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15 December 2013

Book for Jan - Apple Tree Yard

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-Tree-Yard-Louise-Doughty/dp/0571297889For our meeting on 9 January 2014, we'll be reading Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty.

"Yvonne Carmichael has worked hard to achieve the life she always wanted: a high-flying career in genetics, a beautiful home, a good relationship with her husband and their two grown-up children.

Then one day she meets a stranger at the Houses of Parliament and, on impulse, begins a passionate affair with him - a decision that will put everything she values at risk.

At first she believes she can keep the relationship separate from the rest of her life, but she can't control what happens next. All of her careful plans spiral into greater deceit and, eventually, a life-changing act of violence.

Apple Tree Yard is a psychological thriller about one woman's adultery and an insightful examination of the values we live by and the choices we make, from an acclaimed writer at the height of her powers."

Have a very Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year!

16 November 2013

The Uninvited by Liz Jensen - December

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uninvited-Liz-Jensen/dp/140881773XThe next book is The Uninvited by Liz Jensen.

"A seven-year-old girl puts a nail-gun to her grandmother's neck and fires. An isolated incident, say the experts. The experts are wrong. Across the world, children are killing their families. Is violence contagious?"

Mine has just arrived in the post and I'm looking forward to starting it.

As well as the usual book discussion, our Christmas meal with a book gift-Secret Santa is on Thurs 12 December.

See you in December.

12 October 2013

November - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Our book for November is If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor.

On a street in a town in the North of England, ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence - street cricket, barbecues, painting windows...But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening.

In October we read If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino. This generated some good discussion, and the book was later proved not to be as far from real life as might otherwise have been thought:


4 August 2013

September - Shades of Grey (no, not that one)

In August we discussed Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. Not technically fiction, but we let Maddy off (this time...). It had a mixed response, with general agreement that it was an interesting picture of early 20th Century life, but without enough substance to really hook us in.

Ian is hosting the next discussion in September and has chosen Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Not to be confused with a certain popular book by E L James.

22 June 2013

July - The Cellist of Sarajevo

We're meeting on the 4th July to discuss The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

"Sarajevo, in the 1990s, is a hellish place. The ongoing war devours human life, tears families apart and transforms even banal routines, such as acquiring water, into life-threatening expeditions. Day after day, a cellist stations himself in the midst of the devastation, defying the ever-present snipers to play tributes to victims of a massacre."

15 May 2013

June - Capital by John Lanchester

Our book for June, chosen by Martyn, is Capital by John Lanchester.

"Pepys Road: an ordinary street in the Capital. Each house has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. Today, through each letterbox along this ordinary street drops a card with a simple message: We Want What You Have.

Capital is a post-crash state-of-the nation novel told with compassion and humour, featuring a cast of characters that you will be sad to leave behind."

See you in June!

13 April 2013

May - The Third Policeman

Anna has chosen The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien for our May meeting.

"A masterpiece of black humour from the renown comic and acclaimed author of 'At Swim-Two-Birds' - Flann O'Brien. A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, 'The Third Policeman' is comparable only to 'Alice in Wonderland' as an allegory of the absurd. Distinguished by endless comic invention and its delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, 'The Third Policeman' is unique in the English language."

22 March 2013

April's Book - HHhH

For April we are reading HHhH by Laurent Binet.

HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich" or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich".

Based on a true story concerning Reinhard Heydrich - The Butcher of Prague.

4 March 2013

Musings on Dangerous Liaisons by Maddy

Les Liaisons Dangereuse (Dangerous Liaisons)

Scandal, deception, lust… What more could you want from a book?

The clever use of letters as narrative lets you in on several characters’ secrets, most of which are shocking even by today's standards. Each character has a definitive voice and every one is believable and entertaining, if not always likeable (although each of us warmed to different characters).

I must confess that I couldn't help comparing it to the film Cruel Intentions (a modern retelling of Dangerous Liaisons) quite a lot, which actually helped me as I still had 30 pages to read by the time everyone arrived - baking the cake seemed more important, somehow. It was a shame, as they were pretty eventful pages, it turned out...

In our book group chat, we mainly talked about the way the book handles gender equality (why is it more socially acceptable for a man to use and discard women than it is for a woman to have a string of lovers?), religion (it is often the vessel through which characters are undone), sex (there's a lot alluded to in the book, not all of it consensual), and friendship (can it always be trusted?).

I think we all enjoyed it - even Ian, by the end of the evening - and would recommend it. I definitely would, especially if you like a bit of old school gossip and intrigue.

16 February 2013

March - The Fault In Our Stars

In March we are discussing The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

"Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten."

Some thoughts on our last book, Dangerous Liaisons, to follow!

4 January 2013

February's book - Dangerous Liaisons

We'll be meeting in February to discuss Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. There are differing translations of this book and we have not set a specific one, so it should be interesting to compare the differences.




On the 3rd of January we chatted about The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

There was cake. (Click picture for recipe!)


Thoughts on the book:

- Good and interesting read, but overall sad and upsetting.
- Annoying absence of speak marks and use of italics instead. We have seen a lack of speech marks in several books now and don't feel it adds anything. In fact it takes away.
- We loved learning about the early settlement of Sydney but some of us had found it hard to picture the landscape described - very green and growing but also very arid?