Booklovers
We started Booklovers because we wanted to talk about the books we’ve been reading and to introduce those we’ve enjoyed to others.
We each take turn to speak about our chosen book and this invariably leads to discussion of broader topics. Four times a year we agree on a shared title to maintain the value of close reading and to hear each other’s interpretations of different aspects of those works.
We are a friendly group of people, meeting on the third Thursday of each month in a member’s home. You’ll find you’re never short of ideas for a new book to read and we warmly welcome others to join us.
For further details, please contact Christine Roberts.
For upcoming meetings, please visit our events page.
We each take turn to speak about our chosen book and this invariably leads to discussion of broader topics. Four times a year we agree on a shared title to maintain the value of close reading and to hear each other’s interpretations of different aspects of those works.
We are a friendly group of people, meeting on the third Thursday of each month in a member’s home. You’ll find you’re never short of ideas for a new book to read and we warmly welcome others to join us.
For further details, please contact Christine Roberts.
For upcoming meetings, please visit our events page.
Notes from Booklovers Meeting, 12th September 2019
Present: Sue, Simon, Denise, Mary, Christine & Di.
Sue read Middle England by Jonathan Coe (2019). She was underwhelmed by this contemporary account of the current political situation in the UK. The book, the third in a trilogy the other two being The Rotters Club (2001) and The Closed Circle (2004) covers the period from 2010 and 2018 and such events as Gordon Brown’s encounter with “that bigoted woman”, the Coalition Government, the London riots, the murder of Jo Cox, Nigel Farage’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster, the London Olympics, etc. The book shows different takes on the current crisis, different people with different ideas. One review suggests that the book is at it’s most successful when it moves away from politics and deals with relationships. To quote the therapist of one couple in the book “What’s interesting about both of these answers is that neither of you mentioned politics. As if the referendum wasn’t about Europe at all. Maybe something much more fundamental and personal was going on. Which is why this might be a difficult problem to resolve.” Sue gave it a ‘thumbs down’.
Simon read The Gorse Trilogy (1947 – 1952) by Patrick Hamilton, an author who explored the inter-war and early post WWII years and perhaps best-known for Hangover Square (1941) and his play Gaslight (1938). He was born in Hassocks. The novels in The Gorse Trilogy are The Slaves of Solitude (1947), the first one, and was described as ‘the best book written about Brighton’, the second Mr. Stimpson and Mr Gorse is regarded as a comic masterpiece and the final one is The West Pier (1952). The books are about Mr Gorse, a psychological fraudster who preys on women and people’s aspirations. Wikipedia’s entry states that Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed’. The Gorse trilogy was not well thought of critically compared to Hamilton’s other works but Simon enjoyed elements of the books and considered them to be very well written. He felt there were parallels with the kind of exploitation that goes on today on the internet.
Mary read Occupation Prizefighter: The Freddie Welsh Story by Andrew Gallimore (2006)
This is the story of a Welshman who left his comfortable family life (his parents owned a hotel) in Pontypridd and went to Canada to improve his health, ultimately becoming a world champion. Mary said that she was lent the book by a friend who was interested in boxing which is not really her interest.
Freddie left Wales at 17 in the company of three friends. He became a hobo, train hopping across North America and mixing with a pretty rough crowd. He learnt to fight from his mates and found he was good enough to become a professional boxer culminating in him becoming the World champion at Olympia in London. Mary felt that for anyone interested in boxing this is a fascinating book as it explains in detail almost every fight he had and the highs and lows of his career. He became friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald and the latter’s book ‘The Great Gatsby’ is supposed to be modeled on Freddie’s life. His life had a sad ending. Having gone bust, he became depressed and took to drink, dying in a hotel room of a heart attack at the early age of 41. Mary said “Sad, but my goodness he had a full and exciting life.”
Denise read The New Men by C P Snow – the sixth novel of the author’s Strangers and Brothers sequence. In brief the book is a meticulous study of the public issues and private problems of post-war Britain. The time frame is quite special – the end of World War II and the development of nuclear weapons, told quietly from the inside. The book is a fascinating account of the moral ambiguity felt by a group of Cambridge nuclear scientists and the Government as they raced to build the bomb during World War II. The book also relives a time when a majority of the British intelligentsia were close to Communism . It is set in Barford, Stratford and Warwick. The hero, Lewis Eliot, becomes entangled in the ethics and practicalities of nuclear warfare. His scientist brother, Martin, and a brilliant Cambridge fellow, Walter Luke are trying to develop a war-winning bomb. Around them civil servants are jostling for position, ageing politicians are trying to stay relevant and the military are pressuring for results. And all the time they must wrestle with reconciling the advancement of science with the creation of a weapon they hope will never be used.
Denise really enjoyed reading the book – it is a quiet portrait of ordinary, fallible human beings caught up in the most terrifying research of all time. The evolving nature of the relationship between Lewis and his brother Martin as the backdrop to the novel is fascinating. The New Men is told with a simplicity and measure and lack of sensationalism.
Christine read: Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison. This is a book in the increasingly popular nature writing genre (c.f. Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin, Dominic Tyler etc. ) The author is prolific young writer and Christine was drawn to read this book when she read that three of the four walks mentioned taking place at Wicken Fen, in Shropshire around the Wrekin, in the Darent Valley in Kent and on Dartmoor , were all places she had walked in recently.
This is just the sort of book that takes you far from the problematic associations of nationalism and closer to a more deeply felt and older connection with our native landscape. The author has an intricate knowledge of the seasons, the weather, the landscape, the flora and fauna of our country and she shares this knowledge in a way that makes the reader feel as if they are accompanying her on her walks.
Christine felt that this is a fairly slight book but one she would read again for comfort. Harrison concludes “My year of getting wet… has broadened and deepened my feeling for the outside world. I’m no longer just a fair-weather walker”. And Christine said that she’d found herself thinking the same way when the raindrops start to fall.
Christine also read: Christine also read “Sarah Thornhill’ by Kate Grenville. Grenville is best known for her novel The Secret River which she’d recently seen dramatized at the National Theatre following a run at the Edinburgh Festival. She’d read the latter book just after it was published in 2006 after she’d been to Australia and visited the ‘secret’ river Hawkesbury, fifty miles from Sydney. It’s the story of William Thornhill and his journey, as a convict for a petty theft, from London to the other side of the world. This book has become a set text for Australian schoolchildren. Sarah Thornhill is the daughter of the aforementioned William and this book focuses on her undying love for a half aboriginal man whose mixed race makes it impossible for her to marry him. The novel charts Sarah’s journey from childhood to maturity and like The Secret River charts the history of Australian colonialism. What she particularly liked is the way Grenville captures the voice of an illiterate young woman who nevertheless is emotionally extremely literate. Along the way we inevitably meet prejudice not just against the native Australians but also class prejudice as incomers vie to find an acceptable rung on the social ladder. The acquisition of property is all important – not just of land, and of property but also of material objects that will tell the world that you have made it socially. As well as this you have a very clear image of the challenges that the early settlers had to find their place in Australia’s vastness and create a viable economic life where they can feed their children and improve their lot. Above all it is a love story but by no means a soppy one. A review in The Guardian said : ‘Sarah is well inhabited by her creator, and through the eyes of this young woman, the physical and cultural strangenesses of a nation still clambering into existence spring richly to life.’
Di read: Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (2012). This is the second in Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Chancellor, and deals with the downfall of Anne Boleyn and the Norfolk family. It shows how Cromwell, now the power behind the throne is an arch-manipulator. Di felt this is primarily a book about power with echoes of the current state of politics in our country. In fact, renowned author Margaret Atwood reviewing the book back in May 2012 said:
“But Cromwell also has corners of tenderness, and sees these in others: he's deep, not merely dark. And through him we experience the texture of how it feels to be sliding into a perilous dictatorship, where power is arbitrary, spies are everywhere, and one wrong word can mean your death. It's a reflection, perhaps, of our times, when democracies appear to be slipping back into the dungeon-filled shadowland of arbitrary power.”
The book ends as it begins with an image of blood-soaked feathers. Cromwell’s enemies are mustering and he is balanced on a tightrope. The final book in the trilogy is due out in early 2020.
Sue read Middle England by Jonathan Coe (2019). She was underwhelmed by this contemporary account of the current political situation in the UK. The book, the third in a trilogy the other two being The Rotters Club (2001) and The Closed Circle (2004) covers the period from 2010 and 2018 and such events as Gordon Brown’s encounter with “that bigoted woman”, the Coalition Government, the London riots, the murder of Jo Cox, Nigel Farage’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster, the London Olympics, etc. The book shows different takes on the current crisis, different people with different ideas. One review suggests that the book is at it’s most successful when it moves away from politics and deals with relationships. To quote the therapist of one couple in the book “What’s interesting about both of these answers is that neither of you mentioned politics. As if the referendum wasn’t about Europe at all. Maybe something much more fundamental and personal was going on. Which is why this might be a difficult problem to resolve.” Sue gave it a ‘thumbs down’.
Simon read The Gorse Trilogy (1947 – 1952) by Patrick Hamilton, an author who explored the inter-war and early post WWII years and perhaps best-known for Hangover Square (1941) and his play Gaslight (1938). He was born in Hassocks. The novels in The Gorse Trilogy are The Slaves of Solitude (1947), the first one, and was described as ‘the best book written about Brighton’, the second Mr. Stimpson and Mr Gorse is regarded as a comic masterpiece and the final one is The West Pier (1952). The books are about Mr Gorse, a psychological fraudster who preys on women and people’s aspirations. Wikipedia’s entry states that Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed’. The Gorse trilogy was not well thought of critically compared to Hamilton’s other works but Simon enjoyed elements of the books and considered them to be very well written. He felt there were parallels with the kind of exploitation that goes on today on the internet.
Mary read Occupation Prizefighter: The Freddie Welsh Story by Andrew Gallimore (2006)
This is the story of a Welshman who left his comfortable family life (his parents owned a hotel) in Pontypridd and went to Canada to improve his health, ultimately becoming a world champion. Mary said that she was lent the book by a friend who was interested in boxing which is not really her interest.
Freddie left Wales at 17 in the company of three friends. He became a hobo, train hopping across North America and mixing with a pretty rough crowd. He learnt to fight from his mates and found he was good enough to become a professional boxer culminating in him becoming the World champion at Olympia in London. Mary felt that for anyone interested in boxing this is a fascinating book as it explains in detail almost every fight he had and the highs and lows of his career. He became friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald and the latter’s book ‘The Great Gatsby’ is supposed to be modeled on Freddie’s life. His life had a sad ending. Having gone bust, he became depressed and took to drink, dying in a hotel room of a heart attack at the early age of 41. Mary said “Sad, but my goodness he had a full and exciting life.”
Denise read The New Men by C P Snow – the sixth novel of the author’s Strangers and Brothers sequence. In brief the book is a meticulous study of the public issues and private problems of post-war Britain. The time frame is quite special – the end of World War II and the development of nuclear weapons, told quietly from the inside. The book is a fascinating account of the moral ambiguity felt by a group of Cambridge nuclear scientists and the Government as they raced to build the bomb during World War II. The book also relives a time when a majority of the British intelligentsia were close to Communism . It is set in Barford, Stratford and Warwick. The hero, Lewis Eliot, becomes entangled in the ethics and practicalities of nuclear warfare. His scientist brother, Martin, and a brilliant Cambridge fellow, Walter Luke are trying to develop a war-winning bomb. Around them civil servants are jostling for position, ageing politicians are trying to stay relevant and the military are pressuring for results. And all the time they must wrestle with reconciling the advancement of science with the creation of a weapon they hope will never be used.
Denise really enjoyed reading the book – it is a quiet portrait of ordinary, fallible human beings caught up in the most terrifying research of all time. The evolving nature of the relationship between Lewis and his brother Martin as the backdrop to the novel is fascinating. The New Men is told with a simplicity and measure and lack of sensationalism.
Christine read: Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison. This is a book in the increasingly popular nature writing genre (c.f. Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin, Dominic Tyler etc. ) The author is prolific young writer and Christine was drawn to read this book when she read that three of the four walks mentioned taking place at Wicken Fen, in Shropshire around the Wrekin, in the Darent Valley in Kent and on Dartmoor , were all places she had walked in recently.
This is just the sort of book that takes you far from the problematic associations of nationalism and closer to a more deeply felt and older connection with our native landscape. The author has an intricate knowledge of the seasons, the weather, the landscape, the flora and fauna of our country and she shares this knowledge in a way that makes the reader feel as if they are accompanying her on her walks.
Christine felt that this is a fairly slight book but one she would read again for comfort. Harrison concludes “My year of getting wet… has broadened and deepened my feeling for the outside world. I’m no longer just a fair-weather walker”. And Christine said that she’d found herself thinking the same way when the raindrops start to fall.
Christine also read: Christine also read “Sarah Thornhill’ by Kate Grenville. Grenville is best known for her novel The Secret River which she’d recently seen dramatized at the National Theatre following a run at the Edinburgh Festival. She’d read the latter book just after it was published in 2006 after she’d been to Australia and visited the ‘secret’ river Hawkesbury, fifty miles from Sydney. It’s the story of William Thornhill and his journey, as a convict for a petty theft, from London to the other side of the world. This book has become a set text for Australian schoolchildren. Sarah Thornhill is the daughter of the aforementioned William and this book focuses on her undying love for a half aboriginal man whose mixed race makes it impossible for her to marry him. The novel charts Sarah’s journey from childhood to maturity and like The Secret River charts the history of Australian colonialism. What she particularly liked is the way Grenville captures the voice of an illiterate young woman who nevertheless is emotionally extremely literate. Along the way we inevitably meet prejudice not just against the native Australians but also class prejudice as incomers vie to find an acceptable rung on the social ladder. The acquisition of property is all important – not just of land, and of property but also of material objects that will tell the world that you have made it socially. As well as this you have a very clear image of the challenges that the early settlers had to find their place in Australia’s vastness and create a viable economic life where they can feed their children and improve their lot. Above all it is a love story but by no means a soppy one. A review in The Guardian said : ‘Sarah is well inhabited by her creator, and through the eyes of this young woman, the physical and cultural strangenesses of a nation still clambering into existence spring richly to life.’
Di read: Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (2012). This is the second in Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Chancellor, and deals with the downfall of Anne Boleyn and the Norfolk family. It shows how Cromwell, now the power behind the throne is an arch-manipulator. Di felt this is primarily a book about power with echoes of the current state of politics in our country. In fact, renowned author Margaret Atwood reviewing the book back in May 2012 said:
“But Cromwell also has corners of tenderness, and sees these in others: he's deep, not merely dark. And through him we experience the texture of how it feels to be sliding into a perilous dictatorship, where power is arbitrary, spies are everywhere, and one wrong word can mean your death. It's a reflection, perhaps, of our times, when democracies appear to be slipping back into the dungeon-filled shadowland of arbitrary power.”
The book ends as it begins with an image of blood-soaked feathers. Cromwell’s enemies are mustering and he is balanced on a tightrope. The final book in the trilogy is due out in early 2020.
Notes from Booklovers Meeting, 25th July 2019
Present: Simon, Denise, Christine, Sue & Mary
Simon read: The Lady in the Lake (1943) a detective novel by Raymond Chandler featuring the los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlow. He had never read any of Chandler’s work before and was interested in the the fact that he didn’t start writing until he was 44 after he lost his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His prose has been much admired by writers including W H Auden, Evelyn Waugh and Ian Fleming. He is reputed to have redefined the private eye fiction genre.
The plot deals with the case of a missing woman in a small mountain town some 80 miles from Los Angeles The discovery of the body in Little Fawn Lake at first seems unrelated to Philip Marlowe's search for the wife of perfume tycoon Derace Kingsley. However, as the plot progresses this gruesome discovery soon helps Marlowe to solve a chain of seemingly unrelated murders. Not only does Marlowe solve these murders, he also uncovers a dirty police officer and the woman the officer has been trying to protect. The story was written shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour and makes several references to America’s recent involvment in World War II.
Simon felt it was a great book for a commute.
Denise read: The Secret Barrister: Stories Of The Law And How It’s Broken. (2018) This is a first hand account by a junior barrister covering both prosecution and defence and specializing in criminal law. ‘I’m a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.’ (from the cover flap). Denise found it fascinating and somewhat horrifying. Itcovers many important topics including the importance of legal aid, the notion of a ‘fair trial’. The Daily Mail reviewer wrote “Everyone who has any interest in public life should read it...this is a book of some brilliance, clearly explained, cogently argued . Denise said that it can seem depressing and highlights how much reform of the law is needed.
Sue read: My Dear I wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young (2011). She said that she had read several chapters and came to one that didn’t quite meld with the others, which were well-written and captivating. The chapter she referred to was written in a rather jerky, jarring fashion and she thought she wouldn’t enjoy the book. However, she persevered and found it soon returned to the previous style which was a relief. The book had in fact been co-authored with Young’s daughter. The book is set before, during and immediately after WW1 the author draws on family stories, her grandmother having worked with the surgeon who reconstructed faces at the hospital in Sidcup in which the hero ends up having suffered a severe facial injury. Moving between Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don't—and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love.
Sue read: The Black Widow by Daniel Silva (2016) who is an American investigative journalist. This is a book about the present day political situation in the Middle East and Europe and gives a terrifying insight into what could happen if ISIS manage to achieve their aims and serves as a stark warning. Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon is poised to become the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, events conspire to lure him into the field for one final operation. ISIS has detonated a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible before he can strike again. At Allon’s behest Dr Natalie Mizrahi, a French Jew, who speaks Arabic is asked to pose as an ISIS recruit in waiting infiltrate the Caliphate in order to discover Saladin, the organiser’s true identify, after a bombing spree in Paris and Amsterdam.
Sue says she always finds Daniel Silver’s books gripping reads with a strong semblance of realism. He tells his readers in an afterword what was actually true and what was fictitious.
In his opinion the failure to leave a residual American presence in Iraq after the war has created the seedbed from which ISIS has sprung, and that Western Europe and the USA is woefully unprepared for what is coming.
Sue also read: Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (1901), a classic of German literature about four generations of one North German family facing modernity. It draws on the history of Mann’s own family. The Buddenbrooks of successive generations experience a gradual decline of their finances and family ideals, finding happiness increasingly elusive as values change and old hierarchies are challenged by Germany's rapid industrialisation. The characters who subordinate their personal happiness to the welfare of the family firm encounter reverses, as do those who do not. This work contributed significantly to Thomas Mann being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sue found it an absorbing read
Mary read: The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba
When a terrible drought strikes William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi in the 1990s, his family loose all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.
Retold for a younger audience, this exciting memoir shows how, even in a desperate situation, one boy's brilliant idea can light up the world. Complete with photographs, illustrations, and an epilogue that will bring readers up to date on William's story, this is the perfect edition to read and share with the whole family.
Christine had started to read: Station Eleven by Canadian Emily St. John Mandel. This is a book about a dystopian future where the earth has been ravaged by a deadly virus. It starts intriguingly in a theatre in Toronto with the death of a famous actor wile performing the role of King Lear. As the night wears on we are alerted to the appalling news of the swift spread of the virus. Fast forward to twenty years on and survivors are living in small settlements and the group of actors we were first introduced to are still a travelling band who have difficulty in finding safe places in which to perform since people in their communes are anxious to protect themselves from further infection and death.
Simon read: The Lady in the Lake (1943) a detective novel by Raymond Chandler featuring the los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlow. He had never read any of Chandler’s work before and was interested in the the fact that he didn’t start writing until he was 44 after he lost his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His prose has been much admired by writers including W H Auden, Evelyn Waugh and Ian Fleming. He is reputed to have redefined the private eye fiction genre.
The plot deals with the case of a missing woman in a small mountain town some 80 miles from Los Angeles The discovery of the body in Little Fawn Lake at first seems unrelated to Philip Marlowe's search for the wife of perfume tycoon Derace Kingsley. However, as the plot progresses this gruesome discovery soon helps Marlowe to solve a chain of seemingly unrelated murders. Not only does Marlowe solve these murders, he also uncovers a dirty police officer and the woman the officer has been trying to protect. The story was written shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour and makes several references to America’s recent involvment in World War II.
Simon felt it was a great book for a commute.
Denise read: The Secret Barrister: Stories Of The Law And How It’s Broken. (2018) This is a first hand account by a junior barrister covering both prosecution and defence and specializing in criminal law. ‘I’m a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.’ (from the cover flap). Denise found it fascinating and somewhat horrifying. Itcovers many important topics including the importance of legal aid, the notion of a ‘fair trial’. The Daily Mail reviewer wrote “Everyone who has any interest in public life should read it...this is a book of some brilliance, clearly explained, cogently argued . Denise said that it can seem depressing and highlights how much reform of the law is needed.
Sue read: My Dear I wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young (2011). She said that she had read several chapters and came to one that didn’t quite meld with the others, which were well-written and captivating. The chapter she referred to was written in a rather jerky, jarring fashion and she thought she wouldn’t enjoy the book. However, she persevered and found it soon returned to the previous style which was a relief. The book had in fact been co-authored with Young’s daughter. The book is set before, during and immediately after WW1 the author draws on family stories, her grandmother having worked with the surgeon who reconstructed faces at the hospital in Sidcup in which the hero ends up having suffered a severe facial injury. Moving between Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don't—and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love.
Sue read: The Black Widow by Daniel Silva (2016) who is an American investigative journalist. This is a book about the present day political situation in the Middle East and Europe and gives a terrifying insight into what could happen if ISIS manage to achieve their aims and serves as a stark warning. Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon is poised to become the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, events conspire to lure him into the field for one final operation. ISIS has detonated a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible before he can strike again. At Allon’s behest Dr Natalie Mizrahi, a French Jew, who speaks Arabic is asked to pose as an ISIS recruit in waiting infiltrate the Caliphate in order to discover Saladin, the organiser’s true identify, after a bombing spree in Paris and Amsterdam.
Sue says she always finds Daniel Silver’s books gripping reads with a strong semblance of realism. He tells his readers in an afterword what was actually true and what was fictitious.
In his opinion the failure to leave a residual American presence in Iraq after the war has created the seedbed from which ISIS has sprung, and that Western Europe and the USA is woefully unprepared for what is coming.
Sue also read: Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (1901), a classic of German literature about four generations of one North German family facing modernity. It draws on the history of Mann’s own family. The Buddenbrooks of successive generations experience a gradual decline of their finances and family ideals, finding happiness increasingly elusive as values change and old hierarchies are challenged by Germany's rapid industrialisation. The characters who subordinate their personal happiness to the welfare of the family firm encounter reverses, as do those who do not. This work contributed significantly to Thomas Mann being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sue found it an absorbing read
Mary read: The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba
When a terrible drought strikes William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi in the 1990s, his family loose all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.
Retold for a younger audience, this exciting memoir shows how, even in a desperate situation, one boy's brilliant idea can light up the world. Complete with photographs, illustrations, and an epilogue that will bring readers up to date on William's story, this is the perfect edition to read and share with the whole family.
Christine had started to read: Station Eleven by Canadian Emily St. John Mandel. This is a book about a dystopian future where the earth has been ravaged by a deadly virus. It starts intriguingly in a theatre in Toronto with the death of a famous actor wile performing the role of King Lear. As the night wears on we are alerted to the appalling news of the swift spread of the virus. Fast forward to twenty years on and survivors are living in small settlements and the group of actors we were first introduced to are still a travelling band who have difficulty in finding safe places in which to perform since people in their communes are anxious to protect themselves from further infection and death.
Read the notes from previous sessions here.
