May Meeting

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

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.