June 2011
Never Let Me Go
In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.
May 2011
The Junior Officers' Reading Club
For the first time in a generation British soldiers are once again fighting at close quarters, coming under sustained and vicious firepower, losing friends in some of the most violent fighting the modern army has endured. Yet the same soldiers also serve on international peacekeeping missions, or counter insurgency. Sometimes they do all three in the same country. The Junior Officers' Reading Club is the story of how one of these soldiers was made, through the testosterone-heavy breeding ground of Sandhurst, into the war-pockmarked, gritty Balkans, out into the nightmare of Iraq and AfghanistanÂ’s Helmand Province, pinned down by the Taliban, living only from moment to moment. Written in spare and lucid prose, it describes with alarming vividness not only the frenetic violence of a soldierÂ’s life, but the periods of stifling and (sometimes) comic boredom, living inside an institution in a state of flux, an Army caught between a world that needs it and a society that no longer understands it.
April 2011
Room - Emma DonoghueJack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key.
Jack and Ma are prisoners.
March 2011
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simmondson
February 2011
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland
The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is – in fact – travelling with them. The ill-assorted company – a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjurer, two musicians, a healer and a deformed storyteller – are all concealing secrets and lies. And at their heart is the strange, cold child – Narigorm – who reads the runes. But as law and order breaks down across the country and the battle for survival becomes ever more fierce, Narigorm mercilessly compels each of her fellow travellers to reveal the truth … and each in turn is driven to a cruel and unnatural death.
January 2011
In January we always read and discuss two books because we don't meet in December due to everyone's busy family/Christmas committments. This month we read A Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell and Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
A Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Amid the harsh landscape of the Ozark Hills, sixteen-year-old Ree is taking care of her mother and two brothers. Her father has put their house up as bail and if he doesn't show up at court it'll be sold from under them. To save her family she needs to track him down but in a community riven with long-running feuds getting answers isn't easy.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand - Helen Simonson
ReplyDeleteMPLT is Helen Simonson’s first novel and what a lovely first book it is too. The book is crammed with what perhaps some people might see as stereotypical characters. We have a quaint country village, a retired Major in tweeds, the village shop keeper, and a local land owner. One may be forgiven that the village, Edgecombe St Mary is straight out of Midsomer Murders. But Midsomer this is not, for we have a Muslim shopkeeper in the shape of Mrs Ali, Major P’s love interest and both of these characters embody both decorum and respectability. We never get to know if Mrs Ali is an Indian or a Pakistani. Major P does not care, or give a damn. Mrs Ali has never been further than the Isle of Wight. It is the village and their respective families who cannot deal with their relationship. For me, it was the delicate admiration for each other that kept me captivated and held my attention throughout this book. Together with it’s light-hearted moments and there are plenty. The book is about families, village life, race, but most of all, it is about love. I cannot wait for Helen Simonson’s next book. - MikeG
Thanks for this great review Mike. I enjoyed the book too, but not as much as you perhaps...I found that some aspects of the book were a poor attempt at comedy (the stabbing with the knitting needles for example) but I liked the idea that Major P and Mrs Ali pursued a relationship regardless of what their families and the village thought about it. Certainly worth a read and I will be interested to see what she writes next.
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