Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

Wow, well that book generated an excellent discussion at book club, from the mores of the aristocracy, bad parenting, feminism (or not), up bringing, boarding school, and much much more.  Anne Glenconner's biography was a thoroughly entertaining read.  Her life fairly rips along at a pace that would have left most of us behind.  Her life with Colin Glenconner was unconventional and difficult and yet ultimately extremely privileged.  Colin Glenconner's disregard for his family, his spoilt child attitude to life was extremely hard to bear.  Without the money behind him, his behavior would not have been supported by anyone.

Words used to describe it:  loved it, a romp, fascinating, fawning sycophantic, engaging, rip-roaring read.

Marks out of 10:  between 5 - 9 

Next Book

Olive Ketteridge by Elizabeth Stroud

Next Meeting

9th April

Venue

TBC

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Very hard to review a book that you didn't complete - none of us completed and that is a first for this book club.  This book was (well the 150 pages that I did read) a mess, a confusing mess.  Why the reviewers fuss we couldn't understand.  Sorry people, we did not like this book.  

So no words and no marks out of 10.

Next book - a bit lighter

Next book

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

 

Next Meeting

Thursday 5th March

Venue TBC

Fushima Dreams by Zelda Rhiando

What a monkey puzzle of a book.  Part crime, part psychological thriller, part mystic dream this intense book defies categories.  Set in modern Japan around the time of the tsunami, and centered around the main characters of Harry and Sachiko.  The birth of their son Tashi has ripped their life apart, Sachiko suffers from postpartum psychosis and Harry is failing appallingly to cope with this and their child.  He turns in on himself as much as Sachiko absences herself mentally, and then the tsunami - what happens to them in the aftermath unfolds painfully.

The author Zelda Rhiando came to our book club and answered our many questions about the book.  She traveled around Japan for a month, absorbing the character of the Japanese people, enabling her to write with a delicacy of the innate 'politeness' of Japanese society, the rules that govern people's actions and interactions. It was interesting to hear Zelda's perception of her characters and how a story often has a life of its own. It must be terrifying to come to a book club, we really appreciated Zelda coming and talking so frankly about being an author and the process of not only writing but publishing a book.  Great evening with a fascinating author.  Thank you for coming to Zelda. PS. Wine may have been involved!

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

Words used to describe it:  softly shocking, intriguing, fascinating, mystic, intense

Next Book

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Next Meeting

Christmas Do - starting at Olivia's then on for supper and dancing

Friday 20th December

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Having read Persuasion at different times in my life, I have always found this gentle, harsh, claustrophobic novel one of her best.  It may not have the romping breath of Sense and Sensibility, or Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, but I do think that the arch of the story, the minutiae of a woman's life, hemmed in by society's constructs of what a woman of a certain stratum of society can and cannot do is so well illustrated in this novel.  It is of its time and yet still pertinent today.  I won't precis the novel as it is so well known.  Having said all this many did not enjoy this novel as much as they have enjoyed others by Jane Austen.  

Marks out of 10 between 5 - 8

Words used to describe it:  Mills and Boon, predictable, engaging, refreshing revisited, social nuance

Next Book

Fushima Dreams by Zelda Rhiando

Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor

Review from Goodreads:  1878 - The Lyceum Theatre, London. Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker. Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager?s devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen. This exceptional novel explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.

But what did we think of it?  On the whole most of us couldn't get past the over flowery writing, the descriptive text was too much to digest and got in the way of the characters and story.  Many didn't finish the book, perhaps too much for a holiday read.  Those who know the theatre loved the descriptions and insight into Victorian la la land, but not enough to enjoy the book.

Marks out of 10:  4 - 5 so not high

Words used to describe it: interesting historically, camp, overwritten

Next book

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Next meeting:

Friday 20th September at 127 Harbord St

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control. (Goodreads)

This received a mix reception by the book club readers.  Some really enjoyed the moral aspect of when is an AI robot a machine, and when does it become someone?  The slow inevitable telling of the story was interesting. The book did generate a good discussion about the rise of technology in our lives, who uses and likes 'Alexa' and what comparisons can we make with AI.

Marks out of 10 - between 3 - 8

Words used to describe it:  alien, uncomfortable, difficult, moral

Next Book

Shadowplay by Joesph O' Connor

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black 'stand-in mother', Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina - a town that holds the secret to her mother's past.
Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey. And there Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world as about the mystery surrounding her mother. (Waterstone online review)

Words used to describe it:  enriching, charming, intriguing, heartwarming, gentle, simplistic, unchallenging, ordinary

Marks out of 10:  between 7 - 8

Next Book

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Next Meeting

4th July at 130 Harbord St

Self Made Man by Norah Vincente

We have still to review this book

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

What she doesn't write, but what we see, is the march of time, relentlessly trampling every moment into the past; the ash-spiral fragility of memory; the transience of passion; the fact that even when we burn brightest we are already dying … Claudia, the protagonist of this book writes her own history, her intense incestious relationship with her brother, the bright doomed love affair of her 20's the grief of Tom's death coloured the rest of her life.  Her distant and harsh treatment of the child she wanted but never loved.  Not an easy book to read, but the language is beautiful.

Words used to describe it:  carry on, kalidescopicscaberous, historic, cutting, difficult, vicious

Marks out of 10:  between 6 - 9

Next Book

Self Made Man by Norah Vincent

Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn

The interview by the Guardian writer Stephen Moss of Edward St Aubyn is revelling and obfuscating at the same time and this perfectly ecapsulates the book.  Edward writes about his abusive, upper class childhood,where his father rapes him and continues to abuse him from the age of 5 to 8.  It's a hard book to read,  where a child scared by his treatment moves to teenage years and the casual use of drugs to hide the scared and disturbed child beneath the drug abuse to enable him to forget. 

Words used to discribe it:  cutting wit, explosive, over rated, authentic, characterless, horrendous, corrosive,

Marks out of 10:  between 6 - 10 so highly scored

Next Book 

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Next Meeting

18th April

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

"William Blake famously wrote, "To see a world in a grain of sand,/And heaven in a wild flower,/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,/and eternity in an hour." This will become Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov's daily challenge and his lifelong campaign, to see the whole world as defined by the confines of a single building, living out his days under house arrest in the glorious and historic Hotel Metropol for the insidious crime of writing a poem. Amor Towles has created a character of supreme intelligence and wit, a man of integrity and honour. A gentleman in the truest sense of the world, whose misfortune it was to have been visited by his muse in the tumultuous times after the Bolshevik Revolution, and so inspired to pen a poem." explorebooks  Reviewed by Mark Billingsley.

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is confined to the prison of the luxurious hotel in the centre of Moscow as penance for a crime against the communist state  His life reduced to the rooms and characters that make their way to the hotel over the years that he is incarcerated.  The storytelling slowly meandering its way out of the corridors of the hotel.

Words used to describe the book:
not for me, overly sentimental, interesting structure, disjointed, disappointed, lovely turn of phrase, 

Marks out of 10 between    6 - 8 

Next book

Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn

Next Meeting

7 February at 130 Harbord St

Unless by Carol Sheilds

There is a review by the Guardian reviewer  Blake Morrison 'Hell hath no fury' which reads so much more into this book than we did.  It sees the novel as a quiet scream against the female ouvre, a feminist novel but not a strident one.  We didn't read it as such.  Most of us just saw it as a novelist writing about a novelist, introspective and navel gazing.  Although the language is beautiful and skillful, the story was not engaging enough for most of us.

Words used to decribe it:
concited, navel (novel) gazing, uncompromising, gloomy, beautifully written, disjointed, unengaging

Marks out of 10
Between 3 - 8 (only one 8)

Next Book

A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

Venue

at Carolyn's

 January 17th 2019

Christmas dinner at Chelsea Arts Club 

19th December

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Villette, was Charlotte Bronte's final novel and possibly her most autobiographical.   Lucy Snowe, leaves England, fleeing an unspecified family trauma to a French boarding school in the French town of Villette.  Watching the romance between Dr John and Gineva Fanshawe brings to Lucy the heartache Lucy has tried to escape.  

This novel is considered to be one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.  We thought, as a group, it was a difficult read and most of us didn't finish it despite having nearly 3 months to read it!  

Words used to describe it:
long-winded and over-elaborate, boring, endless, tedious, boring and null - Ummm not good ones!

Marks out of 10 
between 3 - 4 

Next book

Unless by Carol Sheilds

Next meeting

16th November at 126 Harbord St

Dietland by Sarai Walker

I wasn't at the meeting so can't comment on this book.  Sorry.
But there is a really good review by the Guardian here

Next book

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

A fictionalized ccount of Ernest Hemmingway's first wife, how they met, loved and then lost and hated.  Based in Chicargo and Paris of the 1920/30's the loush life of wine, women and cigarettes on a tight budget.  The marriage is improbable from the beginning, the young handsome writer Ernest and the blue stocking older Hadley, met, love and marry.  Moving to Paris to further his career Hadley falls pregnant and with the birth of their son watches as Ernest's affections depart and move onto a younger, richer woman, who eventually becomes his second wife.

This book generated some discussion but didn't see to grab peoples attention.  There was a feeling of impending doom throughout the book and did bring the characters of the people involved to light.  But was it a good book for book club, probably not. 

Words used to describe it:   literary tourism, enjoyed/intriguing, faux diary, my life

Marks out of 10:  between 7 and 9 so highly marked

Next Meeting 

26th July at 115 Harbord St

Next Book

Dietland by Sarah Walker
and not
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely fine - which I read and loved!

Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews

Anna Carlson adopted Koren daughter of an American couple, returns to Korea after the death of her adoptive mother to search for her birth mother.  On leaving the orphanage an old woman presses into her hand an elaborate double headed dragon hair comb with the urgent request that she come and visit her.

The story told from the old woman is of the 'Comfort Women' of Korea, kidnapped and forced into prostitution for the Japanese army.  Jae-hee tells this story, how her life was under Communist rule in North Korea, her fiancees arrest, her escape and her success in S Korea and her plunge into poverty once her secret comes out - she was once was a comfort women.  The horror and degradation of her time as a comfort woman is not easy reading, and more importantly an aspect of history that should not be ignored.

In the discussion afterwards what struck people most was the 'deus ex machina maquina' device of furthering the action - using the story of the Empress/Goddess who is supposed to unify Korea. 

Words used to describe it:
harrowing, informed, enlightening, compelling, factual

Marks out of 10 - between 5 - 8

Next Book

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Next Meeting

20th June - Mandy's

Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig

Like many people now, Quentin and Lottie Bredin can't afford to divorce and can't afford to live in London.  So they decide to downsize and move their family to Devon.  A darkly harsh black comedy, of middle class issues of money and marriage.  The book delves into the issues of zero hour contracts, infidelity and relationships.

Having said that this book club didn't really like the book, people found it lecturing, excructiating and in places ludicrous.  

Marks out of 10 - between 1 & 5

Words used to describe it:
disappointing, oversold, hectoring, disjointed.

Next Book

Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews

Next Meeting 

May 24th at Carolyn's

Black Water by Louise Doughty

Last night, Louise Doughty came to The Haven at Fulham Broadway where some of this book club and a number of other book clubs heard her talk about the book and a little about her previous book Appletree Yard.  There is something refreshing about hearing an author talk about the process - admit that writing is hard and hearing how considered the small stuff is.  For instance, where the main character goes into town early on in the book, Louise had originally written he wanted to go in for 'some bits and pieces' but considered this too feminine, so opted for the line 'a bit of shopping'.  I'd never really considered the gender status of some of our normal phrases.  Or even how culture and country affect they way that we use phrases.  It was also interesting to hear how a flash of inspiration, in this instance, the idea of a man, lying in a hut, listening to the sounds of the jungle wildlife, at night and expecting the worst to happen...the question is why, how did he get there and who is he......

To answer some of those questions: the protagonist is Harper an Indonesian/Dutch man, partly brought up in America and Holland,  haunted by his past and the massacres of in Indonesia in 1965. Complex in its breath this book explores relationships, guilt, race and colonialism, along with that grey area of the security personnel who do the work government and their agencies don't want to be seen to be doing. 

A fascinating book that I recommend reading.  As this was an event we don't have our usual word to describe it or marks out of 10 from the group.  But personally I would say slow to start, but riveting and give it 7.

Next Book

Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig

Date

12th April, Thursday at 126 Harbord St

I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing by Maya Angelou

This is the now famous book by the poet Maya Angelou, her 1965 autobiography, the first of 7 books.  The book describes Maya and her older brothers early life, her rape at 8 and becoming a mother at 16.  How she over came rape, racism, and a disjointed childhood to graduate from high school.  Subsequent books cover her later life, but this is her most famous.  Not all of us had finished reading it, it's funny how the story is so well known but we hadn't read the book, it seems that the themes have leached into popular culture and we know the story.  As you would expect from a poet the prose is lyrical and descriptive, but at times feels dated,

Words used to describe it:
Illuminating, not what I thought, expecting more, beautifully written but

Marks out of 10
Between 6 - 7

Next Book

Black Water by Louise Doughty

Next Meeting

Tuesday 13 March at the Haven, Effie Rd, Fulham, London SW6 1TB

Berlin Poplars by Anne B Radge

"Just before Christmas on a farm in Northern Norway, 80-year-old Anna Neshov, matriarch of a troubled family, is taken gravely ill. Her three sons have been quietly immersed in their work: one an undertaker, one a window-dresser, and the eldest running the family farm, but now they are forced to reunite for the first time in many years. Their personalities are as disparate as their careers, and tensions mount from the second they meet, climaxing over Christmas dinner when the matter of inheritance prompts the revelation of disturbing family secrets," - from Goodread A good synopsis of the story.

The book generated an interesting discussion about the nature of family, sexuality, the scars of war,  and prejudice.   

Words used to describe it:  clunky, ghoulish, macabre, well drawn characters, bleak, sad, no redeeming features

Marks out of 10:   between 2 & 7

Next Book 

I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing - Maya Angelou