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.

May meeting

It was another talkative meeting with June, Naomi, Kim, Jackie, Vanessa and I.

We got the discussion of book of the month, 'Indelible Ink' out of the way first and by and large most people (except Kim who swears she couldn't find a copy in Queensland - I told her they don't read there!) enjoyed the book and found something about the characters and the Sydney setting that they could relate to.  A robust discussion about the general horror of tattoos ensued, but with agreement that it was believable that Marie would get them.  Bit of a sad (some would say unsatisfactory) ending with much pity for Mopoke.  Rating 7 - 8/10.

Both Jackie and Valerie had finished the Fifty Shades trilogy and summed it up as junk food mommy porn!

During the month Naomi had submitted to the Kindle bug and was very happy with the eBook and Kindle reading experience, and found that she was reading a lot more. Congratulations to June who got through 'Ink' with her busy schedule.

March 2012

Kim, Jackie, Vanessa, June, Naomi and Valerie met for round 2 of the book club on 29th March,  2012.

The book of the month (The Chemistry of Tears - Peter Carey), though not read by all, was not given enthusiastic reviews.  Jackie said she couldn't finish it, Valerie ploughed on, but admitted to skipping most of the Henry Brandling sections in Germany ("I just didn't care") but was more engaged in what Catherine was doing, but the summation was that the story was overly contrived, unsatisfying and the automaton (?pronunciation) was not that interesting. Ba Bow!

Moving on, Naomi reported that "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (Zora Neale Smith) was an interesting read (albeit a bit difficult with the phonetic language), written by an African Amercian writer and set in Florida in the early 20th century, is a story about slavery.

Jackie had borrowed Obedience (Jacqueline Yallop) from the library. Set in World War II France, it is a tale about a nun who has an affair and gets pregnant to a Nazi soldier. Jackie liked it - must have been a bodice ripper! Speaking of bodice ripping, Jackie had also noted Mia Freedman's enthusiastic comments regarding the ebook sensation 50 Shades of Grey which has been topping all the book charts, probably because its mass market soft porn.  Valerie enthusiastically asked Jackie to download it onto her iPad!!

As per our group name, 'Kevin' was discussed again with varying opinions of the nature/nurture debate (I still think that he was just a little shit as evidenced by Celia's role in the book) and there are some yet to finish, so I'm guessing the conversation will continue : )

Vanessa is still working through 'The Room' and suggested Indelible Ink (Fiona McGregor) as the book for the next meeting. After a read through of the blurb - all agreed!  A quick google search reveals that this book was reviewed on First Tuesday Book Club back in 2010, so I've put a link to that on the Links page.

Valerie also widened the discussion to her non-fiction reading during the month including Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals (loved it), The Bartender's Companion to 750 Cocktails (but she hadn't successfully made 1!), and exposing her fetish for paper and craft - Paper Bliss by Skye Rogers.

Taaraa till next time!

The discussion begins 16.02.2012

And we are off........

It was a small but dedicated bunch (Jackie, Valerie, Naomi and Vanessa) that gathered to chat about books on a humid but stormy night in the burbs.  Tired of hearing about others and their book club exploits, I decided to create a clique of likeminded booklovers to indulge my passion for words and sharing of ideas beyond my beloved "First Tuesday Book Club".

I wondered whether others would share my geekish delight in robust discussion about all things books, and I was happily surprised that others were as interested, if not more to spend the evening chatting about the merit of various authors, reading habits, ebooks, preferred genre and propensity or not for book snobbery.

There was healthy discussion on a number of books, and both 'Shantaram' (Gregory David Roberts) and 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' (Lionel Shriver) engendered a healthy and lengthy discussion. 'Kevin' must be prime book chat fodder as there is many a blog dedicated to the subject. Check this one out http://weneedtotalkaboutkevin.wordpress.com/

Naming the group was a minor impediment, but we quickly settled on 'We need to talk about books' (preferred to 'Booksluts') and agreed that another gathering for chat, wine and nibbles was a good idea!

Another book that had been read and enjoyed by all was 'The Help' (Kathryn Stockett).