September 2014 - Book Choices

We will return to The HUNDRED of Ashendon (formerly the Gatehangers' Inn) on THURSDAY 12th September at 8pm. We will be discussing The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. Mary has kindly offered to 'host'.

Choices for our next book are:

The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty

Cecilia Fitzpatrick thinks she knows her husband inside out, so she's surprised to accidentally discover in the attic a dusty sealed envelope with "for my wife - to be opened only the event of my death" written on it in his writing. When she casually mentions it to him on the phone, his reaction makes it clear that the last thing he wants if for her to open that envelope - but why?

Leaving us with this intriguing puzzle the story then jumps to another woman, Tess, whose husband has fallen in love with someone else. Shocked and distraught, Tess makes immediate plans to go and stay with her mother in Sydney, taking her young son with her. Then we move onto a third woman, Rachael, whose much loved daughter died many years previously and whose life now centres on her grandson. Shortly the three women's lives will intersect and the secrete that Cecilia’s husband has been guarding for so long will impact on them all.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons is a book that sits comfortably in the category of "timeless classic". It is the wholesome story of four young children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger who set out in their boat (the Swallow of the title) to an island of adventure. All seems well until they encounter their enemy. At first they are angry at the invasion of their peaceful haven by these Amazon pirates, Nancy and Peggy, who claim ownership of the land. But in time a truce is called and the Swallows and Amazons become firm friends. Camping under open skies, swimming in clear water, fishing, exploring and making discoveries is the stuff of dreams which serves to make this so charming a tale. The author manages to capture the innocence of a time when all this was real and possible. Swallows and Amazons will transport children to a fantastical place where they can play safely and roam freely, without an adult in sight.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K Jerome

Published in 1889 this is a humorous account of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers. The jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager in Barclay’s Bank) and Carl Hentscehl (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog Montmorency, is entirely fictional but as Jerome admits, "developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen contains an element of the dog." The trip is a typical boating holiday on the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880's craze for boating as a leisure activity.