The Power by Naomi Alderman

If women had power - physical power, the power to zap someone with a bolt of electricity generated from their own body how would the dynamics between the sexes change?  This happens suddenly, one day young women/girls are able to zap someone, their power emerging with their nascent sexuality.  They are able to ignite it in older women through touch.  Dynamics change, women turn against their oppressors, sexual, religious, physical and life for men is no longer the same.  Drugs are developed that enhances the power and porn created to fetishise it.  

Through the lives of various characters, Allie, the abused America foster child who reinvents herself as Mother Eve, seeking to develop a community away from men, who joins forces with Roxy the daughter of a London crime boss,  Tunde a Nigerian journalist reporting on the global changes taking place, and discovering what it's like to be an attractive young man in a woman's world.  And Margot the middle aged politician who sees that power comes from strength not authority, and now she has that strength.

It's a bleak book - the descriptions of sexual violence are horrifying, the abuse of power as with men depraved.  Are we (women) just going to succumb to the same power imbalance as men, would we really?  The book did engender a good discussion about the nature of power, is it just physical or can we achieve power in other ways.  

Words used to describe it:  thought provoking, unlike-ably interesting, harsh, 

Marks out of 10 - a consistent 7

Next Book

Strumpet City  by James Plunkett

Next Meeting

Friday 14th July venue either Carolyn or Mandy  TBC

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: A Novel by Marina Lewycka

Review to come

Next Book

The Power by Niaomi Alderman

Next meeting

Friday 9 June

at 

72 Kingwood Road

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Hard to describe a book where the terseness of prose  is mixed with fantasy.  Flitting from place to place through amorphous black doors enable refugees to 'arrive' in another country.  This book cleverly and clearly brings alive to the reader the slowly emerging  horror of watching your country dissolve into war, fractions and wanton violence that you are little able to comprehend or avoid.  The necessity of flight from your country becomes imperative.  Saeed and Nadia the protagonists of this book take one of these 'black doors' arriving in Mykonos, then onto Germany, to London a city rapidly filling with other refugees creating it's own political crisis.  Forced to live their lives outside of their previous culture, makes them question some of their cultural assumptions and their relationship with each other.  Crisis in London makes them feel uncertain of their ability to make a home in a city which doesn't want them.  An interesting discussion on the nature of being a refugee, what is home is people, place or culture?

Words used to describe it:
Pithy, bares reading twice, first half best, profound, disturbing, beguiling, enlightening, melancholic, crystallizing

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

Next Book

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Next meeting 

4 May 2017

At

126 Harbord St

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Lily Bart, a well born, beautiful, educated but impoverished woman, living in New York's high society around the turn of the century, where the one aim in a woman's life is to 'snare' a husband, preferably a rich one.  As her 29th year approaches her prospects become slimmer.  The book highlights the gender gap, where women were not expected to 'do' anything to ensure their future except to marry and if this didn't happen - what then?  If you had no family or money to support you -  a slow decent from privilege to a tragic, lonely existence on the margin of society.  

Ms Wharton's beady, critical eye scythes through high society where petty infractions of perceived rules were ruthlessly judged, exclusion and expunction from the social circle where the consequences.  If you don't fit, aren't rich enough or make a social mistake, that's it you're out.  Especially if you are a woman. Men or rich people could flout the rules as much as they wish.  Lily colludes in her downfall by falling into debt, playing cards for money (and losing) and flouting convention by meeting  a man alone.  All which play into her downfall.
Slow to get going many didn't finish this book.

Words used to describe it:   overwritten, snobby, overt antisemitism, cruel, frustrating 

Marks out of 10:  between 6 - 8

Next Book

Exit West by Moshim Hamid

Cindy can get copies of the book from Nomad Books

Next Meeting 

5 April 12 Lysia St - hosted by Moira

Rabbit by John Updike

Not an American dystopian novel but and American dystopian life.  The book depicts 3 months in the life of a 26 year old former high school basketball player, Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, in a loveless marriage, boring job and his attempts to escape this life of mundanity.  On the spur of the moment he leaves his wife and drives south to his home town trying to regain some of his high school glory days and find the spark in life that has left.  The novel goes on to describe the vicissitudes of Harry's life, how he changes it, the people and women.  
Updike says of his book that "My subject is the American Protestant small-town middle class.  I like middles. It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules".  He goes on to say that when he "looked around in 1959 he saw a number of scared dodgy men who could not make commitments, men who peaked in high school and existed in a downward spiral.  Their idea of happiness was to be young.  Thus Rabbit, Run was born".
This book was found by many to be 'boring' by others to be beautifully descriptive and others just middling.  It wasn't an easy read, but did generate some interesting discussions about mid America , the cultural changes that were going on.

Words used to describe it:  Groundhog Day, depressing, wanting to portray something dismal in beautiful writing, great characterization, of it's era, forensically detailed,

Marks out of 10:  between 5 - 9 so very varied

Next Book

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous

Written in diary form our author simply describes the events as Berlin falls to the Russians nearing the end of the war.  The impact on the civilian population left in the city (mainly women, children and older people).  In this harsh environment where food is a scarce resource, one must do what is necessary to survive.  The Russians arrive and rape and pillage, those two pillars  of a marauding army on a civilian population, becomes the norm. You do what you have to - if by finding a 'protector' you get an extra ration of food, is that so wrong?  You survive however you must.  To categorize the horrors that people survived and went through is not the purpose of this review, but as an eyewitness account of the degradation of a city and the inhumanity of man it is a profound and dispassionate book.

A number hadn't read the book in time for the meeting, I do urge you to do so.  Also Cindy mentioned that another book closely related to this that should be read:  The Past is Myself by Cristabel Bielenberg (obit)

Words used to describe it:
crisp, dispassionate, must read, 

Marks out of 10 -   8 - 10

Next Book

Rabbit Run by John Updike

Next Meeting

Wed 1 February at 115 Harbord St

Dissolution by CJ Samson

A medieval who dun'it.  Set during the dissolution of the monasteries, after Henry VIII split the English Church from Rome.  The historical detail is fascinating and in the light of Brexit shows that nothing is forever and everything can be broken down and changed, even those institutions that had stood for 100's of years.  Part of the Shadlake series of books, this is the first one, introducing the hunchback lawyer to us, his analytical thought process the political intrigue and how even then, the fingers of power stretched far and wide.  One of Cromwell's Commissioners has been murdered at a monastery set for dissolution - it looks like witchcraft but is it really?  The cold, wet, fetid atmosphere of medieval England is well described and a lot of historical detail is carefully inserted into the story - like a lot of crime fiction, the story is interesting but some of the characters lack depth.

Words used to describe it:
exploding myth (Anne Boleyn), Shadlake doesn't ask enough questions, long winded, chilling, atmospheric

Marks out of 10:  between 5 - 7

Next Book

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous

Next Meeting

Wed 30th November

117 Harbord St

Christmas Party

3 December 2016

208 Munster Road then onto The Southern Bell

The Chevalier by Mike Hobbs

We were lucky enough to have the author of this book, Mike Hobbs at our meeting, who answered our questions about this character and the book:   Le Chevalier (Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont (5 October 1728 – 21 May 1810) was a real person, a transvestite or perhaps an hermaphrodite who was co opted to spy for Louis XV.  The charming and feminine Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont has popped up in history and historical fiction before, but this book lays down a family and reason that he did what he did.  

Below a few of the questions we asked: 

Q Where did you get your inspiration from?
A While browsing the book shops of Hay on Wye I came across an old biography called Royal Spy, which outlined her fascinating story.   I became intrigued and wanted to write about her.

Q How many drafts/outlines do you do of the story?
A This was the 3 or 4th draft, I always had a good idea of what the story was going to be in my mind, so it was just a matter of writing it!

Q What happened to Le Chavalier?
A He died in Lambeth, London, having lived the last 16 years of his life as a woman, although when his body was inspected she was found to have full male genitalia as well as the rounded limbs of a woman including breasts.The real Chevalier died in abject poverty  at the age of 81.

Q How much research did you do for the historical detail?
A I try to do enough to make the details accurate, but not so much that it impedes the story.  You can get bogged down in detail if you aren't careful.

Q Which part did you agonize over most?
A The Introduction and the second journey.  The intro lays down the foundation of the story and is the most important chapter, the second journey as it links so many details together. 

Words used to describe the book:
wonderful, imaginative, pleasurably detailed, enthralling, excellent for reading about France, informative, amusing

Marks out of 10 between 6 - 9

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

A detailed novel set initially in the 1950, which focuses on two girls in a deprived, claustrophobic, over populated suburb of Naples.  The two girls meet at school where the tough and bright Lila bullies and befriends the writer Elena.  Lila taught herself to read at the age of three and despite her family continues to shine at school and yet, financial hardship and the lack of understanding of what an advantage an education could be to a girl of that time, her family fail to push her toward or into further education.  Elena, works at her education, seeing it as a way out of her life, she has the tentative support of her family and that makes all the difference.   The novel follows their lives as they change and move in different directions.

This book has been lauded, praised and adored on TV, paper and radio........So what did we think?  We couldn't see what all the fuss is about, yes it was detailed and the characters deeply drawn, but the story line failed to interest many of us in the group and a number found it dull, having said that a few loved it!  It did generate an interestingly wide discussion about womanhood, expectations and translations. 

Words used to describe it:  boring, compelling, interesting womanhood, febrile, poverty, underwhelming, over rated, puzzling popular, bland

Marks out of 10:  between 4 - 7

Next Book

The Chevalier by Mike Hobbs

The author of this book will be at the next meeting

I have a few hardback copies of the book at my house.  

Mike will sign them when he comes. Price £15.00 

Or download a digital copy.

Venue

Date: to be confirmed either 21 or 22 September.

Venue:  126 Harbord St

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

I haven't time this week to write the review on the book but I thought I'd publish details of the next two books.  Yes two books:

The book for August is 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante translated by Ann Goldstein  

Next Meeting

3rd August

Venue TBC

and the book for September is 

The Chevalier by Mike Hobbs, 

the author will come to our meeting in September.

The book is published by World's End Bookshop.  

Collect opies of the book here at 126 Harbord St, price £TBC

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh

"What could be finer, I thought, than to be a neurosurgeon?" writes Henry Marsh after seeing his first brain surgery. "The operation involved the brain, the mysterious substrate of all thought and feeling, of all that was important in human life – a mystery, it seemed to me, as great as the stars at night and the universe around us."  

In this clinical and terse memoir Mr Marsh writes about the single mindedness required to be an excellent technician/brain surgeon - his obvious entrancement with the brain, its beautiful construction, the mystery of many of its functions and its inherent softness and fragility, with only the cocoon of the skull to keep safe.  He brilliant describes the craft and beauty of the brain, the surgery and the implications of various treatments.   Mr Marsh takes us through his career, from the heady early days,  various operations, his dilemmas with and sometimes not treating people, his failures and the guilt he still bears and his recent issues with the various restructuring that has gone on in the NHS and the consequences for those doing the 'work'.  

For those of us with an interest in medical matters we loved this side of the book.  What many of us took issue with was the more 'me' side, the personal, the man which we felt could have done with some good editing - less of the person came through or maybe too much of the clinician? 
Very mixed reviews for this book. some liked it but on the whole, many found it too dry and un-engaging.

Words used to describe it:
enlightening, fascinating, clinical, instructive (twice), dry memoir

Marks out of 10:  between 4 and 8

Next Book

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Next Meeting

Thursday 2 June at 72 Kingwood Road

The other books we briefly discussed that Cindy had recommended - not all of us had read them were:

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

Comment from Carolyn - Not enough sex

and 

The Body Keeps Score

 

Fat Chance by Simon Gray

I know you shouldn't copy and paste whole reviews, but I saw this one from 'Ian' on Goodreads and I thought this is the best review - I won't expand on his:

"'What the fuck is he doing in Bruges`"

In 1995 Simon Gray wrote and directed "Cell Mates". The play is essentially a two hander and he seemed to have landed the dream team of Rik Mayall and Stephen Fry for the main parts. Alas, after reading the first reviews (to the consternation of colleagues, friends and family who feared the worst) Stephen Fry left the production (and indeed the country) without warning. The play closed soon after.

Fans of Simon Grays play diaries (and there should be many) will know that Gray worked on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the best of times and so his anguish, so perfectly expressed here, is hardly surprising. Fortunately for us all, for expiation and (I assume) revenge Gray dipped his pen in acid and wrote this account.

This particular dish is not always served cold (see quote above) but it is delicious (did someone say "schadenfreude"?) and there is some wonderfully cool writing; in answer to his own question set out above Gray writes;

"a beautiful city, fine restaurants. And a lot of Belgians who share Stephen's appetites, which would make him feel that he was in congenial company, I suppose. Dining in his gastric peer group. I made an enraged peroration along these lines......possibly unfair to Stephen, who might, for all I knew, have gone to Bruge for its spiritual sustenance - its cathedral, say, its small religious sanctuaries."

Ouch.

Simon Gray died earlier this year. As Stephen Fry might say "Bless you. God Bless you."
 
Link to Goodreads review

Words used to describe the book:  
revenge, self absorbed rant, vituperative, intense, excruciating, bitter 

Marks out of 10 - between 6 - 9

Next Book

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh

Next Meeting

115 Harbord St

5th May

Old Filth by Jane Graham

Old Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, skilled exponent? of the law, Sir Edward Feathers a child of 'The Raj' or the British institution of sending your child back to be educated.  The brutalizing effect of separation of child from family for years at a time.  This disconnect from family makes a child self-reliant, self contained and reserved - all characteristics of Sir Edward and other protagonists in this engrossing story.  The story slowly revealed what made these characters tick.  The 'murder' of an abusive foster parent, the resignation and acceptance of his lack of emotional life, little pieces of his wife, her character and her alternate life that he barely comprehended.  
A different age and different sensibilities, this treatment of a child would certainly constitute abandonment and child abuse now-a-days.  A study in the aging process.  A quiet novel of perception and or lack of it!  The story is slowly revealed with tragicomic timing.

Another book that created a good discussion on the character of begin British - was it the schools, or the lack of family.  Is a stiff upper lip a result of neglect.  Boarding school - friends for life or a hell to be endured.  

Words used to describe it:   damaged, stiff-upper-lipped, want more, thought provoking, lots of loose ends.

Marks out of 10:   all 8 except 1 who marked it 7!

Next book 

Fat Chance by Simon Gray

Next Meeting

Thursday April 7th

at 130 Harbord St

The Door by Magda Szabo

A busy writer and her academic husband, neither of whom is interested in house work, look for a housekeeper to help them out.  Emerence is recommended to them - with the cryptic warning 'She doesn't just take anyone on'.  After being duly interviewed by the formidable Emerence the author and her husband are taken on.  In this slowly eeked out story, small crumbs of information are carefully woven into the fabric of the story.  Emerence, her strange attitudes to people, why no-one can enter her home, animals and the way she dresses are all intertwined with her life.  A difficult book to precis and review.  
This book  generated an interesting discussion on war, PTS, spinsterhood and life in a Communist state, we did wonder if it actually was more of a political allegory than story?. 

Words used:  mystical, symbolic, dispassionate, dry, engrossing, intriguing, difficult, challenging
Marks out of 10 - between 6 - 8

Next Book

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

Next Meeting

10 March at hosted by Maire at 117 Harbord St

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This iconic book deserves reading.  Knowing that it was written by the then youthful author in the space of 9 days on a rented typewriter makes the prose and construction of the novel much more impressive.  As a commentary on the 'Macarthy era' of the early 1950's where what you wrote could land you in prison if it was considered to be 'unAmerican'.  The premise of the novel that books are dangerous and must now be burnt.  Firemen now burn houses that have books.  The ideas in books are deemed to be dangerous - to distract   people there is wall to wall interactive entertainment TV's, music entertainment direct to the ears, fast cars and dumbed down culture, keeping the population happy.  The on going war in the back ground carries on, with little or no interest by the population for whom it is supposedly being carried out in the name of.  

Guy Montag the 'hero' of the novel starts to think about things, books, life and ideas after meeting a young girl Clarisse who talks about everything. Montag meets an old English teacher Faber who encourages him to read some of the books he burns.  This of course leads to detection and the burning of his home.  Montag goes on the run, encouraged by Faber to reach a group of people who live outside the city where they memorize books waiting for the time when they can be printed again.  The end of the city with nuclear bombs where all that Montag knew is gone, and society has to start again - hopefully learning from it's own mistakes.  But do we?

We had a great discussion around this book and the interesting concepts that it illustrates.  Are books that important - are ideas that important, does society need to keep a record of its events and thoughts so that we don't make the same mistakes. Having said that if you look at history - it doesn't seem to be working! What about societies, cultures and religions that don't encourage independent thought, how should we consider those.

Words used to describe it: incendiary, inflammatory, prophetic, depressing, disruptive, thought provoking.
Marks out of 10:  between 8 - 9 so well liked.

Next Book

The Door by Magda Szabo

Next Meeting

Thursday 4th February

Ground Floor, 55 Harbord St

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Ummm, a difficult book to review, it's slow, restrained and vast - covering a startling period of recent American history - the McCarthy era.  Slowly through the recovered notebooks and snippets of newspapers horded in a bank depositary, Violet Brown,  Harrison William Shepherd's personal assistant pieces together his life. The book we read today, Brown reveals, was assembled by herself in 1959 from Shepherd’s junked notebooks and sealed for 50 years, to be opened in 2009 :  from his early years on the island of Isla Pixol with his flighty Mexican mother.  Through serendipitous happenings Will,  finds his way into the life and happenings of the Khalo/Rivera household, viewing and possibly involved in Trotsky's death.  Will moves to the US, where he keeps to the background, writing observing and commentating while slowly the omnipresent feeling of surveillance, how a word or writing perceived to be 'Un-American' could land you in trouble, despite being so careful the unassuming and quiet Will finds himself at the wrong end of the FBI/McCarthy inquisition.  

An interesting book that easily takes you through the recent history of Mexico and America, mixing fact with fiction.  Not a book to flick through it needed concentration.

Words used to describe it:  nicely crafted, little drama, good descriptions, fascinating
Marks out of 10:  between 6 & 8

Next Book

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Next Meeting

Wednesday 6th January

130 Harbord St

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

"After all, how often do we get to hear the inner voice of a fat, funny, literate, working-class teenager from Wolverhampton? Quite." Barbara Ellen - The Guardian

Caitlin Moran has written a humorous coming of age novel, loosely based on her own life of a clever girl who took the chances that her writing offered her to make a life writing about music.  Lose her virginity and transform her perception of herself. With panache and verve she slides through the 80's music scene, London a young girl finding out about herself.  It is crude, it is brash, it is fun.  Moran has a wonderful turn of phrase and use of language.

“Self-harm - the world will come at you with knives anyway. You do not need to beat them to it.”

 “Because I am still learning to walk and talk, and it is a million times easier to be cynical and wield a sword, than it is to be open-hearted and stand there, holding a balloon and a birthday cake, with the infinite potential to look foolish.” 

 “Here’s the amazing thing about sex: you get a whole person to yourself, for the first time since you were a baby. Someone who is looking at you—just you—and thinking about you, and wanting you, and you haven’t even had to lie at the bottom of the stairs and pretend you’re dead to get them to do it.” 

 “I speculate, briefly, on how different the world would be if it were run by women. In that world, if you were a lonely, horny woman - as I am. As I always am- you'd see Blu-tacked postcards by Soho doorways that read 'Nice man in cardigan, 24, will talk to you about The Smiths whilst making you cheese-on-toast+come to parties with you. Apply within'.”

This book generated quite disparate views, some loved its rawness, some disliked its aggressive language, its no nonsense - in your face - take it or leave it - fuck you attitude - and some loved that! 

Marks out of 10:  between 6 & 8

Words used to describe it:  
aggressively teenager, great wordsmith, rude, blatant, liberating.

Next book

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Next Meeting 

Tuesday 17th November

117 Harbord St

The Rosie Project: Don Tillman 1 by Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman, 39, tall, intelligent and employed: "Logically I should be attractive to a wide range of women" (His words) and is an undiagnosed Asperger's type who Simsion uses to explore how a grown autistic man might approach a romantic relationship.  The Wife Project comes out of his perceived need for a wife, and who might be appropriate, to do this he (Don) draws up a tick box questionnaire of necessary or desirable and, as far as he is concerned, undesirable traits (smoking, overweight, vegetarian etc).  This light book deftly illustrates the difficulties one can get into if you cannot see the 'grey' in the world.  If your life is run along dogmatic lines according to the society as you understand it, then trying to navigate friendship and love is obviously difficult.  Life is negotiation, compromise and full of grey areas, which if you don't see them, understand them or are unable to compromise makes for awkward and 'interesting' situations.  Rosie is obviously not appropriate and yet love happens.  Don's two friends Gene and Claudia humanise him and add texture to what could be a one dimensional character. 

Words used to describe it:
Scintillating, different, uplifting, charming, amusing, illuminating

Marks out of 10 between 6 - 8.5

Pauline has read the next book in the series The Rosie Effect and recommends it, thought it even more enjoyable than the first one!

Next Meeting

72 Kingwood Road

Date

Friday 16th October

Next Book 

I have arbitrarily changed the book, as I wanted to read

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge

An incisive and stiletto cruel look at a mundane life of a middle manger and his mistress's life, made absurd when robbers burst in on their oh so twee dinner party.  With clever dialogue and sharp observations, Ms Bainbridge manages to bring out the ridiculousness of people and their attitudes and and the social mores that mean so much to some.  Alma the drunk neighbour acts as the catalyst, bringing the other protaganists thoughts to the fore.  None of the charcaters were likeable although there was a harsh black humor in the writing.  There was a play like feel about the story, with well drawn characters, placed in their grey 1970's homes, with all the awfulness of class distinctions being laid bare.  

Words used to describe it:  suprisingly good ending, abrupt ending, good begining - muddled middle - frenetic end, rape scene shockingly graphic, vivid

Marks out of 10:  between 6 - 8

Next Book

The Rosie Project: Don Tilman 1 by Grahme Simison

Next Meeting

126 Harbord St

Friday 18th September

A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore

Another book I hadn't finished by the time of the meeting, but I have finished it now.  A Gothic novel if ever there was one!  The children Rob and Cathy, grow up in their Grandfather's house, their mother having abandoned them to live in France and their father incarcerated in an asylum.  The sore of their mothers abandonment never heals.  Cath and Rob live a cloistered and dysfunctional life in their Grandfathers large country house,  find their love for each other and their need for comfort moves from sibling to lovers.  The novel twists and turns with elegant descriptions of melancholic decaying life in a large house in interwar Britain.  Lacking a character that you could sympathise with, this cold novel fails to engage the reader (my interpretation), although the descriptive prose is in places poetic in its elegance.

Words used to describe it:
great descriptive prose, ultimately unsatisfying, self obsessed, vivid descriptions, lacking resolution, vignettes and no story

Marks out of 10:

between 4 & 8

Next Book

Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge (Maire)

Next Meeting

11 August at 128 Harbord St

Subsequent meetings:

Sept Oxford Road - Carolyn

Oct Harbord St - Rowena

Nov Kingwood Rd - Olivia