Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

We take the selection of books to choose from quite seriously and this was no exception. Sophie Law (BBC Radio Oxford) said she was enjoying reading it, so we checked the reviews: Sunday Times "an addictive debut ... A bright new talent", Observer: "It's a rare that a novel elicits such unmitigated awe from just about everyone you know, whether male, female, millennial or middle-aged". And then we checked the book store scores: Amazon 4.6 out of 5; Waterstones a whopping 5 out of 5.

This looked to be a great choice and a promising read.

So on a beautiful summers evening when 10 book group friends settled down in the pub garden, it felt a little awkward being one of the (at best) 0.4's. That is until we started the conversation!

The conversation started with round table first thoughts:

1. "Rubbish"
2. "I couldn't be interested in these people"
3. "Shallow - I couldn't engage with the characters"
4. "Not even the sex scenes were engaging!"
5. "Soul-less"
6. "Things got introduced then fizzled out"
7. "I couldn't care about the characters - nothing made me bother about them"
8. "I think the author may be self-obsessed'"
9. "NO SPEECHMARKS - how pretentious" 
10. "Phew - not just me then!"

That's about the long and short of it. Our entire book group, ranging from the highly intellectual to the (well) me, was not impressed. We were less than impressed. We were disappointed. We searched hard to try to see things from the reviewers points of view.

"She's prize winning" - "well she got a Booker Prize nomination"#  

"Marian Keyes review is: "Fecken Brilliant" - "that's it?" - "she is Irish" (and then we got onto the subject of Marian Keyes) - "we read one of hers, we didn't like it much either" *

*STOP PRESS: the author of that one was Tracy Chevalier - let's put a Marian Keyes book on our Autumn choice! I expect it will F***ing Brilliant (well I am Kentish!). 

"It's easy to read - quickly" "At least it wasn't a difficult to read bad book"

I quite liked the lack of speech marks, it was freer flowing, a stream of consciousness. (This is a comment and it's from our 'reader most positive' who scores the book 5.....out of 10.) 

"My Grandmother was from Ballina" - BINGO! let's stop right here. 

FOOTNOTE: We are not alone. Adam Mars-Jones review for The London Review of Books: "The blandness of Sally Rooney’s novels, last year’s Conversations with Friends and her new one, Normal People, begins and ends with those oddly non-committal titles." Sign-up to the website is required to continue reading the review - enough now I thought, and clicked X!

Oh and Goodreads 3954 reviewers average score is 3.8 of of 5.

# The Awards Facts:

British Book Award SUBMITTED 2018

Desmond Elliott Prize LONGLIST 2018

Folio Fiction/Poetry Awards SHORTLIST 2018

Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award SHORTLIST 2018

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2017

The Dylan Thomas Prize SHORTLIST 2018

We will meet at 8pm on Thursday 26th September in The Hundred of Ashendon to discuss Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner and then choose our next book. Looking forward to more enjoyable conversations with friends.

Reading Choices for the Summer Break

We have a choice of four books for our next read - quite a diverse selection.

The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love 

Winner of the Marco Polo Outstanding General Travel Themed Book of the Year at the 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait - it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.

PK was not born in the city. He grew up in a small remote village on the edge of the jungle in East India, and his childhood as an untouchable was one of crushing hardship. He was forced to sit outside the classroom during school, would watch classmates wash themselves if they came into contact with him, and had stones thrown at him when he approached the village temple. According to the priests, PK dirtied everything that was pure and holy. But had PK not been an untouchable, his life would have turned out very differently.

This is the remarkable true story of how love and courage led PK to overcome extreme poverty, caste prejudice and adversity - as well as a 7,000-mile adventure-filled journey across continents and cultures - to be with the woman he loved.

Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall

Brown Girl, Brownstones is the first novel by the internationally recognized writer Paule Marshall, published in 1959. It is about Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. The book gained widespread recognition after it was reprinted in 1981.

The somewhat autobiographical story describes the life of Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and then in World War II.

The primary characters include Selina and Ina Boyce and their parents, who suffer from racism and extreme poverty. The book focuses most directly on the growth and development of the character Selina.

Paule Marshall's novel was among the first to portray the inner life of a young female African-American, as well as depicting the cross-cultural conflict between West Indians and American blacks. It remains a vibrant, compelling tale of self-discovery.

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lolly Willowes is a twenty-eight-year-old spinster when her adored father dies, leaving her dependent upon her brothers and their wives. After twenty years of self-effacement as a maiden aunt, she decides to break free and moves to a small Bedfordshire village. Here, happy and unfettered, she enjoys her new existence nagged only by the sense of a secret she has yet to discover. That secret - and her vocation - is witchcraft, and with her cat and a pact with the Devil, Lolly Willowes is finally free.

An instant success on its publication in 1926, LOLLY WILLOWES is Sylvia Townsend Warner's first and most magical novel. Deliciously wry and inviting, it was her piquant plea that single women find liberty and civility, a theme that would later be explored by Virginia Woolf in 'A Room of One's Own'.

Calypso by David Sedaris

In which the American humorist introduces us to his family, a group of people almost as eccentric as he is.

If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny - it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's writing has never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumour joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet - and it just might be his very best.

We will meet at 8pm on WEDNESDAY July 24th in The Hundred of Ashendon to discuss Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney and then choose our next book. Looking forward to seeing you then.