Reading Book Group

January Meeting

2012-01-13T10:06:00.000Z

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.

December Meeting

2011-12-20T09:30:00.000Z

This month we celebrated Christmas at Lisa's and all admired her new kitchen - very posh. We also had nibbles and a lovely goodie bag from Lisa filled with sweeties. We then got onto the business of discussing 'Major Pettigrew's Last Stand' by Helen Simonson.

I think we all generally liked this book, I loved the language and imagery used throughout, I could really picture the scenes and we all thought it could be easily turned into a film. The characters were on the whole quite stereotyped, a bumbling old man, the Asian lady oppressed by her family, a greedy son etc. The story was lovely, a real feed good tale with a suitablly happy ending although we thought the cliff scene a little over the top but necessary for the gun story line.

Result: 7/10 (again I forgot to take a vote, so I've made this up based on our discussion)

Our next book was on a horror theme, we chose from the following:

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews
Watchers by Dean Coontz
The Best Short Storied of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
House of the Hanged by Mark Mills
Dracula by Bram Stoker

We chose 'Rosemary's Baby' by Ira Levin which we'll be reading for the February meeting.

Our next meeting will be back at the Warwick Arms on Wednesday 11th January 8pm.

November Meeting

2011-11-13T18:28:00.000Z

This month's meeting was at Jen's house, and we'll be having lots more meetings at her house if the snack were anything to go by ...

These are cakey pops, cake mixed with buttercream and coated in chocolate and they are yummy. The green rectangles on top of the pops on the right are actually books which are really detailed, see more of Jen's work at her website CakeyPigg.

Anyway, back to the books. We discussed 'The Small Hand' by Susan Hill, a short, spooky book about a ghost child who links to a mysterious past. The general consensus was that this book was either too short or too long. For a proper length novel the characters could have been developed more, especially the strange old lady or for a short, short story a lot of the story could have been culled including the unnecessary book buying stuff. I forgot to get a mark out of 10, so I'm guessing ...

Result: 5/10

We chose our next book from the following:

Bed by David Whitehouse
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
The Interogative Mood by Padgett Powell
Bangkok Eight by John Burdett

We chose 'Bed' by David Whitehouse which we will be reading for the January meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Lisa's house (in her new kitchen) on Wed 14th December.

We decided that our next theme will be horror, so please bring some reviews of horror books which we will read for the February meeting.

October Meeting

2011-10-16T18:52:00.000+01:00

This month we were self-evicted from the Warwick Arms as it was too busy, instead we chose the nearby Copa Bar which was a lot quieter. We discussed this month's book, 'Alias Grace' by Margaret Atwood. This almost unanimously loved this book, the almost-true story of a teenage murderer in nineteenth century Canada was gripping and made this book an easy read.

The characters were very well written and posed some interesting questions. We definately thought that Grace killed Nancy, we didn't believe her narrative and thought she portrayed herself as more innocent and gentile than she actually was. Some of us thought that 'Mary' was her true personality and we didn't believe the hypnotism scene. Atwood has delivered again an all enveloping world, totally different to her other books but excellent all the same.

Result: 8/10

We chose our next book from the following:

Girl Reading by Katie Ward
An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
There But For The by Ali Smith
A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

We chose 'There But For The' by Ali Smith which we will be reading for the December meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Jen's house on Wednesday 9th November.

September Meeting

2011-09-24T17:58:00.000+01:00

This month we met at Rachel's where we ate far too many biscuits and discussed 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute. In short, we loved it! We chose this from the BBC's Big Read top 100 and it certainly deserves to be in the top 100. We loved the language which really spoke of the 1950's era, how women couldn't be trusted with money until they're at least 45 - you couldn't get away with that nowadays.

We felt the book had two definite halves, the first being the war story which was very evocative and beautifully written and the last half being of them meeting up again and building up the town. Most of us preferred the first half and felt the book could have ended when they met again, but I liked the story of the small town booming, although it was rather twee and she had incredibly good luck. In short, it was very much of it's time and showed that women could be clever and resourceful, even in the 1950's.

Result: 8/10 (I made that up as I forgot to get people to vote)

We chose our next book from the following:

The Small Hand by Susan Hill
Killing Floor by Lee Child
The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay

We voted for 'The Small Hand' by Susan Hill which we will be reading for the November meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Jen's house on Wednesday 12th of October.

August Meeting

2011-08-22T22:12:00.000+01:00

This month we discussed 'When God was a Rabbit' by Sarah Winman, a story of two halves told by a small girl and then her older self. We each found the two halves of the book very different and not necessarily in a good way. The first half was reminiscient of our own childhoods but quite idealistic, the second half we found too contrived and two dimensional. We thought the characters were quite sterotyped and found the plot hard to believe at times. A disappointing read.

Result: 6/10

We chose our next book from a huge list of two:

Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

We voted for 'Alias Grace' by Margaret Atwood which we will be reading for the October meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Rachel's house on Wednesday 14th September.

July Meeting

2011-07-14T22:25:00.000+01:00

This month we discussed 'Smut' by Alan Bennett at my house with lots of biscuits :-) It was a short book comprising of two stories of seemingly normal surburban lives with quite a lot of smutty business. The narative really draws you in, not a word was spared, the characters were really well developed and most of us read each story in one sitting which is testament to how easy they were to get involved with. The every day language and wonderful terms brought the characters alive and we really identified with them.

Result: 9/10

We chose our next book from the BBCs Big Read list, a list of 100 books nominated by the nation. We went through the list and found several which none of us had read, out of these we chose a few which we liked the sound of:

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

We voted for 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute which we will be reading for the September meeting.

Our next meeting will be at the Warwick Arms on Wednesday 10th August.

June Meeting

2011-06-12T20:47:00.000+01:00

This month we discussed 'The Slap' by Christos Tsiolkas, a book which we all expected to raise ethical questions about if we should hit our children. This was not the case, the book was more about Australian multi-culturism than about slapping kids. We didn't like this book much, we disliked the characters (most had awful character flaws) apart from Richie who we thought was actually based on the author and that's why he was OK. We didn't relate to anything in the story, maybe because we are not Australian, but the book portrayed everyone as either an alcoholic, takes too many drugs or has lots and lots of sex. The different ethnic characters; Greek and Aboriginal, were quite streotyped too. The Greeks were very mysogenistic and the Aboriginals drunkered (although the character was a reformed drunk, he was still a drunk at some point). All in all, a disappointing read.

Result: 1/10 (and we debated that for a while)

We chose our next book from the following:

The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
After You'd Gone - Maggie O'Farrell
One Day - David Nicholls
Stones into Schools - Greg Mortenson
Even Silence Has An End - Ingrid Betancourt
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
When God Was a Rabbit - Sarah Winman

We voted for 'When God was a Rabbit' by Sarah Winman, which we will be reading for the August meeting.

Our next meeting will be at my house on Wednesday 13th July at 8pm, I'll send out directions nearer the time.

May Meeting

2011-05-14T08:40:00.000+01:00

A farewell meeting to one of our founding members, Gail, who is moving to London to a fab new job. To remind her of what she's leaving behind we had a 'Reading' themed meeting, filled with beer and biscuits. We have also welcomed two new members over the past 2 months, Dave and Ruth - welcome and I hope you enjoy our meetings.

We also discussed this month's book 'So You Think You Know About Britian' by Danny Dorling. A book packed with facts about Britain and interesting statistics. A few of us didn't finish and felt it was a phd thesis crammed into a book, but others really enjoyed it using the facts in conversations and to spark debates. An usual choice which provided lots of discussion.

Result: 6/10

We chose our book from the following:

The Yacoubian Building - Alaa Al Aswany
A Dark-Adapted Eye - Barbara Vine
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
The Boy with the Top-Knot - Sathnam Sanghera
The Distant Hours - Kate Morton
Smut - Alan Bennett
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
The Left Hand of God - Paul Hoffman

We voted for 'Smut' by Alan Bennett, it's not out in paperback until 2012 so it's dependant on our members if we read this in hardback or not. I'm waiting to hear back from everyone and will update you soon. If we don't read it, our second choice is 'The Yacoubian Building' by Alaa Al Aswany.

Our next meeting will be at the Warwick Arms on Wednesday 8th June, 8pm.

February Meeting

2011-02-11T20:36:00.000Z

A very enjoyable evening at Lisa's saw us put the world to rights in relation to 'Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Niffenegger. A wonderful book full of twists and turns, an unusual story of a ghost and her family set against Highgate Cemetary in London. We all loved the characters although we found Elspeth a little odd, we knew she was supposed to be 'not nice' but didn't see any evidence of this until near the end of the story. Lots to talk about and we all agreed it was a really good read.

Result: 10/10

We chose our next book from the following:

The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Jay Fowler
The Hand That First Held Mine - Maggie O'Farrell (again :-)
So You Think You Know About Britain - Danny Dorling
The Case for Working with Your Hands - Matthew B. Crawford
Nourishment - Gerard Woodward

We voted for 'So You Think You Know About Britain' by Danny Dorling but it's not out in paperback until 17th March, so instead we will go to plan B for the April book...

It was suggested that we have another theme, fairy tales. This was inspired by 'Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales' by Angela Carter, a collection of modern fairy tales. We will each read a traditional fairy tale (or several if you wish) then we will discuss them at the April meeting, we will also read aloud some of the modern fairy tales - compare and contract etc ...

Our next meeting will be at Rachel's on Wednesday 9th March at the new time of 8pm. This will be our 2nd birthday so we will be having cake and nibbles.

January Meeting

2011-01-24T21:40:00.000Z

After some misunderstandings we missed the usual meeting and moved it to a week later. We met last week to discuss 'Room' by Emma Donoghue, an eerie story told from the point of view of a 5 year-old boy who was born and raised in one room with his mother. The book started off well, hinting at the truth so the reader isn't quite sure what is going on. Why are they in the room? Why does a man come in with groceries? The sheer creativity of the mother to entertain her son was amazing, it teaches the modern world something about the imagination of children and how they don't need five million different toys, video games and TVs. Towards the end of the book, the way the author makes sense of the world through a young child's eyes becomes a bit forced and it all seems a bit rushed. But all in all a very thought provoking story.

We gave this 7/10.

We chose our next book from the following:

The Hand That First Held Mine - Maggie O'Farrell
Ours Are The Streets - Sunjeev Sahota
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

We voted for 'The Year of the Flood' by Margaret Atwood which we'll read for the March meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Lisa's on Wednesday 9th February.

December Meeting

2011-01-24T21:30:00.001Z

Oh dear, my dedication to this blog is waning, life seems to have got in the way. I have no excuse, sorry people. My notes from the Christmas meeting have gone walkabouts, so I'll wing it.

We discussed 'Born on a Blue Day' by Daniel Tammet, an autobiography by an autistic man about his childhood, relationships and his record-breaking attempt at reciting pi to thousands of places. An interesting book which explains autism clearly and savant-ism (is that a word?). But we found the tone of the book quite bland, it went into great detail about some aspects of maths but glossed over more interesting bits like his relationship with his boyfriend. OK, ok, I know he's autistic and it's wonderful that he's written a book but it's not fantastic and I wouldn't read anything else by the same author. Why do I feel the need to appologise for that?

We chose our book after next, 'Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Niffenegger which we'll discuss at the February meeting.

Oops, almost forgot, we voted on the book of 2010 and the results were:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas

November Meeting

2010-12-03T20:55:00.000Z

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

2010-10-25T13:57:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-22T21:47:00.000+01:00

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

2010-08-15T19:14:00.000+01:00

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

2010-07-21T19:52:00.000+01:00

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

2010-06-13T16:02:00.000+01:00

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

2010-05-22T17:09:00.000+01:00

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

2010-04-10T16:50:00.000+01:00

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!

2010-03-20T16:16:00.000Z

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

2010-02-12T10:34:00.000Z

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

2010-01-15T23:05:00.000Z

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.

10th December - Mary's House

2009-12-18T11:45:00.000Z

Merry Christmas! And what a lovely Christmas party we had at Mary's. Everyone brought a dish and we had some lovely grub.

We discussed 'Sum' by David Eagleman, a collection of short stories about what the afterlife might be like. It was a little different to our usual books, there was no story line or characters we could talk about but the little ideas it planted gave us a good opportunity to discuss our ideas of the afterlife. Everyone liked the book, it was ideal for reading in short bursts.

Result: 6 of us liked this book.

We chose our book after next from the following:

Generation X by Douglas Coupland
The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore
The Behavious of Moths by Poppy Adams

We chose 'The Behaviour of Moths' by Poppy Adams, although votes were tied with 'Generation X' but a toss of a coin decided for us.

The next meeting will be back at the Warwick Arms on Thursday 14th January 2010 (!)

Don't forget our Christmas (Oscar Wilde themed) walk on Sunday, lets hope the snow doesn't hamper our progress too much.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thursday 12th November - Warwick Arms

2009-11-24T20:51:00.000Z

Apologies for the lateness of this update, life seems to have got very hectic recently. We met (ages ago) to discuss 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll. To be honest there wasn't much to discuss! I think we were thinking that there might be some adult themes and hidden messages but it was exactly the same story I remember from childhood. I forgot to take a vote, but no one particularly hated it.

We chose our next book from the following winter themed books:

The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen
The Winter House - Nikki Gerrard
If on a Winters Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino
Love Begins in Winter - Simon van Booy
Skipping Christmas - John Grisham
A Country Christmas - Miss Read
The Winter King - Bernard Cornwell
The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson

We chose 'The Winter King' by Bernard Cornwell. It was a close run thing with 'Skipping Christmas' running a close second.

The next meeting will be on Thursday 10th December. It was suggested in the October meeting that we hold the meeting at someone's house to avoid the Christmas rush in town. I'll confirm who's house it will be by email.

Thursday 8th October - Warwick Arms, Reading

2009-10-10T20:38:00.000+01:00

A bumper meeting! 6 of us met to discuss 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson, this month's book. We had a lively discussion with most of us enjoying the story and characters, although we didn't really understand the legal stuff at the start of the book. A few of us guessed the twists in the story and Ros wanted to slap the main character for going to the murderer's house alone, but then she usually wants to slap at least one person in each book we read! As the book is the start of a triology we discussed whether we would read the other books, most of us would and wanted to know how the girl Salander would develop as the main character.

Result: 6 of us liked this book.

We chose our book after next from the following:

December by Elizabeth H Winthrop
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlife by David Eagleman
The Sweet Smell of Decay by Paul Lawrence
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

We chose 'Sum' by David Eagleman, although votes were tied with 'Wolf Hall'. We decided on 'Sum' as 'Wolf Hall' is only out in hardback at the moment and our policy is only to read paperbacks to reduce on costs. We will be reading 'Wolf Hall' when it comes out in paperback in March 2010.

The next meeting will be in the Warwick Arms, Thursday 12th November. At the next meeting we will have another themed choice, the theme will be Christmas as we will be reading the book we choose over Christmas. So, get your thinking hat on I'm looking for any book linked with Christmas, snow or winter.

Thanks for those people who voted on doodle for the historical walk around Reading, Lisa will be in touch with the decided date.

You may remember me writing about the open air Shakespeare play some of us went to see in Oxford, well the same company are doing a Christmas production just outside Oxford (not open air). It's 'Beauty and the Beast' and runs from 27th November to 16th January. I've done another doodle poll so if you want to come, please do the usual and note your availability. I've chosen only Friday evening and Saturday showings as those are probably the one's most people can make, but they are doing a show most nights (apart from Sundays and Mondays). As the venue has some seats around tables near the stage, and some people mentioned wanting to bring friends and family, we thought it might be easier to organise a date where we can all go but then everyone organises their own tickets. We can meet for a drink before the performance but then have the rest of the evening with our chosen party. I'll send emails out to people in the next few weeks so please visit doodle sooner rather than later so we can get this organised.

September Meeting

2009-09-13T14:59:00.000+01:00

Thursday 10th September - Warwick Arms Pub, Reading

Another select meeting of 3 due to a last minute flurry of cancellations, you missed a corker! We tried the food at the Warwick Arms (£10 for starter and main, Thai food) and it was delish. The start of the meeting was mainly in silence due to food appreciation but we soon got started on the book 'Engeby' by Sebastian Faulks. Feelings were mixed with Lisa having not finished it and Rachel not really getting into it. I, on the other hand, loved it! I didn't have a clue that this book was a murder mystery so my expectations were a life story of a strange man. I think that made the story more gripping than it was for others, they were waiting for the disappearance and eventual confession while I was happy reading about his university life. With questions supplied by Gail (thanks Gail!) we had quite a meaty discussion about his motivations and whether people really can suppress memories as he claims to.

Result: 2 people liked this book (I think - correct me if I'm wrong).

Our book choice this month was restricted to 'Classics'. This was the first time we tried having a theme and I think it worked quite well. We chose our book from the following:

Dracula by Bram Stoker
Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

We chose 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll.

The next meeting will be in the Warwick Arms, Thursday 8th October. No food this time, we decided to do food maybe once in 3 months as we know not everyone wants to eat Thai every month.

The theatre trip last month to see 'Twelfth Night' at Oxford was a huge success, 5 of us clustered together to watch the open air performance. It was rather chilly but great fun and something we'll definitely do again.

Lisa has volunteered to organise our next outing, a guided walk around Reading. I've set up a doodle poll here so please put your availability if you're interested.

We also discussed the themed book choices, I think they worked rather well as it focuses our choices on unusual books instead of choosing from the best sellers. If you have any ideas for future themes, please leave a comment on here so others can see them. The list so far is:

Christmas (this will obviously have to be the book we choose in November to read over Christmas)
Biography (auto or not)
Historical Fiction
Fantasy

We won't do this every month, just every so often to keep the books different and fresh. As always, this is up for discussion so new ideas are always welcome.

August Meeting

2009-08-14T18:30:00.000+01:00

Thursday 13th August - Warwick Arms Pub, Reading

I am blaming the school holidays on the fact that only 3 of us were in the pub last night, a poor turn out but it gave us the opportunity to discuss more than books! We discussed 'The Truth About Melody Brown' by Lisa Jewell, a great summer read as the story was gripping, the characters easy to like and the whole book wasn't too complex or in depth, perfect for reading on the beach. Everyone enjoyed the book, we liked the teaser at the start and also the way Melody's returning memory gave short flashbacks which didn't read like a narrative but gave us an insight into what happened. We felt sorry for Melody, so much tragedy in a young life but didn't like her son who seemed altogether too perfect for an 18 year old. It was so nice to finally find out that Melody was so loved by so many people, including her step-mother and little step-sister. A happy ending and tying up all the loose ends of the story was perfect for closure and a very satisfying conclusion.

Result: 3 people liked this book (I actually forgot to take a vote but I'm assuming we all liked it).

We chose our book after next from the following:

Poison Study - Maria Snyder
In The Eye of The Sun - Ahdaf Soueif
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

We chose 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson.

The meeting will be in the Warwick Arms again, Thursday 10th September.

Thanks to everyone who filled in their availability for the theatre trips, I emailed everyone who is available on the most popular day (21st August) so hopefully I'll be able to book that soon.

We also discussed a few other things including themed book selections, the first we'll try will be classics. Classics can be any book really, use your discretion. The idea is that people may have read it before but it would be long enough ago that they might want to read it again, also any books which you've always wanted to read but never got round to it. So, for the next meeting, please bring a classic book review with you.

The Warwick Arms also does a meal deal on their Thai food, starter and a main for £10. The food smelt so delicious last night that I almost ordered some, so we thought that a meeting with food might be good. I'm open to suggestions on this one, shall we make it September or wait until October? Answers on an email please.

July Meeting

2009-07-10T08:32:00.000+01:00

Thursday 9th July - Warwick Arms Pub, Reading

We had a group of 7 at this month's meeting and the kind man at the Warwick Arms turned some of the speakers off so it was lovely and quiet to discuss this month's book 'If Nobody Thinks of Remarkable Things' by Jon McGregor.

It was an interesting and varied discussion, we all liked the premise of the book being a normal street on the surface but scratch beneath and everyone had a story, everyone had a history and suddenly ordinary lives became extraordinary. Most of us guessed the ending, well the first part of the ending anyway. We mostly didn't think that the book was driven by the characters but by the fact that the author reveals that something happens at the end and that makes the reader carry on.

Result: 6 people liked this book.

We chose our book from the following:

Kieron Smith, Boy - James Kelman
Engleby - Sebastian Faulks
Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Unless - Carol Shields

We chose 'Engleby' by Sebastian Faulks.

The next meeting will be in the Warwick Arms, Thursday 13th August.

Lisa and Ros are still investigating open air theatres, look out for emails from them and hopefully we can find a date where most people can make it.

June Meeting

2009-06-12T09:19:00.000+01:00

Thursday 11th June - Warwick Arms Pub, Reading

Thanks to everyone who came to this months meeting, 6 of us met in a very quiet Warwick Arms (makes a nice change) to discuss this months book 'The Story of Forgetting' by Stefan Merrill Block.

Thanks to Mary and Ros who brought some discussion questions which we kind of stuck to. We liked the symbolism of Isidora, a world were people forgot everything and it was a good thing, also when memories and speech came to Isidora at the same time Seth was doing his research and what the impact of both of these had on the inhabitants. We felt that Jamie's regression to childhood reflected the fact that that was when she was most happy, before her parents died and her uncle decided (on the day of the funeral!) to tell her he was her real Dad. We were split in deciding whether Abel was actually her Dad and whether they both new this by the onset of her illness. Most of us would want to know whether we had a disease like this which cut short your life at 35-40.

And all of us wanted to slap Seth's Dad for being generally useless.

Result: 2 people liked this book, 1 person was undecided.

We chose our next book from the following:

Rabbit, Run - John Updike
The Truth About Melody Brown - Lisa Jewell
The Island - Victoria Hislop
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

We chose 'The Truth About Melody Brown' by Lisa Jewell.

The next meeting will be in the Warwick Arms, Thursday 9th July at 7:30pm. Can whoever proposed 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' bring some discussion questions and can everyone bring a review of something they'd like to read?

To follow on about the discussion we've been having about borrowing books en masse from the library, Mary very kindly investigated this for us and we have to be even more organised to reserve the books we want. Our next book is not available until next year. I would suggest that if we wanted to borrow books then we need to pick a few from the library list and see when they are available. Then we can slot them into our book reading year. After a long discussion it was decided that this was more hassle than it was worth and that we would see how we go choosing books on a month by month basis. Most of the books we choose are available to borrow from the library on a personal basis anyway, so members don't have to buy a new book every month.

We also discussed going to see an open air theatre performance this summer, Ros and Lisa are investigating and I'll post any decision we make on here.

May Meeting

2009-05-15T09:10:00.000+01:00

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.

April Meeting

2009-04-15T14:37:00.000+01:00

Thursday 9th April - Warwick Arms, Reading.

Thanks to everyone for coming to our second meeting, 10 people in all! Even though we choose the busiest mid-week night of the year (Thursday before Good Friday), we managed to have a very interesting and thorough discussion on 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga.

It was decided that this was a really thought provoking insight into the dual world of India, the poorest of the poor alongside the richness of Delhi. We couldn't decide whether Balram was insane (he seemed happy to justify the brutal muder of his boss) or did what he needed to do (to get out of the 'darkness'). One member had found that his Indian workmates thought the book rather realistic which surprised a few of us who had assumed that this view was rather polarised. We also discussed whether we would read another of his books or whether he would be a one-book-wonder and also how representative book awards are of how good a book actually is.

Result: 9 people liked this book, 1 person was undecided.

We chose our next book from the following:

When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson
The Story of Forgetting - Stefan Merrill Block
Brodeck's Report - Philippe Claudel
The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite - Beatrice Colin
The 19th Wife - David Ebershoff
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Outcast - Sadie Jones
The Warrior's Princess - Barbara Erskine

We chose 'The Story of Forgetting' by Stefan Merrill Block.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 14th May, 7:30pm at Back of Beyond pub on Kings Road. This venue will hopefully be quieter and have a big table we can all sit around.

Other things decided were:

The person who proposed the chosen book would bring a list of questions (your own or from the internet) to prompt the discussion.
I will bring a list of bookclub books which my local library (Lower Earley) has in stock. We will see if any books take our fancy and include those in our list for choosing the next book. This would mean we don't have to buy the book instead I would borrow all the copies, hand them out at the meeting and gather them back at the next meeting.

If I missed anything out or you'd like to add anything, please feel free to leave comments. Hope you all had a good Easter and I'll see you in May!

March Meeting

2009-03-13T09:51:00.000Z

Our first meeting was last night, it was lovely to finally meet everyone and we had a good old natter. As I discussed at the meeting, this blog is open to the world so if you do add any comments, please don't include any personal information. If you feel the need to share personal stuff, please join the facebook group 'Lower Earley Book Group' which is a closed group and only members of it can see the wall and discussion board.

So, here's what was discussed and decided on:

Choosing The Book - Everyone will bring a review to the meeting, read it out and we'll take a vote on each book (you can vote for more than one book). The book with the most votes wins! We will try to choose books from a different author each time. If a book had been read by one or more members then it's up to those members to say whether they would mind reading it again. We won't restrict books by genre, so if you want to read poetry, biographies, new fiction etc, just bring along a review. We will choose paperbacks as opposed to hardbacks, to reduce the costs. I will investigate with the local libraries if they will order in copies of our book after next to save people buying a new book every month. At each meeting we will be choosing the book after next, so we chose 2 books this meeting: one for April and one for May's meeting. At the next April meeting we will choose the book to be read for June and so on. This means we all know what book we're reading next so you can skip every other book if you don't have time to read one book every month, or if you just don't fancy the next book.
Hosting Meetings - We will be meeting each month in The Warwick Arms at 7:30pm.
Frequency of Meetings - Meetings will be held on the 2nd Thursday of each month, so the date for the next meeting is Thursday 9th April and the one after that will be Thursday 14th May.

At each meeting there will be an opportunity to discuss the above and we can change anything which isn't working out.

The following books were submitted:

We will be reading 'The White Tiger' for 9th April and 'Three Cups of Tea' for 14th May. As I said above, I will contact a few libraries and see if we can get some copies of 'Three Cups of Tea', if you'd like a copy please let me know either in the comments below or email me by 19th March (next Thursday).

So, again thanks to everyone for coming, I had a great time. I'll see you all in April, please bring a new review and your thoughts on 'The White Tiger'.

First Meeting Date

2009-02-16T13:28:00.000Z

Our first meeting is Thursday 12th March, where we'll decide on the first book. I'll post details of it here so people other than our little group can follow the discussion.

Starting a book group

2009-02-12T12:09:00.000Z

To give you a bit of background, I attended my first book group in 2004 when I moved to a new town and didn't know anyone. They had their own website which I found one day and were very welcoming. It seemed that everyone in the entire village was part of this group and I met some wonderful people, read some wonderful books and even got a holiday to Cornwall out of it!

When I moved away (again) I started my own group with a bunch of friends which was great and lasted about a year before people started getting too busy and meetings were pushed further and further apart. So we decided to call it a day and now that book group (would you call it an ex-book group?) meets every month or so to have a girlie evening out which is great.

So, I've decided to take the plunge again and start a new book group from scratch. I advertised on a book group website and got quite a few replies, it seems Reading is calling out for a new book group! I also asked some of my friends who'd either been part of the last book group or had expressed an interest and we suddenly have 9 people.

We're currently trying to decide when the first meeting will be via a very cool tool where we will decide on how the group is going to be run, when, where and also which books to read.

I'm planning on keeping this blog updated with what our current and next book will be and also give a summary of the discussion from the meeting so anyone can join in. It's also going to be useful for members who can't make the meeting and I welcome comments on posts as a way of expanding the discussion even further.

Happy reading!