LETSBuzz Book Club 2nd December 2001
Luke's first bookclub, at the age of 2½ years.
Recommended reading twice a day, and good drawings - (drawings less good in Thomas and Friends).
Luke
"Excellent"
Luke
A Booker nomination which Andrew liked very much. There are 2 stories, tenuously linked - one in England and America, 2 brothers - one coming home to look after their mother; the other a story of a Hungarian playwright. Good quality of writing, disappointing end the only negative comment. Would recommend.
Andrew
Andrew really liked this, it's quite Jewish, about a Jewish girl in the 50s/60s. Basic plot is that her mother tries to book a room and is given the brush-off "only gentiles go there", so the daughter has to go and stay there. He would have got more of the jokes if he had been Jewish-American. Main character is likeable. The older people are staid, the younger people more
relaxed.
Andrew
A book of short stories edited by Nick Hornby's friends - the funds go to a project for autistic children. Includes Zadie Smith, Robert Harris, Colin Frith. Good pieces, made Andrew want to read other things by these people, recommended buying. Nick Hornby does a good introductory essay.
Andrew
A question arose when Andrew talked about this book - are Wimpy bars a purely UK phenomenon?
Andrew
A collection of short stories, about the impact of children on your life. Everything on the back of the book is true! Full of insights...about women at toddler groups; also old woman crooning over little boy who shouts "witch".
Recommended.
Caroline
Set in Austria, 1909 - a letter arrives addressed to Anna Fink from Anton - could be anyone in the village. Traces lives of different families in 1916,1917, 1920,1977 - disconcerting switching from one thing to another. Every chapter is like a short story. Highly recommended.
Caroline
A novel about the life of Mary Magdalene - years after Christ has died she decides to write an alternative gospel. It is vivid about Israel, the heat and the dust. Not entirely convincing, but something could have been lost in translation from Swedish..
Caroline
As bad as the critics said it was. Two people have an affair in America before Kennedy is elected. Interesting from an historical point of view - because they weren't sure if Kennedy would win or not - would they elect a Catholic? The love story is about a commonplace story extra-marital affair. Historical parts are best - clothes, things in cafés; there is a jazz connection - but peters out. Not recommended.
Doreen
Entertaining but insufferable - interesting about how a kitchen works, the phrases, the mystique, and how little cooking he actually does. The people who put the food on the plate are semi-literate Guatemalans and Colombians. Good tip - don't eat seafood fricassee on a Monday.
Doreen
Written in 1919, in First World War in France; the book is feminist but anti-suffragette. It's about William the Socialist and Griselda the Suffragette who marry and go to France. They don't speak French, they are like babies in a tiny hamlet near the Somme - when they get a note saying the Germans are coming they don't understand it. Appalling and brutal things happen. An extraordinary book for its time.
Doreen
Jean didn't like this - she could only just read it to the end - nasty
and sleazy - starts with car crash in which two boys are killed. Is cruel and horrible. She didn't want anyone else to read it.
Jean
Short stories - Jean loves the way Roberts writes. Likes the story which has a series of lists. Good writing about food. Good when writing from experience.
Jean
About a working class, East London woman's quest for enlightenment - she decides Buddhism is for her and goes to India. She goes into a 12-year retreat high up in a cave, but has to leave after 11 years and 9 months due to bureaucracy - her visa has expired. Fascinating and humorous.
Jean
About 200 years of adventure and discovery around the world - howpeople risked life and limb to get plants, e.g. falling into bear trap. Wonderful read as adventure travel, good pictures.
Jean
Not his best. About the mind of a man for whom not everything is right - history professor who invents doll to express his philosophical ideas. Leaves wife and child and disappears to New York to loose himself. A bit bizarre, packed full of topical references, too clever, too precise, irritating.
Seán
A story in which Spain and Portugal are cast off from mainland Europe, and lots of people think it's their fault. Enjoyed it though the Portuguese author's florid writing style can make it a bit wearing at times.
Seán
A bargain book (50p). A great story of an expedition to prove the world was only 4000 years old, set in the 19th century. An ill-assorted group of people
try to find the Garden of Eden in Tasmania. It is interweaved with the story of native Tasmanians - a pretty awful tale of what was happening at that time. A fascinating story, told from several different points of view.
Doreen's said she thought there were too many voices).
Seán
Seán stopped part way through this book because he
couldn't get on with it, before taking it up again and finishing it - a bit of a mission. It's a story about three couples, resolved by them all being related. He thought the book was ridiculous, obsessed with the idea of fertility, and not believable at all.
Seán
Read in preparation for visiting another book club in Dunstable. The book is about a post-apocalyptic society (you assume post nuclear war) in North America which reverts to a sort of superstitious-religious-medieval state in which anyone who has any kind of 'abnormality' is called a mutant and shunned. She found the book very engaging and read it right through to the end in about a day and a half. It explores telepathy, and has an adventure element to it. The ending is a little weak, but it's a good read.
Gill
Purchased on a walking holiday in the Wye Valley, including a stop in Hay on Wye, near where much of the diary was written. The writer lived from 1840-1879, but the book only covers the period from 1870 to his early death from peritonitis, after only 5 weeks of marriage, in 1879.
He was the curate of Clyro near Hay, and the Vicar of Bredwardine, a little further to the south. It was not written with the intention of publication, and his wife destroyed parts of it. It gives a portrait of the Welsh borders in the mid 19th century, especially the hardship of life for many of the working people. Gill found it surprising how much he travelled, and envied him the use of a local railway line running along the Welsh Border towns through Hay, a line which is now sadly closed, and appeared only as an interesting geographical feature on the map where she walked. Kilvert loved the area, and embarked on long walks in the Brecon Beacons.
Gill was disturbed by his writings about young girls of around 8 year's old/early teens, which she felt were too sexual and would create suspicions today. He courted many young women in their late teens/early twenties, but was unsuccessful in marriage, mostly because their parents forbade it. She wondered about his attitude to women and whether it was typical of the time or not.
Gill
The frames have gone all funny - click to make it good.