Book Club May 2014: ooh, jelly babies!

There was a houseful again on Wednesday at Frances's, where we just about squeezed around the dining table - in order to be closer to the nibbles. Personally I was sat right by the jelly babies. Always a good place to be. In between the jelly babies, but still able to reach Frances's lovely rock cakes....

We had apologies from a couple of members, but almost everyone was there and it was a lively meeting as always, with lots of different conversations going on around the table, about books, life and everything else.

We started by discussing My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You. There were mixed feelings about it. The graphic sex and bad language was commented on, and also the violence of war is not always an easy thing to read about. Some people found the book difficult to get into.

The Light Between Oceans was universally liked by those of us who managed to read it. We felt it was a lovely, moving story and very well written. It was obvious how much research the author must have done in order to give the reader such a comprehensive insight into the life of the people working on lighthouses at that time. Some of us felt this was a book that they would definitely read again in the future.

The Shock of the Fall was also very moving, and gave us a picture of a young man with bipolar disorder. It was funny as well as moving, and also gave us a window into the mind of a person with mental health issues. We felt it was revealing both from the young man's point of view and that of the staff dealing with his care.

Those who had read the memoir Hackney Child were appalled and found it a horrific indictment on society that such terrible things had happened in recent times.

Sandra told us about a lady she is touch with, a doctor who has set up a charity to perform cataract operations on people in India. Sandra has a copy of 'A Runaway Goat', the book written by Lucy Mathen, the charity's founder, about her experiences in India with the charity. The book is available from the website at a cost of £20, which funds a cataract operation for one person in India. Some of us thought we would like to read Sandra's copy and then perhaps make a small donation, which Sandra will then pass on to the charity. if you are interested in reading the book, please speak to Sandra.

You can read more about the work of the charity at www.secondsight.org.uk

We discussed the possibility of starting a kitty to pay for nibbles at our book club meetings. The people who host meetings said they were happy to provide refreshments out of their own pocket, although those of us who aren't able to host felt they would like to contribute. It was decided that for the time being we will continue as we are, and if some people want to contribute, they can bring something along to meetings if they would like to. 

We chose our new books. They are:

1. The Flavours of Love by Dorothy Koomson (our main choice, try and read this one if you can). 

Optional extras:

2. Silvertown by Melanie McGrath

3. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson (who also wrote the Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, which we read before)

4. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I noticed there is a short ebook 'Recipes from the Flavours of Love' which is available free on Kindle, if anyone is interested in that.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 16th July at Margaret's house, as usual details will be emailed nearer the time. 

Happy reading!

Book Club March 2014: how many ladies (plus a baby) can you fit into one living room?

We were at almost full capacity when we met at Eirlys' house on 19th March. It was great to have two new members present, and also our youngest member who isn't able to let us know her opinions just yet, but had brought her own book along to read. It was also good to see that last month's new member actually came back, which is always encouraging!! 

Eirlys provided refreshments, including the most divine home made fairy cakes, yum. My house needs an Eirlys of our own I think, as the last cake I baked was in 1994 and that was from a ready made mix. It was in the shape of an octopus though, so I get brownie points for creativity if not for edibility (which is a word I just made up). 

Back to books. The Husband's Secret was liked by most, though one or two people found it a bit slushy and predictable. Several people thought that it was obvious what the 'secret' would be. 

The Detective's Daughter was unpopular. We felt it was poorly written and had various threads we just couldn't see the point of and several coincidences that were implausible. 

Although one member loved it, it was generally felt that The Little Old Lady Who Broke All The Rules didn't live up to expectations, especially compared to The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared, which most of us have read and enjoyed. It was thought to be unrealistic in the portrayal of care homes, though the book was funny in parts. This book is on the bestseller lists: one member said it would be interesting to know how many of the people who bought it actually finished it!

We enjoyed Private Peaceful and thought the two stories within the book were woven together well. 

As always, tea and coffee (and wine!) were drunk, nibbles were nibbled and numerous conversations went on, both book-related and otherwise. The author Dorothy Koomson was recommended (perhaps we could read one of her books next time?), as was Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty, which two of us had read and thoroughly enjoyed.  Some of the members are hoping to go to Cheltenham Literary Festival, so one member said she would look into that, as it's probably time to try and book soon.  

We chose four new books. As always, there is no pressure on anyone to read them all, it's just to give some choice and plenty to read for the more voracious readers. 

These are our new book choices (the links go to Amazon, where you can read about the books)

My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You - Louise Young (Our main choice. If you only read one of the books, please try to make it this one)
The Light Between Oceans - M L Steadman
Hackney Child - Hope Daniels and Morag Livingstone
The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer

Also, those who are coming to see the Little Mermaid ballet, don't forget to read the story (online here) if you would like to. 

Our next meeting will be on the 14th May, when we will be meeting at Frances' house (to be confirmed).

Happy Reading!

Book Club January 2014: Secret Santa, Narnia, World War One, ballet, the chocolate factory that wasn't, and a very cute baby

Our read it and swap it pile!

2014 already! How did that happen?

We were almost a  full house at Alison's last night, apologies from three people who couldn't make it and we hope to see them soon. We had a new member, woo hoo!, hope she enjoyed it,  and it was also lovely to meet a very gorgeous baby who came along with her Mum. 

The secret Santa books. It was  amusing to discover that the person who insisted that we all wait until Christmas morning to open our books, put hers in such a safe place she lost it for weeks and couldn't even buy another copy as  of course she didn't know what it was. 

We enjoyed our Santa books to some degree, some people really liked them, and others found theirs were different to what they would usually choose to read. Sometimes reading someone else's choice can be surprising, and you can end up enjoying a new genre. Other times the experience just confirms why you don't like that genre in the first place, but it's all good fun! We will continue to discuss the Santa books at the next meeting when people who were missing this time will hopefully be there. 

As it is the centenary of World War One this year, it was suggested that we read a book or books on that theme. Books put forward in an email to me were 

The Lie - Helen Dunmore 

The Moonfield - Judith Allnatt 

Wake - Ann Hope

None of them appear to be out in paperback yet, so hopefully we might be able to get back to that later in the year. I am listing them here as the hardbacks will be in the library and of course they are on Kindle, if anyone wants to read them now. Someone also suggested war poetry, which wasn't taken up by the group, but I do have a book if anyone wanted to borrow it. 

We discussed 'Instructions for a Heatwave'. It was mostly enjoyed, people felt it would be a good holiday read. We thought it was interesting the way the book seemed as though as it was going to be about the man who goes missing, but in fact most of the story was about the rest of the family and their issues and relationships. 

We also  had chosen to read one of the Narnia books. There were mixed reactions on these, though it was agreed they were very well written. The Horse and his Boy was very much enjoyed. Someone said that it would be better to read them in order than just choose a random volume. It was also mentioned that in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the idea that it is 'not very sensible to hide in wardrobes' is reiterated so often, it is almost as though it was added in more modern times as a warning. 

We discussed doing things a bit differently sometimes. It was suggested that we listen to Book at Bedtime together - I rather liked the idea of all turning up at someone's house in our onesies every evening, but sadly that wasn't the plan. What we could do is listen to the whole week's worth in one go, or split into two occasions, and then discuss. Watching a DVD of a book together was also discussed, but opinions were mixed about both ideas. 

Going out to see a film or play together was quite popular - we need to keep an  eye out for upcoming events that have a book tie-in. It was suggested that we could visit the Menier Chocolate Factory sometime, at which I became very excited until I found out it's not a chocolate factory any longer, but a theatre -which is still interesting to me, but not as interesting as chocolate.....

One idea that we did decide on is a visit to the ballet. Barking Broadway Theatre are putting on The Little Mermaid on Saturday 12th April at 3pm, tickets £18 or £16 concessions. I am keen to get it booked as soon as possible, so if anyone is interested please let me know asap. I'll also send out an email to this effect. The original Hans Christian Andersen tale of the Little Mermaid is available to read online here 

These are the books that we chose to read next. The links go to Amazon, where you can read more about each book, and buy them if you want to, in print or on Kindle. I get mine from the library, their online ordering service is very good.  

The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty

The Detective's Daughter - Lesley Thomson

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules - Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

Private Peaceful - Michael Morpurgo 

As always, it's not obligatory to read all the books, we just choose a few as it's a couple of months between meetings, and also to give a choice. 

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 19th March, and Eirlys has agreed to hold it at her house. 

Happy reading! 

Book Club November 2013: So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun......

On a cold and grotty evening in November several members convened on our second home The Bengal Lancer for our official Book Club Christmas meal. 

The food was yummy as always and I tucked into mine, looking up when I finished to realise everyone else was only halfway through theirs. What can I say? I must've been very hungry. 

There was much chat and hilarity as always, and eventually we remembered to discuss the books. Some of us had read them all, others one or two of them and some people hadn't remembered that there were three books at all.....  

The Reason I Jump - it was interesting to the have the perspective of a person with autism, though being written by a child and also translated from Japanese meant it read a bit strangely at times, and we found there was a lot of repetition too. 

The Crossing Places - This was enjoyed, some people have gone on to read the next one in the series. 

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul - largely liked, except for the person who is always opposite to everyone else and couldn't get into it (innocent face) and one person said she found the story a bit twee and Mills and Boon-ish as it went on. 

We exchanged our Secret Santa books, which we will be waiting until CHRISTMAS MORNING to open (they made me promise). We will discuss them at our next meeting on 22nd January, which will be at Alison's.  I will send an email nearer the time with further details.  

Our books for next time in addition to the Secret Santa ones are:

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell
Any one of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books (your own choice) 

Merry Christmas to all, see you in the New Year! 

Book Club 25th September 2013: new members, reliving our childhoods and vegetable crisps again (hurrah)

We met at Margaret's house last Wednesday evening, and were delighted to welcome two new members to the Book Club, Janet and Sandra, and hope that they enjoyed the evening.

There were mixed feelings about The End of Your Life Book Club. Some found the long list of  books within the book off putting and overwhelming, others picked up some ideas for other books they wanted to read from it. It was thought that the family in the story were not very warm. The mother was very academic, the father seemed to be sidelined and we found it sad that the mother only became close to her family (particularly her son, through books that she loved)  towards the end of her life.

The Horse Boy was mostly enjoyed by all, we felt we were given an insight into autism and the challenges  faced by both child and parent. We also felt that the book was very introspective, and as much about the father's journey as his son's - in fact the whole family went on an emotional journey, though it would have been nice to have read more about the feelings of the mother, as she was quite a shadowy figure and not much was said about her. The parts of the book about Shamanism were interesting and the book was very evocative of Outer Mongolia, especially the capital city and we enjoyed the descriptions. It was also felt the story finished rather abruptly and it would have been good to know how the family fared back in America and as the little boy grew older.

As well as these two books, we had all read a children's book of our own choice and discussed these. We found it very different reading an old favourite now we are adult - for one thing, books that seemed a long read to us back then could be finished much more quickly now. We also found the language quite old fashioned. One person felt that rereading an Enid Blyton Famous Five book had spoiled them for her now, as there was a dark undercurrent she had not known was there. We discussed the fact that although language and subject might be different now, and fashions in children's books change, they still take us on a similar journey - fun, adventure, often a naughty bit! and then the resolution, sometimes with a bit of a moral thrown in.

As always, the book talk was interspersed with chatting of many other things, drinking tea and coffee and eating nibbles. As at Sue's last time, the vegetable crisps went very quickly! (Yum). There was also the usual book swapping going on, as people bring along books they've read for others to take.

These are the books we have chosen to read this time (if you click on the name of the book, the links go to Amazon, where you can read about each one). I will be ordering mine from the library as usual, I find the online ordering system mostly very good, they email me to say the books are in and I just go along and collect them. The service is free.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida 
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez

As always, feel free to read one, two or three, there's no pressure on anybody to read everything.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 20th November, when we will be going out for an Indian meal. As this will be our last Book Club  meeting before Christmas, we will be doing our usual 'Secret Santa'. Please wrap up a book you have read and enjoyed and would like to pass on to someone else, and we will randomly pass them out. Be prepared, though - at our first meeting next year you will have to try and remember why you liked it and discuss it with the person who received it! If you can even remember which book you wrapped up (it has been known that we forget....)

I'll be sending out a reminder about the meal nearer the time, and will be asking then for definite numbers so that I can book.

P.S. My apologies for no photograph on this post. I was too busy eating the vegetable crisps.....

Book Club 10th July: Traumatic endings, vegetable crisps and one very well behaved dog

We met at Sue’s house, where we were amply fed and watered. Those vegetable crisps were delicious, not quite sure who ate most of them (innocent face).

We discussed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  and agreed that it was unbelievable in parts and with so much conflict packed in, it seemed as though everything in the world that could possibly happen to the poor girl did so. As this book only took her to the age of 16, it makes you wonder what happens in the next (SIX) volumes of her autobiography. 

There were mixed reviews for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. One person was so traumatised by it that she was unable to read anything but chick lit for a while afterwards, poor girl!  We found some parts of the book  unbelievable and unrealistic, and it was said that the heroine  deserved her comeuppance.

Mostly people seemed to like Lady Susan, which is a short book consisting of letters back and forth. One person said when she got to the end she thought her Kindle had broken, as it didn't seem like the end, though sadly it was. Another person (here’s that innocent face again) 

downloaded it to her Kindle weeks ago and promptly mislaid the Kindle, which has yet to turn up.  Lady Susan prompted a discussion about the postal system and the demise of the handwritten letter. Some members remembered when they could post a letter in the morning and it would arrive in the afternoon – though of course only ‘God, the weather and the state of the roads permitting’!

There were positive reviews all round for The Universe versus Alex Woods, except for me, I admit it – I was a quarter of the way in, and a bit bored. After glowing reports from everyone, I decided to finish it and am so glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was agreed that it was funny and different, and a really good read.

We chose our next reads (the links click through to Amazon where you can find out about the books) 

1.       The End of Your Life Bookclub by Will Schwalbe

2.       The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson

....and for our third book choice we decided to do something different. We thought it would be fun if we all choose a children’s book to read – it might be one from your own childhood you would like to revisit,  or a children’s book past or present that you would like to read.

We said that to keep ourselves accountable we would say in advance which book we would read – so far people have picked Children of the New Forest, Treasure Island and The Family at One End Street. When you have decided which book you are going to read, please come over to the forum and let us know what you have chosen.

The next book club meeting will be on Wednesday 25^th September at Margaret’s house. 

Honorary member Zak

Book Club 15th May: Corsets, Camouflage, Pilgrimages and Sweet Polly Oliver

Lovely treats courtesy of Frances

We convened for our May meeting at Frances' house, where the evening was helped along by   some lovely nibbles baked by Frances. 

The first book we discussed was 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' - this was a popular choice. It was compared to the '100 Year Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared', a previous Book Club read, in that both books involve someone going on a sort of journey of discovery. We thought parts of it were very touching, in particular the way that Harold and his wife had grown apart over the years and Harold's visit to his friend Queenie in Hospital at the end of his pilgrimage was also quite poignant.  

Some of us found Kate Adie's 'Corsets to Camouflage' quite dry, more like an academic text, but we also thought it was interesting and informative. We were surprised how prevalent it was that women would pretend to be men, prompting two members to burst into song, treating us to a rendition of 'Sweet Polly Oliver'. Click the symbol on the picture to hear it. 

Not one of our members, but you get the idea. The first song for the proposed singing group, perhaps? 

Only one member had read 'Down and Out in Paris in London' as yet. It was found to be interesting, but more of a series of anecdotes than a story as such. There was an interesting part towards the end of the book where Orwell discussed slang terms used by tramps in the 1930s and it was interesting to see which words continued to be in use today and which had completely disappeared. 

As for 'Jambusters', about the history of the WI, one member is partway through it and finding it very interesting so far. 

The continuing saga of 'The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass'...... it has proved difficult for members to get hold of this book, so at each meeting there are one or two more people who have managed to read it. The consensus last night was that it is very funny (except for one member who shall remain nameless, who couldn't get into it, but promises to try again!) 

Some members had been to an author talk at Eastbury House recently, a new venture by Eastbury that looks promising as they have some more author talks lined up, 'The Virgin Queen' and 'Blood Sisters'. Click here for details of times, etc, and other events at Eastbury House

As always, our 'book discussion' veered off into all sorts of other areas. We talked about why it is that although we have lots of modern conveniences these days, life seems to be busier than ever. One member said whenever she visited her parents they would be asleep in the armchair in the afternoons. It seems the pace of life was much slower years ago. 

Kindles at the ready!

We have chosen four books for discussion again, and we put them a loose order to try to read them in if we can. As always, we don't expect everyone to read everything, it is just to give some variety and choice. If you click on the name of the book, it will take you to the item on Amazon, where you can read about each book. They might be cheaper used from Amazon, or from Play.com, or do what I do and order them all from the library. Even cheaper. 

1. Lady Susan by Jane Austen - currently FREE on Amazon for Kindle, or you can get the Complete Works of Jane Austen on Kindle for 49p
2. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Simon Mawer
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extance 

Our next meeting will be on 10th July at Sue's house. Don't forget, anyone who can't make it to meetings and would like to read along with us is more than welcome and can start or join in discussion in the Book Club section over at the First Ladies forum. 

Books, a cuppa, nibbles and good company

See you next time!