person to point to the detail that shaped their reading. Check whether you disagree about what happened, how the narrator presents it or how you judge it. Naming that difference often makes the conversation easier to follow.
A memoir can explain a person’s circumstances and still leave questions about responsibility. Give those questions time. The group does not need to reach a single judgement, and it should leave room for people affected by the events described in the account.
If you are reading on your own
Use three short notes: what the passage says, how you interpreted it and what might challenge that interpretation. Return to the notes after finishing. Add a dated comment beside an earlier response so you can see how your reading changed.
Try the reader’s place map if setting holds your attention, or the guide to memory, choices and change for a closer look at narrative perspective. After the final page, our honest review planner can help you put your response into words.
Time by Thomas Murphy · Book-club meeting sheet
Bring a passage. Leave with a question.
Write in these spaces after printing. Use references from your own edition.
One passage to bring — page or chapter, and why it matters
Our two or three discussion questions
A different interpretation I want to consider
An idea that changed, or a question to keep
timebythomasmurphy.com/reading-guide · Original resource by the Time website team