Summer Reads 2021

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

In 1954 a fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat, and a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder. In the course of his trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memories grow as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries - memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl; memories of land desired paid for and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Ranked as one of the top dystopian novels of all time, the top 100 greatest novels of all time, and the novel was listed at number 87 on The Big Read survey by the BBC, the Brave New World is often considered a masterpiece in its genre. The plot revolves around an attempt to classify population based on their intelligence whereby the wombs are altered to produce super-intelligent species and the world thereof. The book has since been adapted in various dramatic, television, and movie adaptation

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Between life and death, there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything differently, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well-lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe, there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. 

We will meet to discuss our current book I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith in the garden at The Hundred of Ashendon at 8pm on Thursday 15th July. If the weather is against us then the backup plan is Zoom for which I'll send a link by 7pm that day if it has to be brought into play, but I so hope we can all meet up for a long-overdue social evening.