Our Book Choice for December 2011/January 2012

We are currently reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and will meet to discuss on Tuesday 17th January.

It's another book that will have a selection of different covers depending on which edition you manage to purchase.

The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes.

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives.

Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, The Corrections brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalized greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.

If you want to know more about the author then here's a link. Jonathan Franzen - The Author

This month the group was torn between our chosen book (The Corrections) and Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. So anyone who would like to read Moon Tiger 'as well as' there will also be a few of us doing the same.

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

It was a mixed response: "loved it" "couldn't get into it" "found it distressing" "a big story" "I wanted a bit more story" and so on. So it was a lively conversation at Gatehangers last night and an excellent choice of book for a book group.

For ladies of Ashendon, poles apart from the tower block estates of London, a glossary was needed. That said some of our members are a little more 'streetwise' than others mainly thanks to our teenagers.

Bostyles (Bo in Bucks apparently), Advise yourself, Goawayou and Hutius are new to the Ashendon dialect. What we did love was how well Stephen presented 'new' language and then followed up by using the words in context until we understood what they meant.

We also agreed the writing was brilliant - it was easy to believe it was an 11 year old telling the story in his own way, and at his own tangents that illustrates how innocence is quickly lost, how bad influence comes to bear but how a good person and a good heart stays true.

Who is the pigeon? what is the pigeon? we debated this for sometime and concluded it represents Harri's conscience (or a guardian angel).

We discussed many incidents described, and observations made, in this rich text. Too many to mention here and unfair to go into detail for fear of spoiling the story. It is a sad, and often shocking, tale but there are some truly lovely moments such as: winning the race, the relationship with Poppy, the Diadora trainers, ASBO the dog to name just a few.

Would we recommend this book? Well..not to our mothers! BUT we would to certain people - including our teenage children (despite the language which apparently they all use anyway!). Why? because it's a powerful study of society - a modern day Lord of the Flies - and actually (we feel) it could be a good book to study for English Literature.