Our next read - a classic and a translation

Rather shockingly, in my eagerness to blog about our January meeting, I omitted to report on our next choice of book.  We had decided that it was time to do another a classic and Maria had dug out an interesting collection of possibles.   However, there was no doubting our enthusiasm for what ended up as an easy and unanimous choice: Madame Bovary.  I think I'm right in reporting that only Alison had read it before (and presumably then in French when she was at university) so it will be interesting to see what we make of it.  It has the sneaky advantage of slipping into two of our book categories - a classic but also a translation.  It also must be one of the cheapest paperbacks on the market - the copy I have ordered from Amazon costs £2 and if you have a Kindle - which I don't .... yet.... it is a free download.

My version has a very boring cover (well, what do you expect for £2) so here are a couple of images of much more evocative editions.

We are meeting next on 3 March at Sally D's (and with a 7.30pm start in deference to those who are off travelling the next day).

A cracking January meeting

What fun we had at Maria's last night; Caroline, we missed you: it was a promisingly lively start to our new reading year.  Maria spoke persuasively about The King's Collection (I may have got the title wrong) which is about Charles I collection of art (costing £15,000 - a fortune at a time when he paid his art agents £15 a year) and how it was dispersed, somewhat ineptly, under the Commonwealth.

Catherine spoke about Keeping the World away by Margaret Foster which lead to an interesting discussion about her work.

We recalled reading Over (in December 2007) which we all felt was not her best book although some felt that it had a lingering effect despite this. We agreed, though, that it was certainly not a patch on The Diary of An Ordinary Woman which we had read previously as a group and had hugely enjoyed. I see that Margaret Foster's latest novel is to be released in March: Isa and May which, if the Amazon blurb is to be believed, would be a good book group book (a woman exploring her past through her two very different grandmothers, Isa and May).

Ann has started the new year with great gusto and has suggested an Annual General Meeting during the course of which we can work out not just what we read, but why.  Ann illustrated this by recalling that we read Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (in December 2009) because Phillip Larkin had described her as the Jane Austen of our time - although we disagreed with him.

I have undertaken to start pulling together a chronological list of our reading from my notes to which others can then contribute. We think that Sally D, who has notes of most books over the last few years, and Caroline will be good sources for this.  In the meantime, our group archivist (Maria, of course) dug out (with alarming ease) a notebook that looked like it dated from her school days in which she had notes of the book group's early reading back in 1999.  The founder members reminisced about the Africa theme which seemed, to those of us who weren't there, to have lasted a couple of years.  They will obviously have to compare notes and add to the master list.  Ann then has a plan ............

Should we read a play?

Last week I went to see Hamlet at the National Theatre - a powerful modern dress production with Rory Kinnear in tremendous form as a sensitive, intelligent Hamlet whose loneliness and desperation, caught in the surveillance society at Elsinore, are sometimes hard to observe.  I think it is the third time I have seen Hamlet and on each occasion, I leave wishing that I had studied it at school or even read it in advance.  And of course, I didn't have the self-discipline this time to get around to reading it, which is frustrating as it is littered with familiar phrases and idioms which are part of our everyday language.  I'm also sure that some study of the famous soliloquies would allow me better to appreciate and understand Hamlet's turmoil.

The trouble with Hamlet is that it is very long (I believe it is 4 hours uncut and so by some distance, Shakespeare's longest play).  That doesn't lend itself to a quick read on the tube on the way into the theatre.  As a group we rarely read plays; and I always find them harder than I expect when I do. I think this maybe because a different approach to reading is required, perhaps you have to read more sensitively and with greater attention to the language than you can sometimes get away with when reading a novel.  I read The Glass Menagerie in November (only after seeing the production at the Young Vic) and found it much harder work than I thought it would be - and this despite the huge detail and narrative as to stage directions provided by Tennessee Williams.  But it was a valuable exercise as it enabled me to reflect on what I felt about some of the characters in the play, one of whom I had seriously misjudged, and also to mull over some of the themes in the play with rather more consideration than I had done at the theatre.

Our group has read a play in the past but, I think, just the one; before my records began, we read Translations by Brian Friel.  I can't recall why (possibly because of its Irishness), but I do remember that it was an enjoyable exercise. Perhaps we should try again.

Recommendations from the Costa

There are two reasons why I was delighted to see that the Costa Novel Award has gone to Maggie O'Farrell for The Hand That First Held Mine.  First, because I bought the book a couple of months ago and it has since been languishing on the pile by the bed; I had thought that O'Farrell was a bit of a guilty pleasure, but presumably not if the Costa judges rate her. Secondly, because I recall the delight we shared when we read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (which my little lilac leather book book tells me was in January 2007) and our interesting conversation about the appropriateness (or not) of the ending.

Incidentally, there is a Q&A with O'Farrell on Amazon at the moment which is worth looking at.  She says that whilst researching The Hand etc she read Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Jean Rhys, Margaret Drabble and Margaret Forster in order to immerse herself in the culture and language of the 1950s and 60s. Ian would find this list interesting - where are the men?

I would also like to read The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal which won the Costa biography award.  Everyone who has read it raves about it ....... although I need to get my head around the idea of a biography based on 264 inherited Japanese carvings.

The Costa book of the year award, chosen from the finalists of each category, is to be announced on 25th January.  For completeness, there is a first novel by Kishwar Desai (who, according to the Standard, is the wife of the Labour peer, Lord Desai; she is 54 so there is hope for us all!), a book of poems and a rather fascinating sounding children's book (sounds like one for young teens) inspired by the author living through the aftermath of the war of independence in Zimbabwe.

Can anyone remember if our group has read any first novels? How about Brick Lane by Monica Ali? Any since then?

What did we read in 2010?

All reputable publications run a review of the past year; and, reputable or not, this blog is no exception.  I referred to my little lilac leather book book (thank you, Caroline) to see what we had read only to find that my note taking was deficient in 2010.  So I will need some help to fill in the blanks where both memory and notebook fail me.

Most recently, and perhaps most enjoyably, we read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  A brilliant recommendation (Alison's I think). I was sorry to miss the discussion on this one as I am sure that Catherine's medical insights would have been illuminating.  These sweeping family histories in unfamiliar locations can make for a fascinating, sometimes gruelling but often uplifting read (think Half a Yellow Sun, The Glass Palace and A Thousand Setting Suns).  I have emerged, fully sated, from Cutting for Stone with an enhanced knowledge of and interest in Ethiopia and its post-colonial history, women's health issues, immigrant life in the USA and, curiously, surgery.  Whilst the pace of the book was sometimes a little awry (it took about 4 chapters for the twins to be born - necessary perhaps for the plot but a too protracted for my taste), I thought that the surgical descriptions were extraordinary; what a feat to make the details of abdominal surgery not gory but beautiful.

In September 2010, many of us enjoyed Jean Rhys' prequel to Jane Eyre, Wild Sargasso Sea. Its evocative and steamy atmosphere enveloped me page after page; it is a well constructed and moving novel reflective of Jean Rhys' own interesting history.

Whilst, as a group, we have dabbled in short stories, we concluded in February 2010 that Kazu Ishuguro didn't quite hit the mark with Noctures, which we gave a fairly lukewarm review in general.  I would like to try again though..... it's an interesting and challenging genre.






We must have read some less memorable books in 2010 as I have no recollection of them. What was the book about John Clare (other than dull)? And the one about the fashion obsessed girl from Thornton Heath set in the early 1960s which I have since given to Oxfam? And which classic did we read?  Sally D and her list need to come to my rescue.

New Year's Resolution

Happy new year to you all.  The early days of 2011 are, of course, full of resolutions; mine include learning to play the guitar which Derek gave me for Xmas last year (and which, sitting in the corner of my kitchen, is a daily reminder of my inertia) and writing a blog.  So the time has come to move the Kew Green Book Group into the blogosphere.  This is somewhat of an experiment as I am a blogging virgin and so will be learning on the job how best to record the highs and lows of our reading this year.  Please do contribute to it and let me know whether you think it is a worthwhile experiment.  It might even provoke and promote discussion.

To start us off, among my Xmas books from my family are:

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen which I have started and am thoroughly enjoying.  It is, on occasions, laugh out loud funny and is consistently touching, witty, amusing and linguistically clever.  Ann: if you've not read it (and can face it as it's about widowhood) it will be especially poignant for you and I would love to hear your views.

The Oxford Companion to Theatre & Performance.  One of those rather lovely reference books to which you have to get into the habit of referring otherwise you forget that you've got them.  So, fresh from the Orange Tree's production of Once Bitten last night (which I highly recommend) I have read up this morning on farce (for it was one) and Brian Rix (for he was in the audience..... with his trousers on for once).

Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox.  The index has no entries for either book group or blogging ........ but promisingly under B there is bonding, group; bonding, female; and bonding, social so maybe that is where I should start.

Finally, for now, can someone please let me know when and where our next meeting is?  And is there a book that I need to squeeze in over the next few weeks?