May Meeting

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

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

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

Result: 5 people like this book.

We chose our next book from the following:

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

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

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

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

See you all in June.

March Meeting

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:

• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
• The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
• Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
  

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'.