Book Choices for October and November

We are meeting at The Hundred on Thursday, September 28th to discuss The Incident at the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. 

Here are our choices for the coming Autumn reading season:

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterman

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; 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. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense-- one that leaves us shaken and changed. 

Ross Poldark by Winston Graham

In the first novel in Winston Graham’s hit series, a weary Ross Poldark returns to England from war, looking forward to a joyful homecoming with his beloved Elizabeth. But instead he discovers his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth—believing Ross to be dead—is now engaged to his cousin. Ross has no choice but to start his life anew.

Thus begins the Poldark series, a heartwarming, gripping saga set in the windswept landscape of Cornwall. With an unforgettable cast of characters that spans loves, lives, and generations, this extraordinary masterwork from Winston Graham is a story you will never forget.

I See You by Clare Mackintosh

Every morning and evening, Zoe Walker takes the same route to the train station, waits at a certain place on the platform, finds her favourite spot in the car, never suspecting that someone is watching her...

It all starts with a classified ad. During her commute home one night, while glancing through her local paper, Zoe sees her own face staring back at her, a grainy photo along with a phone number and listing for a website called findtheone.com. 

Other women begin appearing in the same ad, a different one every day, and Zoe realizes they've become the victims of increasingly violent crimes—including rape and murder. With the help of a determined cop, she uncovers the ad's twisted purpose...a discovery that turns her paranoia into full-blown panic. For now, Zoe is sure that someone close to her has set her up as the next target. 

And now that man on the train—the one smiling at Zoe from across the car—could be more than just a friendly stranger. He could be someone who has deliberately chosen her and is ready to make his next move…

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

While most of us loved it, one was indifferent and one absolutely loathed it!

We all related to that long hot summer of 1976; some group members were looking after their young families at the time and some of us were teenagers still at school. The historical context was well presented, it all felt familiar, and for one member the place was familiar too, a location somewhere in the East Midlands. We all remembered having to put the television on to warm up; the TV programmes mentioned; and the casual racism!

We agreed that the descriptive language was fantastic and we recalled favourite passages about the oppressive heat, John’s emotional turmoil and Grace’s weak attempts at pre teenage rebellion.

The crux of the book was people being singled out for being different and it was only through the mouths of the children that Jesus became the most obvious example of this. The adults were unaware of their hypocrisy throughout. As the adults’ secrets emerged through the story (and there wasn’t actually much really happening, it was mainly back stories) it became apparent that the person they were ‘picking on’ was actually the least flawed of them all. From the group which included alcoholic Sheila, lazy May to the abused John and depressed Sylvie; none could grasp that Walter had actually done nothing wrong. Well, apart from the real ‘child snatcher’ who was herself a victim of circumstance.

It was the children, Grace and Tilly, who could most easily see through some of the web of lies that adults spin to get through life. Their observations, which include comments like, “Why do people blame everything on the heat?” “It’s easier than telling everyone the real reason” were very knowing.

Would we recommend it? All bar one – yes! This is a first novel and we look forward to the next one.

Our next book is The Incident at the Fingerpost by Iain Pears and we meet on Thursday, Sept 28^th at the Hundred.

Current good reads by members that they would also recommend are:

• The Map Addict by Mike Parker (if you are mad about maps like Jane and me!)
• The book the recent film Lion is based on – A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly
• A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gayle
• Neurotribes – the Legacy of Autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently by Steve Silberman

Book Choices - July 2017

Here are our book choices for high-Summer reading. You can send your preferences to me by email or make your voice heard at the meeting this Thursday (20th July) 8pm at The Hundred. 

An Instance of the Finger Post by Iain Pears

Set in Oxford in the 1660s - a time and place of great intellectual, religious, scientific and political ferment - this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of the murder of Robert Grove, a fellow of New College.

Four witnesses describe the events surrounding his death: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause, determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologian and master spy; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary. 

Each one tells their version of what happened but only one reveals the extraordinary truth. Brilliantly written, utterly convincing, gripping from the first page to the last, An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force.

Together by Julie Cohen

On a morning that seems just like any other, Robbie wakes in his bed, his wife Emily asleep beside him, as always. He rises and dresses, makes his coffee, feeds his dogs, just as he usually would. But then he leaves Emily a letter and does something that will break her heart. 

As the years go back all the way to 1962, Robbie's actions become clearer as we discover the story of a couple with a terrible secret - one they will do absolutely anything to protect.

Larchfield by Polly Clark

It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether.

Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo, Wystan will fall in love for the first time even as he fights his deepest fears.

The need for human connection compels these two vulnerable outsiders to find each other and make a reality of their own that will save them both. Echoing the depths of Possession, the elegance of The Stranger's Child and the ingenuity of Longbourn, Larchfield is a beautiful and haunting novel about heroism - the unusual bravery that allows unusual people to go on living; to transcend banality and suffering from the power of their imagination.

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

I have an admission - I have lost my notes so I am going to keep this brief and from memory. Please add comments to the blog post with additional points that I have failed you on.

A good group of us met to discuss this book - the story of Australian nurses who volunteered to nurse in World War 1 and found themselves on an incredible journey travelling through Egypt to nurse the injured from the Dardanelles and then to France.

Quickly the book establishes the senseless and cruel loss of life that comes with war and gives a clear insight into the extreme conditions that medical corps were working in, ill-equipped and overwhelmed thay rarely lost their sense of professionalism even if they lost all hope.

Keneally has the ability to use language in an almost poetic way to describe even the most horrific circumstances.  It is a hard story, well researched and told in a manner that holds no punches yet enables the reader to continue through the horror and sadness that frequently arises.

Central to the story are two sisters: Sally and Naomi Durance, both nurses with very different careers - Sally stays in their home bush town, and cares for her dying mother whilst Naomi heads to Sydney and is altogether more sophisticated. We found it hard to warm to Naomi at the beginning but quickly we came to like and respect her (as Sally did too) so that by the end of the book it was hard to choose a favourite sister. In fact it became quite difficult at times to remember which sister was which as the story ran on - they 'morphed' so well that even the author got the confused at one point when he refers to Sally waiting when it should have been Naomi (I wrote the page number down but I lost it!)

We enjoyed the 'challenge' of reading narrative with no speech marks - indeed it is surprising how quickly this feature became quite unnoticeable.

The nurses enjoy high status and are well looked after by the officers but are less well treated by the 'orderlies'. Love is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a key part of the story as each of the nurses meet different partners in different circumstances. For example we experienced the joy of love at first sight, the trauma of sudden loss; the sadness of seeing your own child injured; the inequality of rape; the inequity of a frowned upon nurse/patient relationship; a proposition by a female doctor; a husband and wife dealing with personality change from head injury - all clearly experiences of real nurses during the war.

Of the characters we found space in our hearts for Nettice (who fell in love with a blind patient) and Honora who lost her sense of joy at the same time she lost her love and Mitchie, the indomitable matron who never gives up as that would mean losing touch with her son.

The ending is confusing and not all the group agreed that it was a good ending though perhaps it continues the senseless brutality, the horror of war and of the death, mutilation and annihilation that came with the war to end all wars.

Would we recommend this book? Yes, it is a brilliant read.

Our next meeting is on Thursday 20th July (8pm at The Hundred) when we will discuss The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon.

Our Next Book and Meeting

Apologies I have not got round to writing up our discussion on Daughters from Mars - I will do that, it was such a good one. No excuses other than too many things on my mind and I haven't finished the book and want to achieve that at least so I understand the comments about the ending.

Anyway our Summer read is The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon - looks like an interesting read. We will meet on Thursday 20th July to discuss our experience.

Books Choices - May 2017

Our next meeting is on Thursday 25th May when we will be discussing 'The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally' and we will meet at The Hundred of Ashendon, 8pm .

Here are the choices for our Summer read.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

Part coming-of-age story, part mystery, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is a quirky and utterly charming debut about a community in need of absolution and two girls learning what it means to belong.

England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbours blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren’t convinced. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands. Inspired by the local vicar, they go looking for God—they believe that if they find Him they might also find Mrs. Creasy and bring her home.

Spunky, spirited Grace and quiet, thoughtful Tilly go door to door in search of clues. The cul-de-sac starts to give up its secrets, and the amateur detectives uncover much more than ever imagined. As they try to make sense of what they’ve seen and heard, a complicated history of deception begins to emerge. Everyone on the Avenue has something to hide, a reason for not fitting in.

In the suffocating heat of the summer, the ability to guard these differences becomes impossible. Along with the parched lawns and the melting pavement, the lives of all the neighbours begin to unravel. What the girls don’t realize is that the lies told to conceal what happened one fateful day about a decade ago are the same ones Mrs. Creasy was beginning to peel back just before she disappeared.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.


The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. 

Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility. 

Letter to Daniel by Fergal Keane

Seven of our group enjoyed a deep, sometimes bordering on political, discussion over a glass of wine and nibbles kindly hosted by Felicity.

We all sat down with our books of matching covers, each representing the resourcefulness we share as the book is out of print and hard to come by. The efforts to search and secure our reading matter were well rewarded as we talked and talked about the book and more broadly about the world it is written about.

This is an honest account by and about the life Fergal Keane has had as a BBC news reporter - a life that took him from small town Ireland to the African and Asian continents and almost certainly many other parts of the world.

It is an infinitely depressing read, but it is though provoking, educational and gripping. It is (as you expect of such an eminent journalist) very well written. It brought back memories of a (totally different genre) past book group read: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - "how can something so awful be so beautifully written?"

We had many questions we would have liked to have asked Fergal. For example, how does he live his life when dealing with everything he reports? how does he cope with the horrors? We are 20 years on from when this book was written and the world has got no better - is it worth it? Do you distance yourself from the horrors?

The book is more than a catalogue of horror and disasters but only because Fergal brings each episode back to his reality and leaves a glimmer of hope here and there. Such as:

The Grandson who took a stand against his Prime Minister Grandfather - the architect of Apartheid.
AND
The Chicken School where 9000 children came to learn everyday and sat on old bus seats to do so.

For some of us the book highlighted our own limited knowledge of politics in other parts of the world. How much do we really know about the Middle East now, we wondered? Should we keep out of the situation? does it make anything better to get involved? This is a book group, we stopped short at full on politics, though the Daily Mail did get a mention (mainly for the crossword!)

After Africa it was hard to concentrate on Asia, but concentrate we must in order to get a little bit of knowledge about a very hard line world.

So, in summary this is a thought provoking, hard to read, book and we recommend it as a book that needs discussion - if you can find it!

Our next read is 'The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally' and we will meet at The Hundred of Ashendon, 8pm on Thursday 25th May.