The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

"I have an illness, a disease with the shape and sound of a snake. Whenever I learn something new, it learns it too … My illness knows everything I know. This was a difficult thing to get my head around."writes Matt Homes a diagnosed schizophrenic struggling to cope with the loss of his Down syndrome brother, and the guilt he might have contributed to his death. Using writing as therapy after having been sectioned, Matt describes in detail the unutterable boredom of psychiatric hospitals, the interminably of time, and the tick tock of pills that mark the passing of the day.  Written in various type face, with sketches and the feel of a journal 'put together' this book of a journey into a mind is interesting and depressing.  Matt's family are well drawn, their love and fragile mental states suggested at.  

The book generated a good discussion about mental health, perceptions of mental illness, and what guilt can do to the mind.  A number of us found the protagonist difficult to 'like' and were hoping for more of a clear cut description of schizophrenia, other loved the terse phrasing and clever descriptions of the illness cleverly linked in with the story line.

Thank you Carolyn for all the lovely eats - thank goodness we hadn't eaten, and for the wonderful post book discussion of politics, religion and prostitution!

Words used to describe the book:
realistic description, bit blah, unengaging but, enlightening, interesting,

Marks out of 10 - between 5 - 8 so quite highly marked.

Next book 

Germania by Simon Winder

Next Meeting (excluding X'mas dinner on 17th December)

Thursday 15th January

at

126 Harbord St

The Last Telegram by Liz Trenow

Using her family knowledge of the silk weaving industry, this story weaves the life, loves and regrets of its protagonist Lily before, during and slightly after WW2.  The author deftly drops sinpets of history, information and technical details of the silk weaving process into the story.  The importance of the tightness of the weaving for parachutes, the wonder of the material its self, from cocoon bulb to this immensely strong but beautiful yarn.  We discussed the social situation of the women depicted, the well drawn characters.  We discussed the racialism of small town England.  We all enjoyed the book.

Words used to describe it:

enjoyable, a lot of potential, pleasurable, quaint, likeable, easy read, undemanding

Marks out of 10:

between 6 - 8 so quite highly marked.

Next book

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

Next Meeting

Thursday 27 November - 12 Lysia Street

Recommended read

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Christmas Knees Up
17 December possibly at Luna Neuvoa, Fulham Road

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony

Elephants are large, very large and when angry or encroaching on human habitation can cause chaos and carnage in their wake.  With the growth of human population in Africa the land that elephants can safely roam is shrinking.  Lawrence Anthony had set up a small game reserve Thula Thula, S Africa when he was approached and asked if he would like to take in a small herd, 7 animals, of rogue elephants who were angry, distressed and aggressive. He would and did.  This book is the story of how Lawrence with patience came to gain the trust of the matriarch and therefore the herd through watching, understanding and 'talking' to them.  His aim was to habituate the herd enough that they would tolerate humans near, but not close by, as part of the moving safaris he offered on his reserve.  

The book generated an interesting discussion about animal behavior, the various techniques that other animal 'whisperers' use.  We found the book entertaining although lacking in detail - for instance, how did Lawrence and his wife buy Thula Thula?  What sparked his interested in big game and game reserves and a bit more about the local tribes and the impact reserves like this have upon their lives would have been interesting.    I suppose that many of these details are in other books that he has written but it would have been nice to place the story in a wider context. 

Below a link to

Short interview with Lawrence Anthony 


Words used to describe it:
   enjoyable tale, surprisingly good, loved one paragraph, a bit episodic, enjoyed it, interesting story

Marks out of 10:
   between 6 - 9

Next Book

The Last Telegram by Liz Trenow

Next Meeting

23 October

at

53 Bishop's Road, SW6

The Grand Banks Cafe by George Simenon

Number 8 of the Inspector Maigret detective novels, and the first that most of us had read.  Leisurely paced and intimately detailed it was an excellent holiday read.  Who killed the captain and why was there a woman on board the Ocean's last disastrous voyage.  Some of us found the translation a little clunky - starting too many sentences with And, was irritating.  The characters and period were skillfully and lightly crafted, although the plot was slight.  We all enjoyed the book although there wasn't much to discuss .  Someone mentioned that the next book of Simenon's that they read - The Yellow Dog, was a much better read.

Thank you Jackie for the delicious food - so glad that I didn't have supper before I came!  You put the bar pretty high.

Words used to describe it:
undemanding, dated, Victorian sensibilities, cabin fever, the other ones are better, atmospheric, familiar and easy, comforting, nostalgic

Marks out of 10:
between 6 - 9

Next book

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony

Next Meeting

Thursday 25th September at 126 Harbord St

Her Brilliant Career by Rachel Cooke

A lovely evening, out in Cindy's productive garden, talking too loudly and probably disturbing the neighbours - Oh whoops we are the neighbours, that's ok then! 

The book is a short trot through the varied careers of 10 women of the 50's who managed by ambition, skill, chance, happen-chance and bravado to make a career for themselves in an era when having a career was unusual.  The women were as varied in career as they were personally, for a change the jobs they did were not the glamorous writers, actors and thinkers of the time, but gardener/plants-woman (Margery Fish), film producer (Betty Box), cookery writer (Patience Grey, more popular than Elizabeth Davis at the time), first woman judge (Rose Helibron), pilot and racing car driver (Sheila Van Damm) and her rotating partners Nancy Spain, journalist, Joan Werner Laurie founder of She magazine, archeologist (Jacqetta Hawkes) and last but definitely not least architect (Alison Smithson).  What we all noticed was in many cases the fact that children were definitely had but then quickly dispersed to boarding school, nanny or other carers ASAP.  The book was definitely a quick romp through their lives, although the notes were useful and informative.

With so many women we turned our discussion to their personalities and how they managed to achieve what they did.  Rose Helibron and Alison Smithson were interesting characters.  Alison in particular seems to have been a particularly determined and forthright person.  We discussed and compared the working lives of our mothers, most of whom HAD to give up work on marriage - and admired their determination in this era.  Our American member reflected on the difference between Britain still in the grip of austerity, rationing and belt tightening with the prosperity and burgeoning middle class life style in America at the time.

Words used to describe this book:  patchy, repetition, badly edited, waste of a good story, disheartening, interesting facts, doesn't do what it says on the tin

Marks out of 10:   between 5 & 8

Next Book

Grand Banks Cafe by Georges Simenon

(if you'd like to read the others by him Cindy suggested:  
Night of the Crossroad, The Yellow Dog)

Next Meeting

28th August at 115 Harbord St

Date for the diary

Juke Box Evening 13 August

Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble

Wonderful news, one of our book clubiees has had a baby!  Welcome to the world baby Jake and congratulations Simone.  So your book reading will be curtailed for a while!

I thought I'd put the book name and next meeting up and write the review later:
although here is an excellent one in  The Guardian

Next book

Her Brilliant Career by Rachel Cook

Next meeting

Thursday 31 July at 130 Harbord St

Smut by Alan Bennett

Two short tales by Alan Bennett, the first The Greening of Mrs Donaldson,  a recently widowed woman (perceived in this story at 55 to be old - to which many of us take exception) against her prudish daughter's wishes, continues with her work as an 'actor' of illnesses at the hospital for student doctors to practice their bedside interrogation.  Mrs Donaldson takes in student lodgers, who get behind in their rent and correct intuit that Mrs Donaldson might just be interested in watching them have sex - and she is.  There was something very odd about this story, it felt dated, the reactions of the protagonists were incorrect for people who live now, perhaps more appropriate for 40 years ago.  I felt that Mrs D was my grandmother - not me!

The second story - The Shielding of Mrs Forbes - again had a similar 'antiquated' feel about it; improbable in this day and age to think that a gay man would feel it necessary to marry to please his mother.  The 'little woman' attitude that the story took of his wife, the necessity of shielding Mrs Forbes, the man's mother from the knowledge that her son is gay, just didn't strike true, so much so that when Guy is being blackmailed, you just sort of think 'Oh for goodness sake, just tell everyone'!  The twist in the tale was humorously perverted though.

There is a review in the The Telegraph by Charles Moore which brilliantly outlines all that is wrong with these stories.  This doesn't take away from the funny lines, the sharp observation and casual cruelness that is part of everyday life, that Bennett writes about so well.  

Words used to describe them:  wry, witty, wisdom; beautiful turn of phrase and disturbing, fun, unlikely, confused, whimsical, Wildean, miserable, funny, precise, weirdly enjoyable, palpable pathos.

Marks out of 10:  between 5 and 9 with 7 people voting 8, so highly marked. 

Next Book

Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble

Next Meeting

26th June at 128 Harbord St

 

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

Michael Holmes a violinist, recounts the recent love affair with the woman he loved and left after having a breakdown while studying in Vienna 10 years previously.  This is most definitely a musicians music book - the language and usage of complex musical themes to annotate and bring along the story is almost alienating of a non musical reader.  The relationship of Michael and Julia is bound together with their music and the instruments they play.  The story of her encroaching deafness, his incipient nervous breakdown and his relationship with the quartet that he plays most often with are almost incidental to the authors obvious interest in the music and the composers.  A number of us found the book difficult to read even if the language was beautiful.  The musical references too esoteric for most of us.

Words used to describe it:  loved the Trout, passion for music, too specialist, off key, musically indulgent, lyrical, musically elitist, passion for music not for people, uber intellectual
Marks out of 10:   between 5 and 8.5

Next Book

Smut by Alan Bennett

Next Meeting

Thursday 15th May

at

127 Harbord St

Jumping the Queue by Mary Wesley

Firstly, thank you to Olivia for hosting what ended up being a rather large book club get together - I think the number of people who attend is directly related to the thickness of the book................. Thank goodness we hadn't eaten before arriving, the food was delicious with fabulous cupcakes...take note Rona your crown is wobbling!

The book had with a heroine that you can't really warm to, an implausible storyline it was not a difficult read, but was an uncomfortable read.    The main story line of a woman who has decided at the ancient? age of 50+ to end her life as her husband has died, her children no longer want to see her and her life is empty - who through a series of serendipitous events ends up with a man accused of matricide, finding out that her husband was not the man she thought - possible involvement in drugs, incest, and spying.  Her children ranging from a high class call girl, a drug using beautiful but cruel homosexual and a well intentioned married woman. The story was almost about how much is hidden in a life.  How people can intentionally not look to see what is going on to avoid difficult issues in life.  It generated an interesting discussion more on the treatment of animals and how much Matilda had poured her love into her relationships with her animals to avoid being hurt.  How she avoided the 'nasty' things in life - what her husband was, who her husband had turned into and the kind of people her children were.  Deftly written with a sly black humor we all like it.

Words used to describe it:  intriguing and unsentimental, blackly macabre, inspiring, implausible, masterful, blase, ambivalent, improbable, thought provoking.  Marks out of 10 - between 6 - 9, it actually scored quite highly most giving it 8.

Next Book

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

Next Date

Wednesday 16th April at 117 Harbord St

A few dates for the diary - 

5th April Grand National

6th April Boat Race

15th May - next book club at 127 Harbord St

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

A small book club gathering for a big book.  

I will admit now that I haven't finished the book - it was much longer than I anticipated (reading on a kindle hard to judge length, when you don't have the physical wedge of paper in front of you),  the final 3rd of the book wasn't discussed in much length.  Difficult to review in one short paragraph as the length of the book and the convolutions in the tale make it hard to precise but I will try.   

The book opens with a gripping epilogue as the main protagonist, Theo Decker,  sits in a Dutch hotel, scanning a Dutch newspaper, looking for mention of his name as he has murdered someone....the story then starts.  How did this happen?  Slowly through the narration:  starting with the death of his mother in a terrorist explosion at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, his survival, his theft of a piece of art The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius on the instruction of a dying old man - the picture remains a totem throughout the book and the life that Theo lives as a consequence of the death of his mother.  I won't give a full precis of the story, but Donna Tartt's prosaic descriptions of the loneliness and isolation that the boy experiences, his wonderfully anarchic friend Boris, crystal clear prose with elegiac descriptions of scenery, people and situation are all beautifully evoked. One review I read mentioned that each third of the book was supposedly written in a different style: florid Dickensian, Kerouacian and sparse modern - but we didn't spot that!

The discussion about the book wasn't so much, I liked it, I didn't like it - we all liked aspects of the novel, some more than others.  The length of the book was a difficulty for many (which is why so many people didn't come to the meeting).  In this age of instant gratification and short attention span,  perhaps the concentration required to carry the storyline and characters and nuances of story in our minds is difficult, our busy lives intrude so much on our mind time.   Having said that we all enjoyed it, even though it wasn't an easy read.

Words used to describe it:   
too long, compellingly drawn characters, captivating storytelling, elegiac tome.  
Marks out of 10 between 6 and 8.5.

Next Book

Jumping the Queue by Mary Wesley (an easy read after this last one)

although we nearly chose

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Next Meeting

Thursday 13th March

72 Kingwood Road

8.00pm

Nothing to Envy - Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Firstly welcome to our newest member Olivia, who has read all the books since August but been unable to make any of the meetings - until this one! 

Nothing to Envy - a factual narrative by the journalist Barbara Demick based on the stories and accounts from people she interviewed who managed to escape from North Korea and make a new life in South Korea.  The book illustrates and describes how the population of N Korea are completely insulated and cut off from the rest of the world, how they are inculcated into the 'cult' of the leader.  The utter control that  the state has over the lives of the people are well articulated and explained through the examples and lives of the people who Barbara interviewed.  The descriptions of the life that people live, how the state  has total dominance over every aspect of a persons life, from your level of school to who you may or may not marry.  The desecration of the society and the degradation of life with the mismanagement of the economy and the ensuing famine. 

The book generated an excellent discussion,  a number of us had heard on book of the week BBC Radio 4  - Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden, about a boy/man born and brought up in a N Korean gulag, who escaped - and his complete lack of moral compass, due to the harsh dog eat dog up bringing he had in the prison.   A good example of nurture v nature argument!  This story and the accounts of the people in Demick's book really do highlight that a person can get used to anything, and that once the generation that knew something different dies, then there is no way for people to know or understand that things could be different.  The total isolation of the country works to the states advantage.  Horrifying and fascinating at the same time. 

Words used to describe it:   informative, disturbing, compelling, fascinating, uninspired writing but interesting, readable/educational/inspiring (more than one word but the excuse was I'm Irish!), journalistic, exhausting.

Marks out of 10 - between 8 - 9 so a high scoring book. One to recommend.

Next book

The Goldfinch by Donna Tarit 
(Mandy has found that amazon have the best price for this book)

Next Meeting

Thursday 6th February

126 Harbord St