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 the Booklovers Meeting held on 18th June 2021 via Zoom
Present on Zoom: Sue, Alan, Denise, Christine
For various reasons we were low on numbers this time so there are only three reviews.
Alan read: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) by Charles Dickens and entertained us all with an account of the seemingly cult nature which this unfinished novel (Alan’s favourite by this author) has become. Only six of the planned twelve chapters were written thus leaving the reader up in the air. There have been many later adaptations and continuations and the story has been filmed and dramatized and even turned into a musical. The book is a mystery and deals with the mysterious disappearance of choirmaster, Jon Jasper, Drood’s uncle and also a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to each other. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances. The story is set in Cloisterham, a lightly disguised Rochester. Alan feels that this novel shows Dickens’ skill at characterisation and is a superbly mature work, which, had it been finished might have been his masterpiece. It is also seen as abstruse with clues hidden in the text. According to Wikipedia although the killer is not revealed, it is generally believed that John Jasper, Edwin's uncle, is the murderer.
Alan also read Edwin Drood: An Unfinished Novel And Our Endless Attempts to End It (2018) by Pete Orford. This book guides you through the tangled web of theories and counter-theories surrounding this enduring literary enigma.
Christine read: I am I am I am - Seventeen Brushes with Death (2018) by Maggie O’Farrell. This book falls into the autobiography / memoir categories and is precisely what the title (a quote from Sylvia Plath) says. It consists of a series of essays detailing each occasion when the author came near to death including an encounter with a murderer on a walk in Scotland, haemorrhage during childbirth, miscarriage, childhood encephalitis, amoebic dysentery and an ill-advised leap off a harbour wall into the sea as a teen. It also dedicates one chapter to her daughter who has a severe immune disorder that has, as detailed here, repeatedly requires life-saving treatment. The idea for this book which arose from her daughter’s circumstances is O’Farrell’s way of letting her child know that, in facing down death on a regular basis, she is not alone. She is showing her that life is still possible. The different episodes certainly have different tones and in Christine’s opinion are beautifully written and ultimately life affirming. They reveal the life of a writer who demonstrates resilience and the ability to communicate without self-pity and gives encouragement to others not to ultimately be defined by such episodes in life. It certainly encouraged Christine to review certain events in her own life and feel grateful for survival.
Sue read: Hamnet (2020) by Maggie O’Farrell. This book won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Although it is ostensibly a story about William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, the central protagonist is in fact the boy’s mother known to us as Anne Hathaway but whose name was in fact Agnes and whom O’Farrell here attempts to retrieve from the obscurity of her life. She doesn’t ever mention Shakespeare by name using terms such as “lodger, brother, husband, father, player’ but chooses to focus on Agnes turning her into a rounded character with skills in herbal medicine and a role in her community as one who tends the sick. However this does not stop the plague from reaching her family: “It has come to them, Agnes thinks, from a long way off, from a place of rot and wet and confinement. It has cut a swingeing path for itself through humans and beasts and insects alike; it feeds on pain and unhappiness and grief. It is insatiable, unstoppable, the worst, blackest kind of evil.”
Sue liked the structure of the book and found it ‘very emotional, sensual and descriptive’ and very much about the emotions associated with loss, the central theme of grief being beautifully evoked. It also reveals much about our own concerns and morality.
For various reasons we were low on numbers this time so there are only three reviews.
Alan read: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) by Charles Dickens and entertained us all with an account of the seemingly cult nature which this unfinished novel (Alan’s favourite by this author) has become. Only six of the planned twelve chapters were written thus leaving the reader up in the air. There have been many later adaptations and continuations and the story has been filmed and dramatized and even turned into a musical. The book is a mystery and deals with the mysterious disappearance of choirmaster, Jon Jasper, Drood’s uncle and also a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to each other. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances. The story is set in Cloisterham, a lightly disguised Rochester. Alan feels that this novel shows Dickens’ skill at characterisation and is a superbly mature work, which, had it been finished might have been his masterpiece. It is also seen as abstruse with clues hidden in the text. According to Wikipedia although the killer is not revealed, it is generally believed that John Jasper, Edwin's uncle, is the murderer.
Alan also read Edwin Drood: An Unfinished Novel And Our Endless Attempts to End It (2018) by Pete Orford. This book guides you through the tangled web of theories and counter-theories surrounding this enduring literary enigma.
Christine read: I am I am I am - Seventeen Brushes with Death (2018) by Maggie O’Farrell. This book falls into the autobiography / memoir categories and is precisely what the title (a quote from Sylvia Plath) says. It consists of a series of essays detailing each occasion when the author came near to death including an encounter with a murderer on a walk in Scotland, haemorrhage during childbirth, miscarriage, childhood encephalitis, amoebic dysentery and an ill-advised leap off a harbour wall into the sea as a teen. It also dedicates one chapter to her daughter who has a severe immune disorder that has, as detailed here, repeatedly requires life-saving treatment. The idea for this book which arose from her daughter’s circumstances is O’Farrell’s way of letting her child know that, in facing down death on a regular basis, she is not alone. She is showing her that life is still possible. The different episodes certainly have different tones and in Christine’s opinion are beautifully written and ultimately life affirming. They reveal the life of a writer who demonstrates resilience and the ability to communicate without self-pity and gives encouragement to others not to ultimately be defined by such episodes in life. It certainly encouraged Christine to review certain events in her own life and feel grateful for survival.
Sue read: Hamnet (2020) by Maggie O’Farrell. This book won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Although it is ostensibly a story about William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, the central protagonist is in fact the boy’s mother known to us as Anne Hathaway but whose name was in fact Agnes and whom O’Farrell here attempts to retrieve from the obscurity of her life. She doesn’t ever mention Shakespeare by name using terms such as “lodger, brother, husband, father, player’ but chooses to focus on Agnes turning her into a rounded character with skills in herbal medicine and a role in her community as one who tends the sick. However this does not stop the plague from reaching her family: “It has come to them, Agnes thinks, from a long way off, from a place of rot and wet and confinement. It has cut a swingeing path for itself through humans and beasts and insects alike; it feeds on pain and unhappiness and grief. It is insatiable, unstoppable, the worst, blackest kind of evil.”
Sue liked the structure of the book and found it ‘very emotional, sensual and descriptive’ and very much about the emotions associated with loss, the central theme of grief being beautifully evoked. It also reveals much about our own concerns and morality.
Read the notes from previous sessions here.
