November Meeting

Sorry for the delay for this post, life has suddenly been very busy and I keep forgetting to write this :-)

We met, last month, at Gail's house to discuss 'Practical Magic' by Alice Hoffman.  This was chosen as our Halloween read, I love the film of this book so I had high hopes.  Sadly I was disappointed and I wasn't alone.  The writing wasn't the greatest, the characters wooden and the story line a tad dull in places.  Perhaps the film spoils this, but Gail hadn't seen the film and still hated the book.  We didn't have much else to say and were wonderfully distracted by Gail's parkin cake - yum.

Result: 0.5/10 liked this book (and that's only if you're poorly and have nothing else on hand to read)

We chose our next book from the following:

• The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
• This Year It Will Be Different by Maeve Binchy
• Room by Emma Donoghue
• The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell

We voted for 'Room' by Emma Donoghue which will be read over Christmas for the January meeting.

Our next meeting will be our Christmas party in a location to be decided on Wednesday 8th December.  It will be a pot luck evening which means we each bring a dish of food.  We will also be voting on the first Reading Book Club Awards 2010, where we will be deciding on our favourite book we read this year. 

October Meeting

Brrrr, winter is definitely on it's way so we snuggled up in a warm corner of the Warwick Arms to discuss last month's book 'The Road Home' by Rose Tremain.  We mostly liked this book, it tells of the difficult journey of a determined East European (we couldn't decide on his home country) immigrant in London.  I liked the way the author had written his voice, the uncertainty of his English and the patter of speech even in his own language.  However, not everyone liked this.  We found it difficult to care about the characters, they seemed one dimensional and we weren't desperate to finish the book and find out what happens.  A little disappointing but a charming story never the less.

Result: 3 out of 5 liked this book.

Our next book was chosen from the following:

• Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
• Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
• Blook River by Tim Butcher
• A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore
• Sister by Rosamund Lupton

We voted for 'Born on a Blue Day' by Daniel Tammet which we will be reading for the December meeting.

Our next meeting will be on 7:30pm Wednesday 10th November at Gail's house.

September Meeting

Thanks to Louise for hosting this month's meeting, cake and tea are always appreciated during serious book discussions.  We discussed 'A Place Called Here' by Cecelia Ahern.  I read this book quite a while ago and didn't get round to refreshing myself so I can only vaguely remember enjoying it as an easy read, but our little group was rather more scathing.  We felt we needed more, the story didn't seem to go anywhere and the characters lacked depth were some comments.  All in all, an ideal beach read but nothing to recommend.

None of us gave it the thumbs up - our first ever!

The book we chose during this meeting will be read over Halloween, so that was our theme.  We chose our next book from the following:

• Unquiet Spirit by Derek Wilson
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

We chose 'Practical Magic' by Alice Hoffman, we'll be reading this for the November meeting.

Our next meeting will be back at the Warwick Arms, 7:30pm on Wednesday 13th October.

August Meeting

Back in the Warwick Arms this month, 6 of us met to discuss 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' by Mari Strachan.  A story about a 13 year-old Welsh village girl set in the 1950's.  A very easy read narrated by Gwennie so sometimes the dialogue was a bit simplistic.  We wondered whether Gwennie was quite 'all there', she seemed very young for a 13 year old and her obsession with flying was a bit odd.  Some of us thought the storyline was slightly contrived and a tad annoying, but others liked the story immensely so a real polarisation of opinion. 

Four of us gave it the thumbs up.

We chose our next book from the following:

• The Road Home by Rose Tremain
• The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

We chose 'The Road  Home' by Rose Tremain.  We'll be this for the October meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8th September, 7:30pm at Louise's house.  I'll send out directions nearer the time.  This will be our first Wednesday meeting, thanks to everyone who decided to move the day of the meeting to enable me to keep coming as I'll be attending an evening class on Thursdays from September until May.

The book we will choose at Louise's will be read for the November meeting so we decided to have another themed book.  Our theme will be Halloween, please bring a review along this theme, it can be as tenuous as you like.

July Meeting

We had a good meeting yesterday - there was only 4 of us (Lisa, Mary, Jen and Rachel) but we did a lot of talking, not all about the book... Quite a lot about travelling and bizarre toilet experiences! Don't ask!!

Anyway, back to the book, it was 'The Adamantine Palace' by Stephen Deas. I think everyone enjoyed it - some of us were surprised as we were new to fantasy novels. We found that we were more excited about what would happen next rather than what actually happened in the book. There was plenty of speculation about which characters would would feature most in the sequel and whether Prince Jehal will get his come uppance. We did feel that there could have been more detail and description about the world and the various realms. We also thought there could have been a bit more character development - although some of the characters started to become more real towards the end. Overall, the book felt like a long prologue to the next book in the series! Most of us thought we might read the next book - Mary has already bought it! And it was certainly easier to read than Wolf Hall :-) So it gets a thumbs up from all 4 of us.

The next book was chosen from:

• A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern 
• Hearts & Minds by Amanda Craig 
• The Sun Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova 

We chose 'A Place Called Here' by Cecelia Ahern which we'll be reading for the September meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 12th August, 7:30pm at Warwick Arms.

June Meeting

Back in the Warwick Arms, six of us gathered to discuss 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel.  It was a rather difficult book, both long and confusing, we thought the writing style wasn't very clear with the author not making the speaker clear, jumping about in time and swapping the names of the characters between their personal names and their titles.  But we still enjoyed it.  It was an interesting take on a popular era describing Tudor life from Thomas Cromwell's point of view.  We thought that his early life could have been expanded upon but understand that not much evidence can be found for it.  The inter-play between Cromwell and Anne Boleyn was interesting, both being manipulators and both being confined by their breeding (Cromwell) or gender (Boleyn).

We chose our next book from the following:

• One Day by David Nicholls
• A Dark Enchantment by Roland Vernon
• Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov and George Bird
• The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan
• Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh

We chose 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' by Mari Strachan which we'll be reading for the August meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 8th July, 7:30pm at Rachel's house, I'll send out directions nearer the time.

May Meeting

This month we had our first regular meeting at a members house, I think it went really well.  We drank a lot of tea and I mean a lot, but it did mean my tea pot and milk jug got some use.  In between the tea we discussed 'The Shack' by William Paul Young.  I think it's fair to say that most of us came to the meeting not particularly liking the book but it provoked a great discussion.  The American religiousness grated on some but if you ignored that, it was quite an interesting story about a man discovering god and we discussed what religion means to us.  Gail helpfully explained some of the more technical details about the holy trinity which I still don't understand but don't mind.  We discussed this book for a good few hours which surprised us all, it tends to be the more controversial and the less we like the book, the longer it our meetings become.

Result: 6 of us were undecided, we wouldn't necessarily recommend it but didn't hate it either.

We chose our next book from the following:

• London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City - Steve Roud
• The Adamantine Palace - Stephen Deas
• One Morning Like a Bird - Andrew Miller
• Enders Game - Orson Scott Card

We chose 'The Adamantine Palace' by Stephen Deas which we will read for the July meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 10th June, 7:30pm back at the Warwick Arms.

April Meeting

It's so nice to have sunny weather and meet in daylight again!  Six of us met in The Warwick (not The Warwick Arms as I previously thought) to discuss 'The Thirteenth Tale' by Diane Setterfield.  We mostly enjoyed this book with it's gripping story line and intriguing characters.  Lisa brought some discussion questions but they mostly went above our heads and we ended up discussing the characters in our own special way (Ros we missed you and your slapping!).  Everyone was still liking the book until we came to talk about the ending, it seemed a bit contrived and neat, all the bits were too nicely sewn up and it became a bit unbelievable.  After that we were a bit confused over whether we still liked it!  That's what I love about this book group, I can come to the meeting loving the book and leave with more to think about and vice versa.

Result: 5 of us enjoyed this book.

We didn't need to chose our next book as we've already chosen 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel, it won a vote ages ago but was only out in hardback, now it's in paperback, we've added it to our reading list.

Instead we discussed the meeting venue, it was suggested at our last meeting (at Lisa's house) that we might want to hold the meetings at people's homes instead of a pub in town.  After a long discussion, it was decided that we'll do half and half, we'll alternate between someone's house and the pub.  This means that we're not too dependant on people to volunteer their houses as our numbers are few and we want to encourage new members to join us at the pub meetings.  So at every other meeting we'll ask that someone hosts the next meeting, they just need to provide drinks (tea, squash etc) if anyone wants anything specific they can bring their own (this keeps the cost down for the host and makes things simple).  And we'll see how it goes.

The next meeting will be on Thursday 13th May, 7:30pm at my house.  I'll send out directions closer to the time.

We also discussed the blog name, you may have noticed it's changed.  When I started the book group, I lived in Lower Earley and we had several members who also lived there (or near there).  But now that I've moved and Ros has also left, we only have one member left in Lower Earley and we now meet in central Reading (well half the time) it seems silly to still be called 'Lower Earley Book Group'.  We're also hoping to improve our searchability of the blog so a name change was called for.  Hope you like it, any further suggestions welcome.

Enjoy the sunshine and happy reading.

March Meeting - 1 year anniversary!

It's hard to believe that it's one year ago that we all crammed into my lounge and met for the first time!  Our little book group has been going for 12 months and I'd like to say thank you to everyone who comes to the meetings, everyone on the mailing list and everyone who reads this blog.  Without you, this group wouldn't be possible, so here's to another 12 months and another 12 exciting books to read!

We met last week at Lisa's house (thanks to Lisa for hosting and for making cake).  It was a pot luck night and the theme was British desserts in honour of Ros who was leaving for a new life and job in Washington.  Everyone brought a dish and we had some scrummy food while we discussed 'The Adventures of Sherlock Homes' by Arthur Conan Doyle.  It was a selection of short stories which were originally published in the Strand magazine in the 19th century.  A few of us had read Sherlock stories before but most of us were new, we liked the shortness of the stories which made them easy to read in short bursts.  The language wasn't as flowery as I expected and I found it quite easy to read and enjoy.  We all liked this book and would read more of his stories (short ones or novels).

Result: All 7 of us liked this book.

Unfortunately the massive amounts of cake and chocolate I consumed during the evening left me unable to write down which books we chose from (sorry).  But our next book is 'The Shack' by Wm Paul Young.  One of the books we chose a few months ago has come out in paperback so we decided to read 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel for the June meeting.

We all enjoyed holding the meeting is someone's house rather than the pub so we're going to discuss doing this for all meetings at the next meeting in April.  We'll hold the next meeting (Thursday 8th April) at the usual Warwick Arms but have a think about how sharing the venues across several people's houses would affect the meetings.

Finally, as I mentioned above we've lost one of our founding members, Ros to the great US of A.  We wish her all the best in her new job and look forwards to being invited to have a special book group meeting over in Washington.  We will miss you Ros, you've provided some great discussion points (mainly who you'd slap in each book) and your sly use of colleagues to pick out book reviews so you don't have to is second to none.

February Meeting

A rather more healthy group of 6 of us met at the Warwick Arms to discuss 'The Behaviour of Moths' by Poppy Adams, thanks to everyone who came and also welcome to our newest member, Louise.

I think most people enjoyed the book which was voiced by an aging moth collector (lepidopterist), Ginny, who after years of living alone is suddenly joined by her sister, Vivien.  Ginny starts to recall her youth and the story of her family which is very bizarre and dark in places.  Vivien rocks Ginny's world when she uncovers secrets from their youth which were maybe better left unsaid.  Some of us thought that Ginny was just an eccentric whilst others though she was mentally ill, her narration is quite cold and severe in places which backs up the mental illness case and her decision at the end of the book (not to give anything away) is surprising and unnerving.  There were many unanswered questions raised by the book which made a lively discussion which really made me appreciate this book all the more.

Result: 5 of us enjoyed this book.

We chose our next book from the following:

• Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
• The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• Sleep, Pale Sister by Joanne Harris

We chose 'The Thirteenth Tale' by Diane Setterfield.  The next meeting will be on Thursday 11th March, this meeting will be our 1 year anniversary so we're planning a special meeting at Lisa's house, details to follow on email to our regular members.

January Meeting

Happy New Year!

Despite the snowy conditions in Reading, we managed to scrape together 4 of our most loyal members and had a cosy meeting in the pub.  We discussed ‘The Winter King’ by Bernard Cornwell which is a historical fiction novel based in the dark ages centering on Arthur’s time.  The story is told from the view point of a young druid, Derfel who grew up at Glastonbury under Merlin’s protection and became a great warrior beside Arthur and Galahad.  I particularly love this period in history and the magical, mystical folklore which surrounds it, so I loved this book.  Everyone else did too and we discussed the emerging Christian faith being shown alongside the traditional Pagans and how violent those times must have been and the author does describe particularly gory battle scenes.  The book takes a slightly off centre view to the more traditional Arthur/Merlin stories and shows them in a less idealistic light.  Merlin is portrayed as an absent/distracted man who seems more interested in the ‘Holy Grail’ than helping Arthur win his battles.  Lancelot is shown to be a whining, spoilt prince who spreads rumours of his battle victories rather than actually doing anything useful.  A great book and we will all be reading the final 2 books in the series.

Result: 4 of us liked this book.

We chose our next book from the following:

• Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
• The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

It was a draw between ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘The Big Over Easy’ and with a flip of a coin we decided on ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The next meeting will be at the usual place on Thursday 11th February.

Thanks to Lisa who arranged a lovely, snowy walk on Sunday 20th December.  We took our lives in our hands as we navigated around the icy paths of Reading.  The scenery was beautiful and many of us saw parts of Reading we didn’t know existed.  We finished on a high note in Forbury Gardens with hot mulled wine before slipping and sliding to our individual houses.  I think it would be really nice to repeat the walk in summer.