March 2013 meeting

June, Vanessa, Kim, Kath and Valerie gathered at Vanessa's house with Alanna on hand  to assist with feeding and watering us all!

All those gathered had read 'The Secret Keeper' and thus knew the great twist at the end. Most of us had read the hardback version, so Kim who had read the ebook version was quite pleased that she had read such a long book.

There was an initial discussion as to whether the book could be considered 'chick lit', but there was general agreement that while the writing style was good, the book was slow(ish) to read in the first half but definitely picked up pace especially towards the finale. There was general dislike of Dolly ("silly Dolly" - Kim) but praise for the characters and the way they developed with the intriguing plot. No one had guessed the ending, but many had speculated on Jimmy's demise, Vivien's marriage to Henry and the friendship between the main characters. Questions remained - "why did the secret need to be kept?"

Scoring went thus (by comparison Goodreads gave it 4.11):
Kim - 3.7
Kath - 4
Vanessa - 3.5
Valerie - 3.5
June - 3.75
Jackie - 3.7

Naomi's review (with just a chapter or 2 to go):

"Well, this book surprised me because it overcame an initial prejudice I held against it.

I initially dismissed it as 'chick lit', but then took your advice on board that the ending has a great twist.
So I persevered and ending up being glad I did.  The plot and characters were well sketched, and not too challenging, which was exactly what I felt like after dealing with busy, stressful times at work while in a new role.  I admit to not liking the character of the younger Dolly much, however.  She seemed quite self-absorbed and superficial but then possibly she was a product of her time.  Back in the 1940's having your own career and an independent source of income was rare for women - The Secret Keeper portrayed Dolly's war between her emotions (ie. her love for Jimmy) and her need for security (ie. her regard for her employer Lady Gwendolyn) well.

I did enjoy the portrayal of older Dolly's character much more, however, and the relationship she had with her children.  All family relationships in the book were explored in an interesting way...blue-collar worker Jimmy's loyalty to his ailing, senile father was touching."

January 31st Meeting

Extreme weather conditions seem to be the norm whenever book club is at Valerie's, and this meeting was no exception. It was nearly full house with June, Vanessa, Monique, Kath, Naomi, Jackie and Valerie in attendance.

It was generally agreed that any book following 'Gone Girl' was going to be a hard gig, but that both 'Sweet Tooth' and 'All that I Am' were good reads that had certain parallels being historical bookends to the second world war.

'Sweet Tooth' was generally enjoyed as an interesting but certainly not faultless story of cold war espionage. The average rating was 2.5 - 3, with Serena's relationship with Tony a little unbelievable (perhaps because it was written by a bloke??), and the book slow to grabbing attention with Serena's relationship with the writer Tom being the more engaging section. The twist at the end was a goodie.

'All That I Am' engendered a lot more discussion, in particular regarding the structure of the book that moved backwards and forwards in time which some found a little challenging. The book had many strengths including the writing, that it was based on real characters which made it more poignant and the story more shocking, and that it's focus was the lesser know period before the second world war. Average rating was 3 - 4/5.

The book for the next meeting (March 14th) is Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper.

December 2012 Meeting

It was a hot one for our end of year bash, with food galore (it was all delicious), and we welcomed a new member, Monique, another Kendall St resident.  So it was a largish gathering with June, Kim, Kath, Vanessa (and Alanah), Jackie (and Mali), Monique, Naomi and Valerie.

The meeting was all the better for a good subject, being Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl". Overall it got a rating of somewhere between 7 - 9, with short chapters, a ripping yarn and a woman we would all cheerfully throttle (sorry Amy - you are a shocker!). There was more sympathy for Nick, but this was somewhat dissipated by his decision at the end. Most enjoyed the twists and turns and the journey through the book.

The next meeting of the group is on 31st January, 2013 at Valerie's.

October meeting

It was off to South Kingsville that a small troupe of intrepid book chatters went on 18th October, where Kath was hosting the October meeting. Joined by Naomi, June and Valerie (and armed with Jackie's email feedback), we quickly got down to discussion regarding the books of the moment:

'Its a long way from Penny Apples' drew credit for its 'real descriptions' of life and poverty in the tenements and the struggle to make ends meet. It also enabled insight into the women of the story and their struggle between the catholic laws, the sorrow of losing a child, and with each pregnancy, yet another mouth to feed.  Some readers struggled with the writing style and the amount of details in the stories. Jackie's feedback on this one was "a little too factual for my liking (which is bizarre because I like biographies) it was a bit too detailed in some sections so took me awhile to read".

'Middlesex', for those that had started or finished, was an entirely different proposition. The overall rating was between 7-8/10, mainly because it was very well written & researched, with great characters and an engaging plot about an hermaphradite. There were various comments including my own belief that it was a bit too long and quite dense reading at times, but pretty much all forgiven because it was deftly written. We discussed at length our annoyance with Desdemona's character, were satisfied with the explanation of why Chapter 11 got his name (means bankruptcy in American law), but wanted to cut to the chase a bit earlier regarding Callie's diagnosis. Overall a thought provoking but not necessarily a controversial read.

Jackie's feedback on Middlesex was: "enjoyed very surprisingly good pick Val (???), parts of it better than others but overall I would give it a 7 read it quite quickly".

The other books we discussed included: Jim Stynes "My Journey" (Naomi and Jackie) and "Room" (always gets a good review) (Naomi).  I've listed the other books people have read under the 'What we've been reading tab'.

Next meeting will be on Thursday 29th November at Valerie's, and the suggestion is to make it a dinner meeting with all bringing a dish/plate.  I will email closer to the date so we can coordinate the food (most important!!!). The book for discussion at the next meeting is 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn and it is hopefully a beauty - here's a review to tempt your interest:

On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick's wife Amy disappears. There are signs of struggle in the house and Nick quickly becomes the prime suspect. It doesn't help that Nick hasn't been completely honest with the police and, as Amy's case drags out for weeks, more and more vilifying evidence appears against him. Nick, however, maintains his innocence. Told from alternating points of view between Nick and Amy, Gillian Flynn creates an untrustworthy world that changes chapter-to-chapter. Calling Gone Girl a psychological thriller is an understatement. As revelation after revelation unfolds, it becomes clear that the truth does not exist in the middle of Nick and Amy's points of view; in fact, the truth is far more dark, more twisted, and more creepy than you can imagine. Gone Girl is masterfully plotted from start to finish and the suspense doesn't waver for one page. It's one of those books you will feel the need to discuss immediately after finishing because the ending doesn't just come; it punches you in the gut. --Caley Anderson

Till next time.....

August Meeting

It was a warm welcome at June's place, as Jackie, Kathy, Naomi, June, Valerie and Vanessa gathered for a book chat.

It seems that having a book club deadline is doing wonders for our reading motivation, with most members having read at least part of a couple of books. Books that are in the process of being read include The Book Thief, Room and 'Penny Apples' (mainly because most of us were waiting for the book to be sent snail mail!).

There was no question that discussion would start with Bronnie Ware's 'The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying'. The following is a snapshot of some of the feedback;

• badly written
• repetitive
• narcissistic
• wrong title because it was really a book about Bronnie
• the gems were when she wrote about the patients that she cared for
• most people didn't like the author!

Having said that, and admittedly some people (me included) skipped much of the boring stuff to get to the interesting parts, but agreed that it had been for the most part an interesting read!

Moving on to 'Penny Apples', it sparked an interesting discussion regarding religious upbringing and how it does (or doesn't) shape your current views.  We tackle all the big issues at book club!

To keep track of recommended reads for our club, I've created a new page called 'Potential books' where I've listed 'Ask the dust' (John Fante), 'Gone Girl' (Gillian Flynn), and 'All that I Am' (Anna Funder).

The next meeting of the club with be at Kath's in Spotswood (South Kingsville thank you very much :)) on Thursday 18th October.

Til then, happy reading!!!

Valerie

July meeting

Naomi, June, Vanessa, Kim, Valerie and Kath gathered on the 19th July for another book chat and feast. Most dedicated award this time goes to Kim for staying at home before the meeting to finish Cold Comfort and congratulations to newbie Kath for a fine piece of baking (tea cake) and also finishing the books. Thanks again to Vanessa for hosting.

Discussion regarding Flora and Cold Comfort Farm was rapid fire and enthusiastic.  Whilst the language was initially offputting eg 'sukebind', most enjoyed Flora's winning ways and her ability to tidy up the farm, set up all the inhabitants, conquer Aunt Ada and successfully fly off into the sunset with her beau. However questions remained:

• what was the nasty in the woodshed?
• did it relate to the goat?
• what was the disservice done to Flora's father?
• How can cows fall apart?

As for ratings, the consensus was around the 7/10 mark, with most finding it quite an enjoyable read. For those interested there are a couple of Youtube clips of the 1995 BBC series of the book eg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWN6Xhr-aGQ&feature=related

The Book Thief was found to be entirely different, but variously described as 'well written' with 'great characters' and 'a beautiful story'.

It seems that the challenge of making book club reading suggestions was taken well and truly taken up with much lobbying and vying to have their book selected. The following were suggested:

Naomi (can always be counted on for a quirky suggestion) - The Top 5 Regrets of Dying by Bronnie Ware. This is a non fiction book. 

June suggested 'Its a Long Way From Penny Apples' by Bill Cullen which is set in Dublin and is semi-autobiographical.  As an aside June also suggested author Sinead Moriaty's books for a good laugh.

Kim suggested 'Crossing to Safety' by Wallace Stegner as even though she had left the details of the book at work, had heard it was a great story and had read about the book on Good reads website. Published in 1987 this is an American novel tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples.

Kim also suggested 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini

Vanessa recommended 'Sold' by Brendan Gullifer which was described as "Does to real estate what Jaws does to swimming"!  Vanessa also recommended 'Sistah for Sale' by Miashi a tale about sexual slavery.

Kath was keen for the group to read and discuss 'Room' by Emma Donohue.

And lastly Valerie gave a big plug for 'Middlesex' by Jeffery Eugenedes, a Pulitzer prizewinning novel about an hermaphradite and the translation of genes through the generations.


There was debate and voting and agreement that we have probably sorted the book club reading list for the next few meetings at least.

For the August meeting the books selected were;

• Naomi's 'The Top 5 Regrets of Dying' by Bronnie Ware and
• June's ' Its a long way from Penny Apples' by Bill Cullen

It was also agreed that 'Middlesex' could be targeted for the September meeting.

Next meeting date is Thursday 23rd August and June has offerred to host.

Till then, happy reading :)

June Meeting

It was another cold night for the June meeting of the "We need to talk about books" club, and thanks to Vanessa for hosting (apparently she has enough wine left over for another 2 meetings!). Congratulations to all in finishing the chosen book (the close call award goes to Jackie who bought and read it in 4 days!), and to June and our newest member Cath for getting through the prescribed text.

It was straight down to business to share our thoughts on 'Her Fearful Symmetry' and I fear very much that whilst at the beginning, most people felt that the book had promise, it spiralled steadily downward with accusations of 'unbelievability' 'nonsense' and 'just stupid'. It seems no-one liked Elspeth or Julia for that matter, and Naomi in particular had a big problem with her killing off the kitten for her own purposes (and a bit of a sensitive subject for Valerie being the second book in a row talking about dead cats!). The consensus was that the bit about Martin's OCD was good.

Rating of the book out 5 seemed easy with the average being between 2 - 2 1/2 with June being quite cutthroat and giving it a 1!

We shared a couple of other books that had been read since the last meeting - Valerie 'raved' (this book broke my heart!) about 'The story of Edgar Sawtelle' by David Wroblewski, about a mute boy in northern Wisconsin, and Naomi was admirably staving off anxiety of work redundancy by reading Dale Carnegie's 'Stop Worrying and Start Living' and attests to the pearls of wisdom within including "Got Lemons? - Make Lemonade". More about these books on the 'We've been reading page'

Thoughts then turned to chosing the book for the next meeting and Valerie had referenced a blog called 'The Book Whisperer' and the top 12 recommendations.  None seemed to hold any excitement for the group except 'The Book Thief' by Marcus Zusak which some have read before but is worth another go.

So the decision was made to talk about 'The Book Thief' and 'Cold Comfort Farm' by Stella Gibbons (a classic english comedy set in the 1930's). Next meeting is on the Thursday 19th July at Vanessa's.