Happy 70th Birthday to Moy

Ros has turned the Book Group's halting rhymes into a great little poem, entitled:

IRREPRESSIBLE

Moy, you are arty,
Life of the party.
We’re dressing up tarty
For your food that is hearty.

You’re a bloody great cook;
We should write a book.
May you never get crook
In your Long Jetty nook.

How long have you been
On our lit’rary scene?
At our book group so keen
And so frequently seen.

Together we’ve shared,
Our souls we have bared,
Books, we’ve declared,
For each other we’ve cared.

Together we pen,
So, women and men,
On her three score and ten
Le’s drink to our fren’.

The Book Group
September 6 2008

November book
Margaret has recommended The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Scheiffer. This proposal will be confirmed at the next meeting, but looks like its worth reading anyway. Available at independent bookstores if not at the big chains. Reviewed in last Saturday's SMH.

October book
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie was recently selected as the Booker of Bookers, so the group thinks it is worth discussing. Venue will be Sue E's place.

September book
A Household Guide to Dying by Deborah Adelaide is the next book, and the meeting will be held at Stella's place.

August Book
We talked about Secrets of the Sea by Nicholas Shakespeare. Set in Tasmania, the novel received a lukewarm reception from the group. Interesting discussion though.

July Book
This was Hoi Polloi a memoir by Craig Sherbourne.

I wondered if the MS fundraiser had received our application, as I haven't received the trivia questions yet. When I signed on, I called us the Sunday Arvo Book Club, as we had to have a name..

This article was in Spectrum in the SMH on Saturday May 17, Page 26, and look, we got a mention! Click on the article to make it bigger.

Throw the Book at MS

I had a letter from the Good Reading mazazine, encouraging book groups to run their June meeting into a fund raiser for MS. They have a book trivia quiz running with book-related questions, so you can take part in that, or just do whatever you want to support MS research. For deatils have a look at www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au.

There is a also a public Trivia Night at the Paddington Town Hall on Wed 4th June if people are interested. I have signed up to get the trivia quiz and maybe we can do something extra. What do you reckon?

Regards

Patricia

June Book:
The Good Parents by Joan London
Have a look at the review by Michael McGirr in Spectrum on 3 May, which starts' 'Joan London writes wonderfully about intimacy between strangers.'
http://www.smh.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-good-parents/2008/05/02/1209235136463.html

By the way, the May bookgroup is at Sue Ellyard's place and apparently I missed a top turnout and discussion at Margaret's last time for Salmon Fishing.
cheers till next time,
Patricia

Books to come:
May book is What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt.
Watch Siri Hustvedt speaking at the Adelaide Festival recently, with an intro by JM Coetsee.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/video (thanks to Ros for the tip).

Reminder: April Book is Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday at Margaret L's place.

More Blue Bay days. This photo is for Ros. What a great blue sky! Weren't we lucky!

We discussed the book over breakfast. Only Moy actually had a copy of the book on hand. Moy put us on our mettle with some strong criticisms, that drove the rest of the party to defend the book. Interesting discussion - The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas turned out to be a good book group book after all.

February sleepover bookgroup - Lobsters at Moys
More pics tomorrow, but just a reminder that next bookgroup is at my place, reading Patrick Gale's Notes from and Exhibition.

The following bookgroup on the April long weekend we will be reading Paul Torday's book, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Cheers
Patricia

January 2008 meeting - The Gathering
We met at Sue's house - great roll-up with 9 people in attendance. Anne Enright's "The Gathering" was an excellent book group book, stimulating lots of discussion and many perspectives. The sort of book that gains much from reflection and examination. Not an easy book - emotionally engaging.

The February meeting will be at Blue Bay/ Long Jetty at Moy's, with accommodation at Moy's and Stella's. Meet on Friday afternoon at Moy's, dinner there on Saturday night will involve lobster at $25 per head, brunch on Sunday morning from 8.30 for book discussion. Next book is 'The Boy in Striped Pyjamas' (by John Shand I think).

The March meeting will be at my place at Cheltenham and the book will be "Notes from an Exhibition' by Patrick Gale.

Ros had put together a new contact list of bookgroupers. Ask her for a copy if you haven't got one yet.
Regards
Patricia

September & October meetings

Picture is of our January book: The Gathering by Anne Enright.

In the meantime, sorry to have got at bit behind. We met last month at Sue's new place to talk about Infidel, which stimulated quite a bit of discussion.


The month, we met here at Cheltenham to talk about Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. What a wonderful book, wryly observed. We were four members - Stella and Ros, Sue and I, and we were pretty much in agreement about the book. So the discussion was not as lengthy as it might have been. We had a great review by Andrew Reimer, but he thought it was wonderful too, so we noted his observations with interest but it was just more agreement!





We had a question about the cover of the book - where did that photographic image come from.


Well, its from a collection of photos called the Rogerviollet collection - have a look at:


http://www.topfoto.co.uk/aboutus/pdfguides/rogerviollet.pdf It's worth a look at the series if you have the time. Great pic of people leaving Paris in 1940.





Next meeting is at Jane Roberts place - the Christmas meeting, so be ready fto begin deciding the best and worst for the year. The book will be Shakespeare's Women by Germaine Greer.





Then in January, we will do the Booker Prize winner: The Gathering by Irish woman Anne Enright. The Booker site says it is 'exhiliratingly bleak'. We should love it.

October book:
Thanks Margaret for your hospitality - it was great though we had little to say about the book, Carpentaria. Marg was the most advanced, having read 4 chapters. The rest of us failed to engage even earlier.
Better luck next time with Infidel, when I am sure we will have something to say. Then in October, here is the book:

Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky Chatto & Windus $23.95
The first English publication of Suite Francaise - sixty five years after it was written. Already a bestseller in France, it has captured reader's imaginations, not only for the tragic story of its author, and the circumstances of its rediscovery, but for its brilliantly subtle and compelling portrait of France under occupation.
Description of the Book SUITE FRANCAISE has all the ingredients of a major bestseller: the story behind its rediscovery is extraordinary; the life of the author is fascinating and moving; but, most importantly, it is a hugely compelling work of literature, elegantly, subtly and simply written, with astounding insight into the moral complexities of the human condition. It comprises two parts of what might have been a four or five-part work had Irene not been taken to Auschwitz. She conceived of it as a symphony - or her WAR AND PEACE. In the first part, Storm in June, she tells of the exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Bourgeois and working-class characters alike pack up their belongings and flee, forced to rub shoulders in traffic-jams on the crowded roads south, some behaving with dignity, others with nauseating selfishness. In Part Two, Dolce, we meet several of them again in a small French village where Nazi soldiers are billetted, and watch Lucille's story unfold as she tries to resist the attractions of a sensitive German officer, and takes the risk of defending a young farmer who joins the resistance. The intertwining stories of all these utterly engaging and vivid characters combine to produce a unique portrait of France at that time, and of the subtle calibrations that exist between collaboration and resistance.

Review"Every page shines with a ravishing delight in the surfaces of life, and a profound empathy for the souls of its characters" - Canberra Times 18/03/06

"Even in its incomplete form Suite Francaise is one of those rare books that demands to be read" - Sun Herald 26/03/06

"Suite Francaise will become a classic" - Courier Mail 25/03/06

The French press:'A masterpiece. saved from oblivion.' Le Monde 'The most important novel of the year.' Livres Hebdo ' 'It is hard to find a comparable book in French literature.' Lire

The British press:'A book of exceptional literary quality. it has the kind of intimacy found in the diary of Anne Frank.' TLS 'Remarkable as the story of the publication of SUITE FRANCAISE is, it will finally be of anecdotal interest compared with the importance of the book. Here is the work of a fine novelist at the top of her form, writing about the fate of her adopted country with a pitiless clarity.' Patrick Marnham Evening Standard 'An heroic attempt to write a novel about a nightmare in which the author is entirely embedded.' Anita Brookner, Spectator

This Sunday's book group venue is Margaret Lackenby's place. I wasn't sure but Stella checked up. Book is the Alexis Wright.
Regards
Patricia

The September book
Ros asked me to let everyone know that the September book is ‘Infidel’ by Aayan Hirsi Ali (at Sue Wood’s).
Regards
Patricia

The Scandal of the Season

Since I won't be at the Book Group meeting, I won't be able to tell you that I have visited the Blount home at Mapledurham. See history here:

http://www.mapledurham.co.uk/history/manorhouse/index.php

Also if you want to look up The Rape of the Lock, here is a link to the complete poem. But a warning, it would be 55 pages to print out.
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/a~pope/rapelock.pdf

Capricornia by Alexis Wright.

Ros says that that the book is on long waiting lists through public libraries and sold out at lots of bookstores. I did manage to get a copy at Hornsby Borders. It was the only one in sight. I haven't started it yet (yes I know I should).

There is an article about Alexis Wright here, and a link to her PEN speech

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/13/1977989.htm