June's book - Alas, Babylon

The book for June is Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. It's a bit different to anything we've read so far, so not sure what people will think - hope you enjoy it though!

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - May 2012

Our book for May is A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.

Per the blurb:

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukranian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside."

We'll be meeting on 3rd May to discuss this one.

 

In April, we discussed Great House by Nicole Krauss.

"Spanning continets and decades, weaving an intricate web of its characters' lives, Great House tells a soaring story of love, loss and survival against the odds."

Mixed reception to this one, some of us really enjoyed it, others found it a bit of a struggle.

The Secret Life of Bees - March

As usual, I'm really late at posting this up here! We are reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and will be discussing it on 1st March at Anna's. Enjoy.

February - Cold Comfort Farm

February's book, to be hosted by Maddy, is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

See you on 2nd Feb!

Book and film night - January 5th

I'm a little late putting this up - oops! But I think we all know what we're doing. For January we decided to read a book and watch the film adaption to compare and contrast (as an exam paper would say). The book we voted for is Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, recently adapted into a film starring Reece Witherspoon. See you in January - Happy New Year!

December's Book - The Sense of an Ending

As well as our Christmas meal on the 1st, we are meeting on 8th December to talk about The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

Happy Christmas everyone!

November's Book - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Our next meeting is on Thursday 3 November 2011. This month's book is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. Here's the blurb (courtesy of W H Smith's website):

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents' attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother - her cheerful, can-do mother - tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes perilous. Anything can be revealed at any meal. Rose's gift forces her to confront the secret knowledge all families keep hidden - truths about her mother's life outside the home, her father's strange detachment and her brother's clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up, she realises there are some secrets that even her taste buds cannot discern. "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" is a luminous tale about the heartbreak of loving those whom you know too much about. It is profound and funny, wise and sad, and Aimee Bender's dazzling prose illuminates the strangeness of everyday life.

Hope you enjoy it!