May Meeting

Thursday 14th May - Back of Beyond Pub, Reading.

A rather depleted group this month, 5 of us met at the BOB pub to discuss 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Mortenson and what a discussion we had! Thanks to Ros and Mary who provided some discussion questions, they really helped to extend and push our thoughts on the book. We were unlucky again with our choice of venue, it seems BOB has a curry night every Thursday and it was very busy. But we managed to bag two sofas near the front which was quiet enough to talk.

Everyone liked the book and how it portrays the Pakistani people, we all felt we learnt something about their culture and how important education is to them. We couldn't decide whether Greg's acceptance to the villagers was due to his courage and charity or whether his acceptance of their religion helped. We all felt that religion was played down in this book for whatever reason. Greg's risk-taking both climbing mountains and entering dangerous situations like being kidnapped by the Taliban provided a gripping story line and we all wanted to meet his wife to see how and why she puts up with it! All in all, a great read.

Result: 5 people like this book.

We chose our next book from the following:

• The Drowning Girl - Margaret Leroy
• If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor
• The Other Hand - Chris Cleave
• The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway

We chose 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' by Jon McGregor.

The next meeting will be back at the Warwick Arms, Thursday 11th June at 7:30pm. Can whoever proposed 'The Story of Forgetting' bring some discussion questions and can everyone bring a review of something they'd like to read?

We also discussed borrowing books from the library to save people buying each book, the book we chose this meeting is available on the Wokingham library book group list and as such I can borrow up to 15 copies of it. If you would like me to pick you up a copy, please let me know by Friday 5th June. You will need to be attending both the June and July meetings to pick up and bring back your copy. Can people also confirm if they are attending each meeting? I like to try and wait until everyone has arrived before starting the discussion and I need to know approximate numbers so we can save all the chairs needed.

See you all in June.