Sunday, June 28, 2015

June meeting - August book - All the light

Thanks Maggie for hosting us so beautifully, when just back from a busy visit to family in Perth.

Sue W, Margaret L, Stella O, Ros M and I were able to attend. A few of us had travel and family commitments and weren't able to come.

We took more than half an hour to get to the book - and then agreed that everyone had liked it - or 'almost' liked it (in Ros's case!).  We talked about how it set up to debate the conflict of life/family and art, but then didn't really get to that discussion. However, it did show that the artists pretty spectacularly neglected the children, even taking into account the difference in times and customs.

However it was one of those books that was enjoyable to read, but didn't stimulate much of discussion. It's won the Stella prize - and we talked a bit about prizes, and specifically, a women's prize and do we really need this? We thought the more the merrier in the way of prizes, in the end.

We got to the next book (for August) and decided on  All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr. It has recently won the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker, one of the first of the American entries, since the eligibility rules changed.  The August meeting will be held at Stella's place.

Remember the July meeting is at my place and we are reading H is for Hawk for that one, and I want a big roll up please