2013 books read
Wednesday December 11th 2013, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Louise's house.
The incomparable Alice Munro’s bestselling and rapturously acclaimed Runaway is a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her intimate relationships. In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about–women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children–become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.
Paperback, 335 pages
Published November 8th 2005 by Vintage (first published January 1st 2004)
Louise - 6, Simon - 7.5, Kathleen - 7.5, Kerry - 5.5
Next bookclub is on Wednesday October 23rd 2013, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Simon's house. Discussion questions for Alan Bennett night.
Two unexpected tales written and read by the bestselling author of The Uncommon Reader, Untold Stories and The History Boys.
The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson
Mrs. Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating...
The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes
Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. True, her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections.
Hardcover, 175 pages
Published May 1st 2011 by Profile Books(GB) (first published 2011)
Louise - 5, Simon - 7.5, Kathleen - 7, Kerry - 6.9
From the author of The History Boys and The Clothes They Stood Up In
A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading.
When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen's transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word.
With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life.
Hardcover, 120 pages
Published September 18th 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published January 1st 2007)
Louise - 8, Simon - 8, Kathleen - 8 , Kerry - 9
Wednesday September 18th 2013, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Kerry's house.
by Max Brooks - Discussion Questions
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Hardcover, 342 pages
Published September 12th 2006 by Crown (first published 2006)
ISBN0307346609 (ISBN13: 9780307346605)
Louise - 7, Simon - 6, Kathleen - , Kerry - 8
Thursday August 8th 2013, 6:30 pm (ish) start at Kathleen's house.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.
Paperback, 386 pages
Published June 28th 1999 by Vintage (first published 1994)
ISBN 0679751521 (ISBN13: 9780679751526)
characters:Jim Williams, Danny Hansford
setting:Savannah, Georgia (United States)
Louise - 5, Simon - 8.5, Kathleen - 8.5, Kerry - 8
Read 11 July 2013: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak Discussion questions
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery....
Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist – books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.
With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
Hardcover, 550 pages
Published March 14th 2006 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN 0375831002 (ISBN13: 9780375831003)
Simon - 8, Kathleen - 8.5, Kerry - 9
Wednesday May 29th 2013
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn Discussion questions
Marriage can be a real killer.
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?
With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.
Hardcover, 419 pages
Published May 24th 2012 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (first published 2012)
ISBN
0297859382 (ISBN13: 9780297859383)
Helen - 9, Kathleen - ?, Kerry - 4
Wednesday 17th April 2013
Author Tim Flannery describes his own passionate encounters with Australia and its people over 30 years. He digs into the past, exploring remarkable fauna, and outlines the history of the kangaroo and how it parallels the changes in the Australian environment.
Hardcover, 258 pages
Published January 1st 2004 by Text Publishing
ISBN 1920885447 (ISBN13: 9781920885441)
original title Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, a Scientist, and a Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Creature
Helen - 7, Kathleen - 7, Kerry - 7.5
Wednesday 6th March 2013
The Mystery of a Hansome Cab - Fergus Hume (Discussion questions)
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is a mystery fiction novel by English writer Fergus Hume. The book was first published in Australia in 1886. Wikipedia
Published: 1886
Original language: English
Genre: Fiction
Project Gutenberg ebook LibriVox audio version ABC study guide
This unlikely first literary attempt by a young law clerk in Australia, published in Melbourne, became the best-selling mystery novel of the 19th century, better even than Sherlock Holmes.
In the dead of night, on a dark, lonely street in Melbourne, a cabby discovers that his drunken passenger has been murdered--suffocated with a chloroform saturated handkerchief. The murderer, his motive, even the identity of the victim are unknown.
Helen - 6, Kathleen - 7, Kerry - 6, Louise - ?
30 January 2013
Stasiland - (discussion questions)
by Anna Funder
Anna Funder's penetrating and dispassionate Stasiland really begins with one significant date: the year 1989. The Berlin Wall falls and the history of a country that had become a microcosm of the Cold War is changed irrevocably. With the hated symbol of the enforced division between East and West reduced to rubble, the two Germanys--East and West--are able to reunite; grey, depressed East Germany becomes a memory.
After the initial euphoria, the change was hard for the world to accept, but it was both exhilarating and unsettling for the denizens of the Soviet bloc state, who had lived under the brutal, paranoid regime of the secret police, the dreaded Stasi of the title. For the inhabitants of East Germany, there were some stark statistics: one in 50 East Germans had informed on a fellow citizen, and human beings behaved in fashions unthinkable just the space of a wall away.
The amazing stories that Anna Funder tells in Stasiland bring to life with extraordinary vividness both the dark and the more human sides of life in the former East Germany: a young girl who could have started World War III, the man who laid down the line that became the Wall. These and a hundred other tales (from both the recent past and the present, as Berlin still struggles with the legacy of history) make for a highly unusual book, the final effect of which is as life-affirming and positive as the destruction of the Wall must have been for those who watched. --Barry Forshaw
Paperback, 288 pages
Published 2007 by The Text Publishing Company (first published August 1st 1987)
ISBN 1876485906 (ISBN13: 9781876485900)
original title:Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Helen - 9, Kathleen - 8.5, Kerry - 8