Saturday 22 December 2012

Claus: The Legend of the Fat Man by Tony Bertauski

Our Christmas meeting was held at Hannah's house and it was a mini meeting of just 3 of us.

We liked this book, we thought the plot and the way it was written lent itself to being a film, it was a lovely festive story but we felt it was probably aimed at young teenagers because of the use of large font to emphasise passages and some of the phrasing.  It was an easy read but the editing errors let it down, very simple spelling mistakes which should never had made it to print made this book feel quite amateurish.  We liked the short chapters which meant it could be read in short bursts but some of them were just a page long and that added to the young feel of this book.

Concept: 9/10
Plot: 7/10
Ending: 6/10
Cover: 5/10
Page Turner: 6/10
Who to slap: The editor
Where's the cheese: How Santa Claus got his name

Overall: 7/10

We chose our next book from the following:
  • Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
  • May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
  • The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes
We chose 'Warm Bodies' by Isaac Marion which we will be reading for our February meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 9th January, 8pm at Bar Copa unless someone wants to host.  As this is the first meeting of the New Year, we will be deciding on our Book of the Year 2012.

Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi

Novembers book group meeting was at Susie's house and we discussed 'Above Average'.  It was set in modern day India and followed the life of a middle-class student from school through to PhD in America.

We didn't like this book, we found it lacking in plot, full of cultural references to India which I'm sure would be funny if you were local to where the book was set but they went right over our heads.  We didn't really care about the characters and found it a struggle to finish the book and when we did we were disappointed by the ending, if you can call it that.  The only thing we thought had promise was the idea of writing a modern novel about the normal people in India, we've all heard of the poor and super rich and we were interested to hear about the average people.

Concept: 5/10
Plot: 3/10
Ending: 1/10
Cover: 2/10
Page Turner: 0/10
Who to slap: The Author
Where's the cheese: The uncomfortable passages where he read out his poetry about his girlfriend and her dark nipples.

Overall: 2/10

We chose our next book from the following:

  • North and South by John Jakes
  • The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
  • House of Riverton by Kate Morgan
  • The Lies of Loche Lamora by Scott Lynch
  • Princess Bride by William Goldman
We chose 'The End of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas which we will be reading for our January meeting.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Tideline by Penny Hancock

This month's meeting was at Kate's, I was unable to go but it sounds like I missed a corker.  I've heard rumours of discussions lasting past 10pm and very cute cats.

Here is Kate's summary of this month's book:

Sonia lives on her own in the River house, her childhood home which holds many memories from early days with her brother who she worshiped and adored, more than most sibling relationships! Sadly her brother dies in a tragic river accident and Sonia always feels guilty about this. As an adult she is now married to a man who used to be her lecturer and who she doesn't love, they have a daughter who no longer lives at home.

One day Jez (who is in london for college interviews, staying at his Aunt's house who is a friend of Sonia's) comes to the river house to collect a music album. Jez is young and beautiful and Sonia feels an urge to keep him and worship him. Sonia gets Jez drunk and keeps him in the music room for a night that turns into a week whilst his family and girlfriend and the police worry about where he is and whether he is alive.  Jez's aunt eventually starts to suspect Sonia and in desperation she kills her, and dumps her body in the river. Knowing she doesn't have much time before people catch her, Sonia decides to plaster-cast Jez's body to have a permanent reminder of his perfect body at this moment in time. But does Jez get away alive, and does Sonia get caught??

Concept: 7.5/10

Plot: 8/10
Ending: 8.5/10
Cover: 2/10
Page turner: 8/10
Who to slap: Greg

New category for cheesiest line in the book:
Where's the cheese? - ''he chose to come to the river house, she chose to keep him there, forever"

Overall: 7/10

We chose our next book from the following:
  • The Adventures of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie
  • Claus: The Legend of the Fat Man by Tony Bertauski
  • Christmas Pudding by Joseph Connolly
  • The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
We chose 'Claus: The Legend of the Fat Man' by Tony Bertauski which we will be reading for the December meeting, hence the Christmas Lunch theme.

Our next meeting will be at a venue to be decided (I think Susie has offered but need to check with her first) on Wednesday 14th November at 8pm.

Monday 17 September 2012

There But For The by Ali Smith

We were back at our old haunt, The Warwick, for Rachel's leaving do.  Lovely food as always and we even remembered to talk a bit about the book ... which was nice :-)

I think, overall, we were quite disappointed by this book.  The blurb on the back set quite an interesting concept and we were looking forwards to finding out why Miles shut himself in a strangers bedroom during a dinner party.  We wanted to learn more about his thought processes and how all the people featured in the book fitted together.  Instead we were faced with incredibly long chapters (the book has only five) and long, rambling, seemingly non-linear narratives which made it difficult to read in short bursts.  Or rather, difficult to remember what you've read in the last session and link it to what you're reading now.  The ending was also unsatisfactory, leaving us with lots of questions about Miles and every other character in this random book.

Concept: 7/10
Plot: 2/10
Ending: 0/10
Cover: 1/10
Page Turner: 1/10
Slap: The woman who owned the house and profited from Miles' stunt whilst losing her husband and mind in the process.

Overall: 2/10

We chose our next book from the following:
  • Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  • Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi
  • Street Freak by Jared Dillan
  • The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
  • The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood
  • The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
We chose 'Above Average' by Amitabha Bagchi which we will be reading for the November meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Kate's house, 8pm on Wed 10th October.  Please bring along a book review based on the theme 'Christmas Lunch' as we will be choosing the book we'll be reading for the December meeting.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Fifty Great Short Stories by Milton Crane (ed)

This month's book was a little different, we chose 12 of the 50 short stories in this compact little book.  Details of the stories we read are in the previous post.  We had quite a good discussion about each story, some were, predictably, better than others but the standard was quite high across the board.  My favourites included:

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Hunger Games - esque story of a nation where villagers gather for the annual lottery.  Well written story with a twist at the end.

The Giaconda Smile - Aldous Huxley
How could I fail to love anything written by this man!  Quite a long short story about a man who thinks himself a bit of one with the ladies and plays upon it.  One spinster takes him seriously with disastrous consequences.


How Beautiful with Shoes - Wilbur Daniel Steele
An American farming community is rocked by an escaped convict who kidnaps a beautiful local girl who mistakenly wears new shoes while running for her life - a mistake we've all made :-)

We marked this book a collective 6/10.

Our next book was chosen from:
  • Tideline by Penny Hancock
  • The Thread by Victoria Hislop
  • Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh
  • When a Crocodile eats the Sun by Peter Godwin
  • Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
We chose 'Tideline' by Penny Hancock which we will be reading for the October meeting.

Our next meeting will be at The Warwick, 8pm on Wednesday 12th September.  Please bring a review of a book you'd like to read.





Thursday 12 July 2012

Empire by Jeremy Paxman

This month Louise fed us cake and tea (I'm sensing a theme) at her house where we discussed this month's book.  Hmmm, where to start? 

It provoked a lot of discussion about how proud we were to be British, how we felt we were represented to other cultures today and in the past and also how attitudes of British people had changed with regards to entitlement and blame cultures.  Most of this discussion wasn't directly related to the book, but it was interesting, we even got round to comparing the teenage pregnancy rates in our respective schools (apparently there's not much else to do in the country).  But the book was difficult to read, had no logical flow (it jumped about in time and space) and the wording so difficult to understand that you really had to read it a full chapter at a time (and the chapters were long).  None of us had finished the book, this is a first for this book group, and only a couple of us were interested in finishing it.  It felt and read like a text book, good if you were interested in the subject matter but painful if not.

Concept: 7/10 (we liked the idea of having a full history of the British Empire in a compact format)
Plot: 2/10 (however it jumped about all over the place)
Characters: n/a
Ending: n/a
Cover: 7.5/10 (good lion)
Page Turner: 1/10 (new category!)
Slap: Jeremy Paxman (though I doubt we'd actually dare)

Overall: 4.5/10

Again, we didn't need to chose our next book as we had already chosen 'There But For The' by Ali Smith a while back but it's only just come out in paperback.

We did choose the short stories to read from our next book '50 Great Short Stories' as we didn't think we'd manage all 50.  We chose 2 each and they are:

The Standard of Living - Dorothy Parker
The Shot - Alexander Poushkin
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe
The Other Two - Edith Wharton
Theft - Katherine Anne Porter
The Giaconda Smile - Aldous Huxley
The Chrysanthemums - John Steinbeck
How Beautiful with Shoes - Wilbur Daniel Steele
That Evening Sun - William Faulkner
The Tale - Joseph Conrad
The Man Who Could Work Miracles - H.G. Wells

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8th August, 8pm at Copa Bar.  Please bring along a review of a book you'd like to read.

Thursday 21 June 2012

How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

This month we were treated to tea and cake at Rachel's house, thanks to Jen for her yummy cakeypops :-)

Sadly it was Dave's last meeting, so we subjected him to talking about waxing, childbirth and wedding planning - yes, that's actually what this book is about.  An autobiographical rant about feminism made all the more amusing by Caitlin's anecdotes about her bizarre family.  Once you are past the first chapter (lots of sex, periods and more sex) this book is quite good fun.  We liked her self-depreciating style and her explanation that feminism isn't about hating men, more about why women seem to accept that their life is very different to men's.

Concept: 6/10
Plot: n/a
Characters: 8/10
Ending: n/a
Cover: 8/10

We didn't want to slap anyone, well maybe the crap boyfriend ....

Overall: 8/10

We didn't choose our next book as we chose 'Fifty Great Short Stories' a while back but didn't want to have two short story books back to back.

Our next meeting will be at Louise's house (I think Louise offered, correct me if wrong) on Wednesday 11th July.  Again we don't need reviews for this meeting as we already have September's chosen.  Can you bring along your copy of 'Fifty Great Short Stories' to the next meeting so we can choose which stories to read (unless you'd like to read all 50).

As I said above, this meeting was Dave's last, he's moving away with a new job.  Good luck Dave and it's been great having you in our little group.  Sadly we also have to say goodbye to Shelley who is moving back to America, good luck to you too Shelley, we will miss you.  Stay in touch you two :-)

In other news, last night myself, Jen and Rachel braved Reading's finest brains in the Reading Library Mid-Summer Quiz, 80 questions on Sport, Books (only managed 3/10), Nature, Local, Jubilee, General Knoweldge and Geography.  We came a respectable 6th out of 8 with 45/80.  It was a fun evening and we shall we going to the Christmas quiz ... time to study local history and maybe a little on books too.

Thursday 12 April 2012

Never Trust A Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson

This month we were back at a rather busy Copa Bar to discuss 'Never Trust a Rabbit' by Jeremy Dyson, a collection of short stories from one of the writers of 'The League of Gentlemen'.

It's quite a dark, depressing book with only a few stories which had an uplifting outcome.  The stories ranged from curious twists to some with an 'is that it' ending.  In the introduction the author says that some of his ideas came from just putting two random words together and, to be honest, that would sum up this book, entirely random with flashes of inspiration.  As Jen put it, 'he has nailed the odd concept'.

We agreed on the best and worst stories: the worst being 'All in the Telling' and the best were 'We Who Walk Through Walls' and 'Love in the Time of Molyneux'.

Concept: 7/10
Plot: 5/10
Characters: n/a
Ending: n/a
Cover: 3/10
Slap: The author!

Overall Total: 5/10

After reading this collection of short stories, we decided to take a breather from them for the moment and so we will not be reading 'Fifty Great Short Stories' for June.  We will read this later in the year.

We chose our next book from the following:
  • How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • Great House by Nicole Krauss
  • Tinkers by Paul Harding
We chose 'How to be a Woman' by Caitlin Moran (sorry Dave) which we will be reading for the June meeting.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 9th May, 8pm at Susie's house.  The theme for book reviews will be diamonds, in celebration of the Queen's Jubilee.  Be as random as you like.

Our book of the year 2011-12 was voted as 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute.

Friday 6 April 2012

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich

This month we met at my house to celebrate birthdays: Rachel's and our book group's!  Yes, we have been going for four years now!  Jen made a beautiful cake and while we all enjoyed it we discussed 'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch.

This book was a murder mystery/police/comedy/magic thing-a-mi-bob.  The main characters are two Met police officers who investigate magical mysteries, the style of writing is very relaxed, easy to read yet made us laugh out loud at points.  We loved the characters and the concept was very similar to the nursery rhyme mysteries by Jasper Fforde (who we also loved).  We did get a bit lost in the middle of the story where the action picked up and felt that the rivers plots was bolted onto the main murder mystery part, we preferred the murder bit anyway.

Concept: 9/10
Plot: 7/10
Characters: 9/10
Ending: 8/10
Cover: 8/10
Slap: no-one!

Overall Total: 8/10

We chose our next book from the following:
  • Fifty Great Short Stories by Milton Crane
  • Solaris by Lem Stanislaw
  • The Life of an Unknown Man by Andrei Makine
  • The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  • The London Train by Tessa Hadley
  • War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
We chose 'The London Train' by Tessa Hadley which we will be reading for the May meeting.

Our next meeting will be at 8pm at Bar Copa.

I know that we voted on our book of the year 2011-12 at the last meeting but I've lost the bit of paper, can anyone remember who won?  I promise to be more organised soon :-)

Thursday 9 February 2012

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

This month we met at Louise's house and she fed us cheese ... yummy cheese.  Thanks Louise!  We were also joined by our newest member, Susie - welcome Susie.

We discussed 'Rosemary's Baby' by Ira Levin, a short, readable story set in the 1960's about a young couple moving to a new flat who are dragged into the New York underground-scene of devil-worshipping.  We thought that the story, although thought-provoking, could have been better developed along with the characters who seemed rather one dimensional.  For instance, why Terry kill herself?  When did Guy agree to the plan and to what extent did he know what was going to happen?  We liked the idea of horror being more subtle and closer to home which made it even more scary in a psychological way.  We mostly disliked Rosemary and thought she was rather weak and wimpy, although this could be just how women were perceieved in the early 60s.  We found it quite shocking how easy it was to make everyone think Rosemary was being paranoid, even her previous doctor.  We liked the ending and discussed whether we thought Rosemary would accept her new role or whether she would harm her child.

Concept: 8/10
Plot: 6/10
Characters: 6/10
Ending: 7/10
Cover: 6/10
Slap: Rosemary and/or Guy.

Overall Total: 6.5/10

We chose our next book, with an Easter theme, from the following:
  • The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
  • Chocolate Cake with Hitler by Emma Craigie
  • Watership Down by Richard Adams
  • Pure by Andrew Miller
  • The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalyse by Robert Rankin
  • I, Claudius by Robert Graves
  • The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell
  • Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson
  • Never Trust a Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson
We chose 'Never Trust a Rabbit' by Jeremy Dyson which we will be reading for the April meeting.

Our next meeting will be at 8pm on Wednesday 14th March at my house for a double birthday celebrating for Rachel and the book group.  No theme this time, just bring a book review of your choice.

We will also be choosing our book of the year for 2011-12.  Looking back, I can see we voted on a book for 2010 in December 2010 so were working to calendar years instead of book group years, so I'll adjust this to be book group years to coincide with our book group birthday.

Friday 13 January 2012

January Meeting

Happy New Year!

We are entering the third year of our book group (three in April to be exact), how time flies!

This month we finally gave up on the Warwick Arms, it has turned into an eat-y pub so we skipped over the road to Copa Bar again which was nice and quiet.  We discussed 'Bed' by David Whitehouse.

An easy read with short chapters which were perfect for reading in short bursts.  We mostly liked this book - kind of - instead of this being a story of a man in bed it was more about the relationships around him and how his actions affected everyone.  I liked the way the brother was never named, which both threw the focus back on Malcolm yet not on him (I don't think that makes sense but I don't know how else to say it), everyone was defined by their relationship to Malcolm which begs the question, what would happen when he died?  We felt the characers could have been developed more, for instance, what role did the Dad have apart from building the massive winch?  No-one in the book was normal, yet I suppose a book about normal people would be quite dull.  Our biggest gripe was the ending, it was very sudden and didn't really conclude anything.  We had a really good discussion on this one, so much so, we came up with a new scoring system:

Concept: 8/10
Plot: 6/10
Characters: 4/10
Ending: 4/10
Cover: 9/10 (due to textured buttons and collar on PJs - thanks Rachel)
Who we would most like to slap: Mother

Overall Total: 6/10

We chose our next book from the following:
  • Solar by Ian McEwan
  • Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
  • Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
  • The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
  • The Life by Malcolm Knox
We chose 'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch which we will be reading for the March meeting.

Our next meeting will be at someone's house (volunteers please) on Wednesday 8th Feb and our next theme will be Easter (as we'll be choosing the book to be read over Easter), please be as inventive with this theme as possible.