Bookclub meeting August 2013 - and outlook on September and October book choices

Thank you to everyone for contributing and making last week’s meeting such a nice evening. 

Obviously the setting was gorgeous on a hot summer’s evening and we had a lot to celebrate, which was very convivial!

the book club cake recipes collected for good bye present 

Our August book, The Girl who Fell from the Sky, a story of the resistance interlaced with a love story, was well received and seems to have been a book enjoyed by all of us. Especially good for a lighter August read. Simon Mawer writes incredibly well from a woman’s point of view and some of us agreed it would be interesting to read another book by him.

I think the champagne and canapés and general chit chat took over from discussing the book in depth!

LLC Bookclub - What's next? 
The September book is 
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas.

Hope you will all be able to get a copy in time to discuss at the meeting on Thursday 19th September. 

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As we haven’t got round to choosing our October 2013 book and to give everyone more advance notice, I will go ahead and suggest a choice of 2 books:


The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.

This book comes well recommended by my learned, well-read friend and her book club in the UK!

This is a wonderful story that entertains and disquiets in equal measure. Ostensibly it is about a man, just retired, who sets out to walk from Devon to Berwick on Tweed after receiving a letter from an old work colleague. The colleague, Queenie, is dying of cancer. Harold pens a quick reply and sets off to post it, but somehow the posting of this letter seems inadequate. He decides instead to walk the 500 odd miles to Berwick, taking us with him. This is a story about all those things we leave unsaid, of all those regrets we fight daily to forget. Wonderful writing, clear recognizable characters, a story that won't leave you, and an examination in depth of all those weird and wonderful contradictions that make us what we are.



And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini.
  

His latest book which has good reviews equalling The Kite Runner.

This is a story that spans generations, yet starts and finishes with the same characters. In 1952 a father and his two young children are travelling across Afghanistan, father has been promised some much needed work. The children; Abdullah and his little sister Pari are happy to be together, they adore each other and Abdullah has become more of a parent than a brother to Pari. 
When their mother died just after giving birth to Pari and then their father re-married and new half-siblings joined the family, Abdullah took on the protection and care of Pari. Neither of them can know that this journey will be the beginning of heartbreak that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.


With heart-breaking realism, Hosseini tells the tale of a family split apart by poverty and desperation. From the small rural villages to the large bustling cities of Afghanistan, the writing transports the reader into the heart of the story, experiencing the sounds, the smells and the changing political landscapes. From immense poverty, to the greatest riches. From the modest and humble, to the arrogant and the proud, the cast of characters are a triumph.