As is usually the case, we had a big range of reactions to Alone in Berlin.  Jane found it just too powerfully affecting to be able to finish it, and although everyone else had reached the end, some had found it a quick easy read, while others had struggled with the language or the large cast of characters.

Most of us found it an absorbing and interesting story, and appreciated the unusual perspective in that it told of the lives of ordinary Germans trying to live under the Nazi regime.  The claustrophobic and paranoid atmosphere, and general sense of fore-boding was very well portrayed, and although it was hard to like many of the characters, we still found we were emotionally involved in the story.  In particular we recognised the loneliness and bravery of the Quangels (who were based on real people), and despite the ultimate futility of their actions, the story had led many of us to question what we would do, or hope we would do, in the same circumstances.

The discussion widened out – The Pianist, The Book Thief and The Reader were all put forward as further reading on the same subject, as was the film The Lives of Others.

We then looked at book choices for our March to June books – once I’ve given absent members a chance to vote too I’ll work out which books we’re doing and email the results round, and post them up here.  Our next book is Room by Emma Donoghue – see you all on 8th Feb!

Cathy x

Hopefully everyone has also had an email saying that we’ll postpone discussion of Alone in Berlin until January – it seemed from the feedback I was getting that most people were really enjoying the book, but for whatever reason wouldn’t get it finished for this Weds – hence the postponement.  Room by Emma Donoghue now becomes our February book, and in January we’ll also pick the books for the March – June meetings.

Looking forward to Wednesday night, and Happy Christmas to all of you!

Cathy x

I’m very glad to say that reactions to Mr Chartwell were generally much more positive than our last couple of books.  All but one of us had finished the book (often in one or two sittings), and although two members dis-liked it and two were ambivalent, the rest of us liked or loved the book.

Having said that though, there was a lot of difference in what we liked – for example, some really liked and sympathised with Esther, but  others found her frustrating and irritating.  Similarly, reactions to Mr Chartwell differed – some found him charming and intriguing, others malevolent. For some the descriptions of his physical presence were just too unpleasant and this coloured their feelings about the book.  (We did wonder how much this was influenced by whether or not we liked dogs in real life.)  I don’t think, however, there was anyone who had not accepted the concept of depression being characterised by dog, and indeed it was pointed out that the many references to Mr Chartwell’s presence (bits of his coat around the house, claw marks etc) were a reminder to continual presence of depression, even when not at its worst.

There were quite a number of us in the group who had direct or close in-direct experience of depression, and most, though not all felt this was an interesting and valid way to look at the subject without trivialising it.  We talked about the different types of depression, how some, like Churchill had suffered on and off all his life, whereas others, like Esther might suffer at certain times after specific events (although it was questioned whether she would succumb to depression so long after losing Michael, and so quickly, over the course of the five days of the book).  We also talked about the key scene where Churchill and Esther talk so tentatively around the subject of depression.

Most of us enjoyed the writing and found it an engaging and funny read with good descriptions and interesting details, although one or two members felt it was somewhat over-written, and were annoyed by inconsistencies in Mr Chartwell’s name.

We had previously agreed to combine our December meeting with a Christmas meal, and decided we would try the set menu at the Rex.  I’ve sent  a separate email round about arrangements – could anyone else who’d like to join us on the night let me know via the comments box here and I can include them in the booking.

thanks

Cathy

Our reactions to The Possessions of Doctor Kelly followed a similar pattern to last month – some really liked the book, a few dis-liked it, with everyone else somewhere in between.  We generally liked the structure of the book, with the story being told by lots of different voices, mainly through diary entries or letters (although we did question whether so many people these days wrote either).  We liked some of the descriptions, for example when Dr Forrest described the urge to “leave” someone, and also were intrigued by the fact that he was not redeemed at the end.

Several of us had found it hard at times to differentiate between Grey and Steve, although we did note that as the friends shared backgrounds and had been friends for so long maybe this was understandable.  For some the language was too verbose and many readers struggled because they had no empathy with any of the characters.

A few of us are able to go and see the author, Richard T Kelly, speak about the book as part of the Durham Book Festival, and we will report back next month on what effect that’s had on our opinions of the book…!

We also talked about other Gothic books - Dorian Gray, Dr Faustus, Jekyll & Hyde and of course Dracula, plus the much more recent Shadow of the Wind, before moving on to wider topics.

Our next book, for our meeting on 9th November, is Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt.  (This was originally proposed to link in with an event at the Free Thinking Festival at the Sage – that event is no longer happening, but we’re sticking with the book anyway.)  At the November meeting we’ll also decide where to go for our Christmas meal which we’ll combine with the December meeting.  Don’t worry if you can’t make the Nov meeting, I’ll email everyone who’s not there with the details.

See you in November

Cathy

Our book, The Guardian Angel’s Journal, provoked mixed reactions.  Many of us had been intrigued by the concept of guardian angels, especially the idea of coming back as our own guardian angel and then watching our life unfold.  Much of our discussion centred on the role of guardian angels and how much they were (or weren’t) actually able to alter the course of their Protected Beings’ lives.  Rachel raised the intriguing point that she thought Margot, first time around, had committed suicide, but that after Ruth’s actions and interventions, although she could not ultimately prevent Margot’s death, it was accidental the “second” time.

Most of us found it quite easy to read, and whilst some members really did enjoy the book as it was, some of us had trouble understanding the logic behind the role of the Guardian Angels (why, for example, did demons seem to have a greater ability to alter humans’ actions, and who had been Margot’s guardian angel first time round?).  Some members were very uncomfortable with the descriptions of the abuse that Margot suffered, and felt it to be almost gratuitous; others did not like the religious element, particularly towards the end of the book.

We moved on to talk about what else we’d been reading over the summer, and the following books were all recommended: Oryx & Crake, and The Handmaid’s Tale (both by Margaret Atwood), The Book of Human Skin (Michelle Lovric), We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lionel Shriver), How to be a Woman (Caitlin Moran), Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (Rhoda Janzen), Morning in Jenin (Susan Abulhawa), A Game of Thrones (George R R Martin) and Sacred Hearts (Sarah Dunant) – what a varied selection, it’s no wonder we rarely all like the same book!  We also talked about two films, The Human Centipede, and The Skin I Live In, but I’m not sure we’ll be rushing out to watch either…

Our next book is The Possessions of Dr Forrest by Richard Kelly, and I’ll email everyone in a week or so about the author event in Durham on 18th October – if anyone would like to go I’ll do a group booking so we can all sit together – we can talk about travel arrangements at our meeting on 12th October.

Happy reading!

Cathy

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.

We particularly liked the character of Toby (although we felt that many of the male characters were not so well drawn or sympathetic, except perhaps Zeb) and also felt it was very much a story about friendship, particularly between Toby and Ren, and the lengths to which people will go in the name of friendship.   We liked the story-telling and descriptions of the world as it had become (although it was noted that there’s less description and scientific detail in The Year of the Flood than its earlier companion piece, Oryx and Crake).  Many details were chilling, from the wider issues of commercialisation, the idea of governments being superseded not by corporations but security services and sex being seen as a commodity, to Toby’s ongoing fear of Blanco.  There was much admiration for the sheer scale of the imaginative details and moral issues raised within such a compelling story.

We discussed the Gardeners at some length.  They were not popular with everyone and we thought that they were not necessarily held up as paragons or an alternative ideal society, but nonetheless we felt they were benign, even honourable in their intentions, and found much to admire about them.  Adam One’s sermons and the following hymns were boring to some, whereas others enjoyed them.  We found humour in the sermons, and also noted how they reflected the Gardeners’ move from idealists to survivalists.  A minor quibble was reluctantly brought up – it seemed implausible that nearly all the people in the story were either Toby and Ren’s friends or their enemies.

We briefly looked at Oryx and Crake, which tells the same overall story but from different points of view (specifically male rather than female as in Flood) and ends in the same place in the story as Flood.  Several members who hadn’t already read Oryx and Crake were now planning to do so, and we all were all left hoping that having looked at this story twice, Atwood might just do a third book, moving the story onwards.  We also touched on the debate as to whether The Year of the Flood should be seen as “speculative fiction” as Atwood prefers, or “science fiction” – this proved quite as contentious here as in other forums!  A couple of other books were also mentioned for their similar post-apocalyptic setting – Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio.

Our appetite for science (/speculative) fiction had clearly been well and truly whetted, and although we had some really interesting titles put forward for our July book, we overwhelmingly voted for HG Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, but thanks to everyone who put forward their choices.  Our next book is The Help, set in Mississippi in 1962 it explores the black / white social divide, in a story told through the voices of three very different women – see you on 8th June!

Cathy

The sheer length of The Lacuna did defeat a few, although with readers giving up somewhere between 100 and 400 pages in, no-one can say they didn’t give it a good try.  Of those of us who did finish it, nearly all of us really loved it.  We agreed that Shepherd was a strangely passive and dispassionate observer, but the book was populated with some great characters, particularly the three women in his life, his mother Salome, Frida Kahlo and Violet Brown, all of whom we liked in their different ways.  It was a book of very different phases, and corresponding changes in pace.  Some readers were more interested in the periods he spent in Mexico, whereas others prefered those in America, particularly those towards the end when Shepherd was caught up in the pre-McCarthy trials.

Some commented on how many descriptions there were of baking, usually without translations of the Spanish so we didn’t even knew what he was making!  We also talked about the descriptions of the war effort, and the effects on both American individuals and on industry, much of which surprised many of us.

In my reading around the book beforehand I had come across some debate about the ending (which I won’t give away here), but when I raised it, it turned out that we all agreed that although the author had not spelt it out specifically, we thought there were enough comments for us all to have been quite clear about what happened, and we joined the author who is (apparently) rather mystified by reports that some readers found it an ambiguous ending.

Next month we will be looking at Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood – long, but not as long as The Lacuna!  We’ll also be choosing another classic, for our July meeting.  With everyone’s agreement I decided to slightly change the time-frame, and we’ll now choose a book published between 1900 and 1940 (rather than 1960), which still gives us DH Lawrence, HG Wells, Hemingway, Edith Wharton, F Scott FitzGerald and many more greats of literature.  It doesn’t have to be a book you’ve read, it could be one you’ve always wanted to read but never got round to (she said, having only just got round to reading To Kill a Mockingbird last summer and absolutely loved it!).

Hope you all find a sunny spot for your reading and choosing – see you on 11th May!

Cathy

And so on to the book, McCall Smith’s first in the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries.  Many members found Isabel a difficult character to like, rather smug and self-centred.  We also had some debate about her age (early forties) – some readers had thought she was much younger, and others much older.  In some ways she also seemed a person out of step with her times.  Her philosophical musings were intriguing to some and provided interesting food for thought, whereas others found them rather artificially introduced and a distraction from the story.

For some there were too many plot co-incidences, and too many things seemed simply unrealistic or inconsistent.  Overall, for many this book was rather too light and insubstantial – a description of its being like candyfloss, initially appealing but ultimately unsatisfying, seemed to sum up the view of many.  One or two members thoroughly disliked it, but it did have some fans who liked its strong sense of place, thought it had some interesting insights and descriptions, and found it a gentle and comfy read.

We moved on to wider literary talk, and Margaret told us about the storytelling session she had been to at the Star and Shadow Cinema.  They are held on the first Friday of each month – more details here www.starandshadow.org.uk and I think several of us intend to try to attend over the next few months, perhaps even as a group in May.

We also talked about audio books (our next book, The Lacuna, is available to download from North Tyneside libraries, and audible. com is another good (and more extensive) source), and whether anyone had been involved in World Book Night – a few had been in different ways.

The idea of philosophy in novels reminded two members of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery – it sounds very interesting and will probably turn up on the selection list for our Autumn books.  And Joy told us about Eleanor’s Secret, an animated French fantasy film for children that sounded wonderful for adults too.

But now we’re off to mid-twentieth century Mexico and America, for The Lacuna – see everyone next month, on 13th April.

Cathy

After a rather unusual set of reactions to our January book, The Slap, we were back on more familiar ground with Janette Jenkins’  Angel of Brooklyn, the tale of Beatrice Crane who comes to a small Lancashire village just before the outbreak of World War 1.

Although two members were rather ambivalent about it, the rest of us found a lot to enjoy in this book.  We really liked and sympathised with the main character, Beatrice, particularly her strength and lack of self-pity in the face of the many challenges of her life, from her distant father and his extraordinary hobby to the increasingly hostile reaction of the village women.  We also liked the structure of the book, both the non-linear timeline, and the way some chapters were told through often very poignant letters, or through lists.  The chapters set in Coney Island were very popular, as were those describing village life, especially once the men had gone off to war and Beatrice had lost the protection of her husband Jonathan.

Some members questioned whether sometimes the story, especially in the village, felt a little modern, almost suggesting a World War 2 rather than WW1 setting.  Interestingly, two members hadn’t taken in that Beatrice’s fate is spelt out in the opening line, but nonetheless the rest of us didn’t feel that it spoilt the narrative tension (in fact some members read the last few pages hoping against hope for a different outcome) although for a few members the end was rather anticlimactic.

Our next book is Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club and we’re looking forward to hearing back from those members who are lucky enough to be able to go and see him at the Tyneside Cinema on 1 March, at our next meeting on 9th March.

See you then!

Cathy