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 on 28th June, 2018
Present: Simon, Denise, Sue, Christine
Denise read: Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm
This a book about the rewinding of a country estate, Knepp Castle near West Grinstead in West Sussex. It tells the story of Knepp, the pioneering rewilding project started by her husband, environmentalist Charlie Burrell. They decided to let nature take its course across the 3000 acres of land, ceasing the conventional farming that had been done before and allowing cattle to roam freely and creating new habitats for wildlife.
Denise enjoyed the book for its fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. The story is part of a large movement called Rewilding Britain (https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/about/) whose aims are:
Knepp Castle runs safaris and provides camping.
Denise also read: When Red is Black – No 3 in the Inspector Chen novels. This is a crime novel with an unexpected twist set in the 1990s on Shanghai. Then a murder is reported: Chen is loath to shorten his working holiday, so Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, a middle-aged teacher, has been found dead in her tiny room in a converted multi-family house. The victim was an ex-Red Guard. Only a neighbour could have committed the crime, but there is no motive. It is only when poetry-loving Inspector Chen returns and starts to investigate the past that he finds answers. The book is a critique of the Revolution. Everybody appears to have buried the burden of the past. Denise was taken with the descriptions of Shanghainese food and liked the twist at the end of the story.
Simon read Kotoro by Natsume Soseki, a Japanese author (1867 – 1960). This novel was published in serial form in 1914 and deals with the transition of Japanese society from the Meiji era (1868 – 1912) to contemporary Japan. The first part of the story introduces to a young man who meets an older man on a beach. They get chatting and become acquainted. The young man calls the older man Sensei that means ‘teacher’. The older man maintains a certain distance however and will not divulge what happened to his friend whose graves he visits each month.
In the second part of the story, the Meiji emperor dies and the young man’s father becomes ill and Sensei asks him to visit him but the author can’t go. He receives a letter from Sensei and the remainder of the book, written in Sensei’s voice is an account of his life, his deception of a friend, his withdrawal from society and ultimately his suicide.
Important themes in the novel include the changing times (particularly the modernization of Japan in the Meiji era), the changing roles and ideals of women, and intergenerational change in values, the role of family, the importance of the self versus the group, the cost of weakness, and identity.
It was interesting to hear about two novels both about the Orient and changes in society in the last century.
Sue read: The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. The author and the way in which she writes to understand her life fascinate Sue.
This 1957 novel tells of the Aubrey family and the father’s genius for instability which blights the lives of his wife and children His new job in the London suburbs promises, for a time at least, reprieve from scandal and the threat of ruin. His wife, a former concert pianist, struggles to keep the family afloat, but then she is something of a high-strung eccentric herself, as is all too clear to her daughter Rose, through whose loving but sometimes cruel eyes events are seen. Still, living on the edge holds the promise of the unexpected, and the Aubreys, get involved with a murderess and with the occult. Sue felt it didn’t end very satisfactorily.
According to the New York Review of Books this is ‘an unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.’
Christine read: A Legacy of Spies by John Le Care. This Le Care’s most recent novel has been described as ‘valedictory’. It certainly marks the passing of the old ‘cold war’ intelligence wars, bringing back characters from the author’s earlier work ‘ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ and specifically Peter Guillermo. It also takes us back in time via documents to the background to that story and brings us into the twenty-first century of spying, technology and all. You get a sense that the author is not a fan of the way things have gone. The novel has been widely praised but Christine felt dissatisfied by much of it, finding the reliance on pages of documents (which to some extent are material to the story) somewhat stultifying and slow to plough through. She found the character of Guillermo interesting since it is much expanded upon, and also enjoyed the characterisation of the new MI6 characters, the new breed who seem to be self-serving and lacking moral fibre. Much of it is familiar territory and maybe the current Novichok attack in Salisbury requires detective work that is more akin to spying.
Denise read: Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm
This a book about the rewinding of a country estate, Knepp Castle near West Grinstead in West Sussex. It tells the story of Knepp, the pioneering rewilding project started by her husband, environmentalist Charlie Burrell. They decided to let nature take its course across the 3000 acres of land, ceasing the conventional farming that had been done before and allowing cattle to roam freely and creating new habitats for wildlife.
Denise enjoyed the book for its fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. The story is part of a large movement called Rewilding Britain (https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/about/) whose aims are:
- Reverse the loss of biodiversity in large core areas of land and sea
- Restore ecosystems to a functional and resilient state
- Reignite people’s passion for the natural world
- Revitalise local economies in ways that work ecologically
- Reintegrate nature and society for the benefit of both
- Reintroduce key missing species where it makes sense
Knepp Castle runs safaris and provides camping.
Denise also read: When Red is Black – No 3 in the Inspector Chen novels. This is a crime novel with an unexpected twist set in the 1990s on Shanghai. Then a murder is reported: Chen is loath to shorten his working holiday, so Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, a middle-aged teacher, has been found dead in her tiny room in a converted multi-family house. The victim was an ex-Red Guard. Only a neighbour could have committed the crime, but there is no motive. It is only when poetry-loving Inspector Chen returns and starts to investigate the past that he finds answers. The book is a critique of the Revolution. Everybody appears to have buried the burden of the past. Denise was taken with the descriptions of Shanghainese food and liked the twist at the end of the story.
Simon read Kotoro by Natsume Soseki, a Japanese author (1867 – 1960). This novel was published in serial form in 1914 and deals with the transition of Japanese society from the Meiji era (1868 – 1912) to contemporary Japan. The first part of the story introduces to a young man who meets an older man on a beach. They get chatting and become acquainted. The young man calls the older man Sensei that means ‘teacher’. The older man maintains a certain distance however and will not divulge what happened to his friend whose graves he visits each month.
In the second part of the story, the Meiji emperor dies and the young man’s father becomes ill and Sensei asks him to visit him but the author can’t go. He receives a letter from Sensei and the remainder of the book, written in Sensei’s voice is an account of his life, his deception of a friend, his withdrawal from society and ultimately his suicide.
Important themes in the novel include the changing times (particularly the modernization of Japan in the Meiji era), the changing roles and ideals of women, and intergenerational change in values, the role of family, the importance of the self versus the group, the cost of weakness, and identity.
It was interesting to hear about two novels both about the Orient and changes in society in the last century.
Sue read: The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. The author and the way in which she writes to understand her life fascinate Sue.
This 1957 novel tells of the Aubrey family and the father’s genius for instability which blights the lives of his wife and children His new job in the London suburbs promises, for a time at least, reprieve from scandal and the threat of ruin. His wife, a former concert pianist, struggles to keep the family afloat, but then she is something of a high-strung eccentric herself, as is all too clear to her daughter Rose, through whose loving but sometimes cruel eyes events are seen. Still, living on the edge holds the promise of the unexpected, and the Aubreys, get involved with a murderess and with the occult. Sue felt it didn’t end very satisfactorily.
According to the New York Review of Books this is ‘an unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.’
Christine read: A Legacy of Spies by John Le Care. This Le Care’s most recent novel has been described as ‘valedictory’. It certainly marks the passing of the old ‘cold war’ intelligence wars, bringing back characters from the author’s earlier work ‘ Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ and specifically Peter Guillermo. It also takes us back in time via documents to the background to that story and brings us into the twenty-first century of spying, technology and all. You get a sense that the author is not a fan of the way things have gone. The novel has been widely praised but Christine felt dissatisfied by much of it, finding the reliance on pages of documents (which to some extent are material to the story) somewhat stultifying and slow to plough through. She found the character of Guillermo interesting since it is much expanded upon, and also enjoyed the characterisation of the new MI6 characters, the new breed who seem to be self-serving and lacking moral fibre. Much of it is familiar territory and maybe the current Novichok attack in Salisbury requires detective work that is more akin to spying.
Read the notes from previous sessions here.
