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 current events 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 current events please visit our events page.
Notes from the Booklovers Meeting held on March, 15th, 2018
Present: Simon, Sue, Christine
Sue read: Winter’s Break by Bernard McLaverty. (See previous notes when Christine reported on this book.) Sue described this book as ‘a little gem’ – amusing and accessible. She also read A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. This book incorporates the same characters as Life After Life which she recently brought to the group.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson relates the life of Teddy Todd – would be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have. The book flips backwards and forwards and this disrupting of chronology allows Atkinson to reveal her characters in glimpses over the course of the novel while withholding vital information that creates mysteries at the heart of the story. Sue felt that the key message from this book was that you cannot pass on your own life experiences to other people, including your children. She found it very amusing but was struck by the poignancy of everyone’s lives.
Simon read: Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: This novel tells the story of Prince Dimitri Nekhlyudov who finds himself on the jury of a murder trial. The young female defendant is his two aunts former companion whom he made pregnant. Prince Dimitri feels responsible for the young woman’s situation and tries to redress things. She is sentenced to be sent to a penal colony in Siberia and prior to this, driven by guilt, he visits her in prison where he asks her to marry him and promises to follow her. She refuses his offer saying "You had your pleasure from me in this world, and now you want to get your salvation through me in the world to come!" His journey to Siberia sees him staying in hotels while the prisoners are forced to build rudimentary camps. The book explores social issues such as the deep inequalities in Russian society and also gives clear descriptions of appalling prison conditions and the dreadful marches to penal colonies. "All this happened," Nekhlyudov says to himself, "because all these people... consider that there are circumstances in this world when man owes no humanity to man." He believes that the truth of the penal system is that it corrects evil by being evil. Simon couldn’t put this novel (Tolstoy’s final) down. It was criticized for its outspokenness at the time but is now recognized as a great novel.
Christine read: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. This book has been topping the charts for its poignant account of the loneliness of the central character. It is a first person narrative which gives intimate details of the Eleanor’s view of life – very jaundiced and critical but equally braves as she finds strategies for coping with her lonely existence. However, a developing relationship with a genuinely kind, geeky young man from her place of work gives the opportunity for the reader to understand how she has come to be the person she is. Although set in Glasgow, a sense of place is not key to the novel, and what you do get is a detailed account of pretty much any city and suburban environment in the British Isles. Christine said that she began to get fed up with the unreliable narrator that Eleanor is but despite this she found it a compulsive read.
Christine also read: Exit West by Mohsin Mohamid. She found this book gripping but in very different ways to the last one. It tells of the journey of a young couple, much in love, from a war-torn country – a thinly disguised Syria, to the Greek Island of Mykonos and from there to England and finally San Francisco. If Eleanor Oliphant gives the reader endless detail about daily life, Exit West is sparse in detail, choosing to concentrate more on the emotional experiences of migrants and the tensions inherent in moving from country to country. There is an element of magic realism in the narrative – you are rarely told exactly how their journey unfolds but the metaphor of a ‘door’ is used to indicate the passage from one country to another. It also has an element of fantasy about it, seemingly set in a future which may or may not be far away. Mohamid’s central thesis is that migration is common to all human life, whether it be the exodus of whole populations from one country to another, or the concept of migration from one phase of life to another. Christine was very impressed by this novel, finding it very moving and cleverly managing to achieve this without graphic detail. It forces you to revisit the notion of immigration in a new way.
Sue read: Winter’s Break by Bernard McLaverty. (See previous notes when Christine reported on this book.) Sue described this book as ‘a little gem’ – amusing and accessible. She also read A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. This book incorporates the same characters as Life After Life which she recently brought to the group.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson relates the life of Teddy Todd – would be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have. The book flips backwards and forwards and this disrupting of chronology allows Atkinson to reveal her characters in glimpses over the course of the novel while withholding vital information that creates mysteries at the heart of the story. Sue felt that the key message from this book was that you cannot pass on your own life experiences to other people, including your children. She found it very amusing but was struck by the poignancy of everyone’s lives.
Simon read: Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: This novel tells the story of Prince Dimitri Nekhlyudov who finds himself on the jury of a murder trial. The young female defendant is his two aunts former companion whom he made pregnant. Prince Dimitri feels responsible for the young woman’s situation and tries to redress things. She is sentenced to be sent to a penal colony in Siberia and prior to this, driven by guilt, he visits her in prison where he asks her to marry him and promises to follow her. She refuses his offer saying "You had your pleasure from me in this world, and now you want to get your salvation through me in the world to come!" His journey to Siberia sees him staying in hotels while the prisoners are forced to build rudimentary camps. The book explores social issues such as the deep inequalities in Russian society and also gives clear descriptions of appalling prison conditions and the dreadful marches to penal colonies. "All this happened," Nekhlyudov says to himself, "because all these people... consider that there are circumstances in this world when man owes no humanity to man." He believes that the truth of the penal system is that it corrects evil by being evil. Simon couldn’t put this novel (Tolstoy’s final) down. It was criticized for its outspokenness at the time but is now recognized as a great novel.
Christine read: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. This book has been topping the charts for its poignant account of the loneliness of the central character. It is a first person narrative which gives intimate details of the Eleanor’s view of life – very jaundiced and critical but equally braves as she finds strategies for coping with her lonely existence. However, a developing relationship with a genuinely kind, geeky young man from her place of work gives the opportunity for the reader to understand how she has come to be the person she is. Although set in Glasgow, a sense of place is not key to the novel, and what you do get is a detailed account of pretty much any city and suburban environment in the British Isles. Christine said that she began to get fed up with the unreliable narrator that Eleanor is but despite this she found it a compulsive read.
Christine also read: Exit West by Mohsin Mohamid. She found this book gripping but in very different ways to the last one. It tells of the journey of a young couple, much in love, from a war-torn country – a thinly disguised Syria, to the Greek Island of Mykonos and from there to England and finally San Francisco. If Eleanor Oliphant gives the reader endless detail about daily life, Exit West is sparse in detail, choosing to concentrate more on the emotional experiences of migrants and the tensions inherent in moving from country to country. There is an element of magic realism in the narrative – you are rarely told exactly how their journey unfolds but the metaphor of a ‘door’ is used to indicate the passage from one country to another. It also has an element of fantasy about it, seemingly set in a future which may or may not be far away. Mohamid’s central thesis is that migration is common to all human life, whether it be the exodus of whole populations from one country to another, or the concept of migration from one phase of life to another. Christine was very impressed by this novel, finding it very moving and cleverly managing to achieve this without graphic detail. It forces you to revisit the notion of immigration in a new way.
Read the notes from previous sessions here.
