Book Choices - March 2025

Our next meeting is at 8.00pm on Thursday, 27th March 2025 at The Ash Tree in Ashendon. We will be discussing Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

Here are the book choices for our next book. 

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

A beautifully written historical relationship tale with real bite. This is about the relationships with family, community, fear, nature, and the more obvious love. A work of fiction inspired by history, the story begins on Christmas Eve in 1617 when a sudden and violent storm takes the lives of forty fishermen, leaving the stunned womenfolk learning to survive on their remote Norwegian island. Still reeling from the tragedy, their lives turn in the most frightening direction when the King brings in sorcery laws and a commissioner is installed to root out evil. This is Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s debut adult novel. The prologue hits with a huge, sad inevitability. Kiran Millwood Hargrave writes with a sensitive and considerate pen; the descriptions are breathtaking. While there are some savage shocks in store, The Mercies is still a warm, thoughtful and touching read.

Roots by Alex Haley

Tracing his ancestry back to Africa, through six generations: slaves and free men, farmers and blacksmiths, lawyers and architects, Alex Haley discovered a sixteen-year-old youth, Kunta Kinte. It was this young man, who had been torn from his homeland and in torment and anguish brought to the slave markets of the New World, who held the key to Haley's deep and distant past.

The Reading List by Nisha Adams

An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list… hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again. 

Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale

Thirteen of us joined our long-awaited return to the now community-owned, local pub: The Ash Tree in Ashendon. 

We welcomed our two new members, Annelise and Ellie, and then settled into our chat about our latest read: Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale. 

We had a short debate about previous books we had read by this author, and we settled on Notes From an Exhibition, which we read way back in 2008. So we can't really classify ourselves as stalkers! Some of us admitted our devotion to the author and had personally enjoyed A Place Called Winter and Rough Music. My checks for accuracy revealed that there are still plenty more Patrick Gale stories to read!

Anyway, here is the summary of our shared reading experience of Take Nothing With You. 

One of our group chose not to read the book, she felt it was just another story about other people's lives and cannot see the point in reading books like this. This decision was made based on the sample read opportunity offered online! In the face of friendly fire, she stuck to her minority opinion and everyone else agreed to differ having read and enjoyed the story.

One final point regarding the 'other people's lives' bit: the story does feel autobiographical. The author says it isn't but he did draw from his experiences as a gay child of the 1970s, the agonies of adolescence and his life and love of music. Some characters were based on people in his own life. 

The characters are well-developed, and it was an easy-to-read novel but, in our opinion, the ending felt rushed after a relatively slow start. 

Of the characters: 

We loved Eustace and his life. Many of us could relate to him through shared experiences in our own lives. 

Dad was pathetic! and Mum - well!!

The Weston Super Mare friendship group were wonderful and Vernon was a stand-out mate (with a brilliant father). As were his music school friends Freya and Naomi but not Turlough who, we concluded, was a dislikeable control freak.

Patrick also gave us a wonderful insight into Weston Super Mare and we enjoyed the descriptions of the town and its character. 

The end did not give us what we wanted to hear about the relationship between Eustace (the main character) and Theo, his long-distance and not yet-met boyfriend—some wanted more! Others liked the sudden ending, and others (well, there were 13 of us) felt Theo simply served the purpose of being something for Eustace to look forward to. Most of us are hoping for a sequel!

The big question is: Would we recommend this book? Except for one, the answer is a big YES! Some already had.

Our next book is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and we will meet again at The Ash Tree in Ashendon at 8pm on Thursday 27th of March 2025. 

Book Choices - January 2025

Our next meeting is at 8.00pm on Thursday 30th January 2025 at The Ash Tree of Ashendon. We will be discussing Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale.

Here are the book choices for our next book. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit, and great courage.

She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer, and a rigid social order. All circumstances  circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester.

There is great kindness and warmth in this epic love story, which is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors. Ultimately the grand passion of Jane and Rochester is called upon to survive cruel revelation, loss and reunion, only to be confronted with tragedy.

This is How We Are Human

Sebastian James Murphy is twenty years, six months and two days old. He loves swimming, fried eggs and Billy Ocean. Sebastian is autistic. And lonely.

Veronica wants her son Sebastian to be happy … she wants the world to accept him for who he is. She is also considering paying a professional to give him what he desperately wants.

Violetta, a high-class escort, steps out into the night thinking only of money; her nursing degree; paying for her dad’s care; and getting through the dark.

When these three lives collide – intertwine in unexpected ways – everything changes. For everyone.

This Is How We Are Human is a searching, rich and thought-provoking novel with an emotional core that will warm and break your heart.

The Return of the Native

Now one of Hardy’s most popular novels, in 1878 he had difficulty finding a publisher due to the book’s controversial themes. The book takes place on Egdon Heath, a fictitious area of the Wessex of many of Hardy’s novels. 

Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath. 

Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets her heart on marrying him, believing that through him she can leave rural life and find fulfilment elsewhere. But she is to be disappointed, for Clym has dreams of his own, and they have little in common with Eustacia’s. Their unhappy marriage causes havoc in the lives of those close to them, in particular Damon Wildeve, Eustacia’s former lover, Clym’s mother and his cousin Thomasin. 

The Return of the Native illustrates the tragic potential of romantic illusion and how its protagonists fail to recognize their opportunities to control their own destinies.