Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt (Mandy 169)

Beautifully written book about a mother, her relationship with her distant, drug addicted daughter and her grand daughter.  The sharply observed characters are skillfully drawn, with kindness and humour.  The darkness of the difficult mother daughter relationship is expertly outlined without being mawkish. Difficult subjects carefully addressed, and it was felt, authentically written with tight prose.  Alienation, love, death, complex relationships all written with a matter-of-factness that belies the depth of the feelings. 

The book generated an interesting discussion about relationships, drugs and the realities of dealing with an addict, and mothers and daughters.  

Words used to describe it:  authentic, compassionate, dispassionate, perceptive, fucking brilliant

Marks out of 10:  9's all round, so a well liked book.

Next book

East West Street by Phillip Sands

Next meeting

Christmas get together:  15th December

Next book meeting: 12th January at 130 Harbord St

The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

 The Dutch House, a large 18C house of 'Dutch' style, with rounded gables and interesting detailing stands in a prominent position in a wealth area of Phillidelphia.  The house weaves its self through this tale of riches, family lost and found, marriage loved and lost, sibling love, and absence. Danny and his elder sister Maeve, are the main protagonists of this story of this dysfunctional family with the grandiose house, an evil step mother and the desperate longing for love. Fairy tale in its telling, the house holds sway over the family, where the well drawn but not very likeable characters deal with rejection, loss and subtle revenge. An intricate book of carefully drawn and insightful the protagonists develop over 50 years living their lives of love, thwarted ambition, loss and love.  The audio book version read by Tom Hanks is glorious. This book didn't generate much discussion, we probably need to digest its intricacies in more detail.

Words used describe it:  no heart, selfish, beguiling, the house was a character

Marks out of 10:  between 7 - 9 so highly marked.

Next Book

Loved and Missed by Suzie Boyt

Next Meeting

9th November at 126 Harbord St

Michel the Giant: an African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie (Cindy 168)

 Born in Togo, Michel as a child sees a book on Greenland, Robert Gessain’s Les Esquimaux du Groenland à l’Alaska (The Eskimos from Greenland to Alaska),  fascinated he decides that he is going to go to the land of ice, snow and Eskimos.  Aged 17, in 1958, he leaves his home and slowly works his way up the west coast of Africa, making it to Marseilles by 1963.  Learning new languages and educating himself along the way.  This resourceful man makes it to Greenland two years later.  

He gently writes about the Eskimos attitude to sex, relationships, fishing, home, dogs, time and alcohol.  The erosion of a harsh way of life that is being subsumed. Commercial fishing replacing hunting for seals, whales and walrus.  Through the lens of a life in Africa, the hard life of the Eskimo is told with clarity and directness. From the effect of alcohol, the long, long nights of winter and what it does to a man/woman, the food, friendship and fishing. How the society is set up and the feeling of cold. Real cold and the harshness of the climate. 

An interesting book published in France in 1977, and in English in 1981, there is a flavour of a time and culture now gone.  Michel has decided to retire his life in France and spend his remaining years in Greenland, a place that has forever a place in his heart. 

Marks out of 10: between 6 - 9

Words used to describe it:  dog eat dog, inspiring, elucidating, illuminating, admiral

Next book

The Dutch House by Anne Patchet

Next meeting

Wednesday 5th October at 117 Harbord St

The Pomegranate Tree by Vanessa Altin (167 Emma)

A young adult book describing through diary entries.  This book brings to its audience the horrors of war and the impact on a village in Syria.  Dilvina a young Kurdish girl is encouraged by her friend to write, to write about what is happening as ISIS sweep through their lands, villages and life, crushing and destroying all that they know and love.  The juxtaposition of the diary and life is clever.  The importance of bearing witness to what is happening, doesn't change what ISIS has done, but it does mean that others will know.  Jonathan Freedland has written a book called The Escape Artist about 2 young men who escaped Auschwitz specifically to bear witness at what was happening in the camps.  Although this is fiction it graphically depicts the harsh realities of war. The book ends on a hopeful note and illustrates the resilience of people.

Words used to describe it:  resilient, hopeful, relevant, clever, poignant

Marks out of 10:  between 7 - 9

Next Book 

Michel the Giant:  An African in Greeland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie (Cindy)

Next Meeting 

Friday 2nd September - 130 Harbord St

The Midnight Library by Mathew Haig (166 Carolyn)

 'Everyman has two lives, and the second one starts when he realises he has just one' Confucious.  No more apt saying could describe this book.  An interesting premise where Nora Seed, protagonist of this novel, finds herself in the Midnight Libraray after an attempt to commit suicide, there she is offered the oppourtunity to live various lives - had she made different decisions.  The Book of Regrets weighs heavily in her hands as she reviews the decisions that led her to the point where she believed that this life was not worth living.  Despite the initial downbeat start, the book is actually rather upbeat.  The lives she experiences in the Midnight Library enables her to see that her decisions were not all wrong and that the life she lives can be better.  The author writes convincingly with a female voice, allowing empathy and self doubt to colour her character.  This book generated an interesting discussion on second chances, death, life and the decisions we make in life.

Marks out of 10:  between 6 - 8

Words used to describe it:  hopeful, struck a cord, reassuring, contemplative

Next book

The Pomegranate Tree by Vanessa Altin (Emma)

Next Meeting

Monday 27th June at either Olivia or Cindy's

Fear and Loathing in LA by Hunter J Thompson (165 Mandy)

The prose of this hedonistic, nialistic, misoganistic, rascist, drug and alcohol fueled road trip is lyrical. The story is a stream of concisousness escapade.  Difficult to follow the storyline, the protagonist, a journalist, with his accountant friend decide to crash an event in LA, to do so they top loaded on drugs - so many drugs, I had to look up what they all did. Up, down, round about, who knows they didn't care, the consdequence of taking all these pharmacuticals and booze is an hallusangentic, hedonistic roadtrip.  I watched the movie to try and make more sense of the story - that didn't really help although it did give a framework to the fact that it was hard to understand what was going on. It was interesting to note, rather like Oscar Wilde, how many phrases and words have now entered common parlance - 'Gonzo' anyone.  The cruel but accurate writing is a character as much as the people decribed.  A difficult if headonistic read.

Marks out of 10:  betwee 6 - 9

Words used to describe it:  Gonzo writing, halucinagentic, strangley remanicent, hedonistic, cooking with drugs

Next Book

The Midnight Library by Mathew Haig

Next Meeting 

Friday 13th May at Emma's

Kara and the Sun by Kazu Ishiguro (164 Carolyn)

 There is a lot of deep and intense anlaysis of the premise of this novel on the internet.  It could be considered at its heart a reflection on what is a soul.  Kara, is an artificial friend (AF) to Josie, a 14 year old 'lifted' (genetically altered) child who suffers from illnesses (not specified but possibly due to being lifted).  The story retold through the thoughts of Kara.  The novel explores what is love, what is intelligence, what is life.  Kara is willing to give a lot to enable Josie to live a full life.  It explores faith and science and that technology does not mean that you have to forgo faith or love. An interesting premise that generated a good disussion especially when compared with the novel by Ian McEwan - Machines Like Us.

Marks out of 10

Words used to describe it:

 

Next Book 

Fear and Loathing in LA by Hunter J Thompson

Next Meeting

Thursday April 14th at Mandy's

The Pale Abyssinian by Miles Breslin 163 (RV)

The biography of one of Britain's greatest explorers that you have probably never heard of.  James Bruce b 1730, traveler extraordinaire, discoverer of the source of the Blue Nile, lived with the Emperor of Abyssinia, traveled around East Africa escaping pirates, surviving ambush, making friends and enemy's wherever he went. His survey of the Red Sea was still in use a 100 years later.  When he arrived back in the UK after penetrating the African interior no one believed his stories.  Only once Stanley and Livingstone, 100 years later ,did people realize that he had been telling the truth.  An amazing man, an astounding story so blandly told.  None of us found the writing engaging, it was a slog to read.  Even if we were engaged by the story and the bombastic character that was James Bruce. 

Words used to describe it:  fascinatingly dull, extraordinary, Boris Johnson, handwork, pompous, trying

Marks out of 10:  between 3 - 7 

Next Book

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Next Meeting

Thursday 17th March 

Lysia St - Carolyn's

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 162

Having recently read The Silence of the Girls we are now well versed in the words of the Iliad and the story of Achilles.  This novel from the perspective of Achilles friend and lover Patroclus, is a love story, a peon to that warrior of warriors, the best of men - Achilles.  Even though you know the story, the interweaving of the capriciousness of the Gods, the eventual death of both protagonists, it is a beautiful book of love. Having said that I think that we read it too soon after The Silence of the Girls and were Trojaned out!

Words used to describe it:  boring, prosaic, beautiful, balanced, disappointing, impactful

Marks out of 10:  between 3 - 7

Next Book 

The Pale Abyssinian by Miles Bredin

Next Meeting

Thursday 10th February at 115 Harbord St

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor 163

 The hotel becomes a genteel antechamber to oblivion, its spectral inhabitants representative figures from postwar English life. It’s the 1960s, and a new society is taking shape. 'The Claremont symbolises a class and a way of life heading for the dustbin of history.' It is also a gentle romance, on the edge of a rom-com, with comic characters such as Lady Swayne and Mrs de Salis.  The book evokes the era of Earls Court hotels and boarding houses. The writing is beautiful. The pathos of the ending is hard.  The book generated a good discussion about how times have changed, class and romance in later life.

Words used to describe it:  wonderful, multidimensional, biting, reflective, poignant, pathos

Marks out of 10:  between 8 - 10, there were a couple of 10's so well liked 

Next Book

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

and if you have time read Dead Cert by Dick Francis

Next Meeting

Thursday 6th January 

at 

126 Harbord St