Our late summer meeting

For the first time for ages, every member of the Book Group was able to attend our lively and enjoyable meeting at Sally D's on Monday; it was lovely, if rather noisy, to have a full house. Once we had dealt with holidays, the Olympics, the reopening of Sally J's shop and other topics, we discussed our summer reading which, as ever, was extensive and varied. Mine has already been recorded on the blog: Holiday Reading and edited highlights of others' follow.

We can always rely on Maria to weigh in with a huge tome and she didn't disappoint. Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore is enormous (one of the largest books I can remember seeing - 768 pages!); Maria reported that progress was slow but that she would persist: we await updates. Lucy had already read and enjoyed it but confessed that it took her six months. Not to be outdone in the contest for reading the longest book of the summer, Lucy said she couldn't put down Claire Tomalin's biography Charles Dickens: A Life (a mere 576 pages).

In lighthearted contrast, Ann was addicted to The Hunger Games trilogy (see the blog in May: The Hunger Games) and Catherine had joined The Song of Achilles fan club whilst also enjoying Heartburn by Nora Ephron. 

Sally D had had a depressing time reading Norwegian Wood which she pronounced was better than A Wild Sheep Chase which we had read together last November (A Wild Sheep Chase) however, she thought that Murakami's work contains too many suicides. She wasn't cheered up much by The Art of Fielding. Caroline spoke, as a true fan, about David Mitchell's book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and urged us to try it even if we had hated Cloud Atlas.  Alison recommended All That I Am, Anna Funder's first novel (we all enjoyed Stasiland a few years ago).

Primed by an efficient email and Culture Show recommendation from Sally D, we will meet again on 23 October to discuss Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier. This inevitably led to eulogising about Parade's End, its beautiful period interiors, classy acting and wonderful parts for women (oh, and I confessed to an unseemly crush on Rebecca Hall).  It was a good evening no doubt in part due to the fact that Sally always provides us with excellent wine. I was tempted by the tote bag I saw this week with the slogan "My book group only reads wine labels".