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
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.
