January meeting; March book; vote on 2010 books; change of date for April.

We met at Jane's gracious and roomy new home in Woolstonecraft. If this is downsizing, it looks very comfortable! Thanks Jane for your hospitality and many tours.

Vote on best and worst of 2010:

Best was February book Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantell (5 votes for best) ; Worst was May book The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pahmuc (5 votes for worst). 2010 was pronounced a strong year. Other books with more than one vote for best book were Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey and Let the great world spin by Colm McCann.

January Book: The Finkler Question

The book under discussion was The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and we didn't get to say a word about it for at least 20 minutes. Lots to catch up with after the break.

Ros liked the book for its cerebral arguments and its humour - but most others were not as positive.

There were things to like, but the characters were not engaging and not clearly drawn - specially the female characters. Julian Treslove, the central character, suffered a lack of identity and character - and this was the point of the book - but in the end he was just a self-indulgent racist bore.

I for one wouldn't have perservered if it wasn't a book group book - it was quite dense, and without a plot as such, couldn't be skimmed. But it won the Booker Prize. It put us in the central dilemma dealt with in the book - what were we non-Jews doing batting about our opinions on these Jewish questions anyway. Should we? Did we want to?

It certainly threw up does ideas but all the same, Sue had trouble filling a page with her review as we spoke. Perhaps she was searching for meaty points in our discussion and not finding them!

In the end the topic of circumcision got us to the end of the page.

March book.

Here it is: The Vintage and the Gleaning by first time writer Jeremy Chambers. Margaret Lackenby recommends it.

Next meeting will be at Sue W's house on 27 February.

The following one is at Stella's place on 27 March.

The April one would be on Easter Sunday so we have taken the unusual step of putting the date forward one week to 1 May - so Mayday at my place in Cheltenham.