Many thanks to Jane who stepped in to lead the June meeting at very short notice after I was taken ill – I’ve heard from a number of people about the brilliant job she did! It sounds like The Help was another popular book - the structure, the characters and the story itself all being praised. It was noted that there was very little about the KKK and their activities in the book, but otherwise I think it was all quite positive.
Unfortunately advance reports of The Shape of Things to Come were not so positive, and so I thought it best to add in the option of reading The Great Gatsby instead to our Summer Classic for the next meeting. At the July meeting (where Angela and Katrina joined us for the first time – welcome!) it transpired that nearly all of us had given up on HG Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come – in some disappointment it has to be said, the premise of the book, written in the 30′s but offering a view of the future going beyond our own present, was wonderful but the tone and pace of the book defeated us. Rebecca however, was heroically persevering, despite finding the author’s tone rather arrogant and has promised to let us know how far she gets!
More of us had managed to read The Great Gatsby, often cited as one of the Great American Novels, but which met with very mixed reactions in our group. Some really enjoyed the story, being quickly intrigued particularly by the character of Jay Gatsby, and the beauty of the writing. Others found it harder to get into, not helped by the Nick’s rather dry and passive narration. We also talked about the various metaphors within the book - for some they had enhanced the read, others found them largely secondary to the actual story.
We then went on to look at options for our Autumn books and decided:
Sept 14th – The Guardian Angel’s Journal by Carolyn Jess-Cooke. At the September meeting we’ll see how many of us are interested / able to go and see Carolyn on the following Weds evening (21st) in South Shields library at 7.30pm (and perhaps also see if we can set up a car-pool to get us all there and back?). Since the July meeting another chance to see the author has come up, via the Read Regional Summer Reads campaign, on 15th Sept at the Savile Exchange, North Shields at 7pm – more details on the main NWN or Read Regional webites.
