Archive | Book Club

We all enjoyed ‘The Baltimore Boys’ by Joel Dicker. It was originally written in French, but it still feels very rooted in its setting. It tells the tale of 3 boys – cousins Marcus and Hillel and Hillel’s adopted brother Woody – all told from the perspective of Marcus, now a writer. It as easy […]

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a very readable tale – despite the length (it definitely qualifies as a door stopper). It has been described as Dickensian – there is an immense amount of beautifully written detail capturing atmosphere and character. Tartt describes place in a deftly chosen collage of images time and again. The […]

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier was a rare hit with everyone – classics aren’t classics for nothing! The unnamed narrator is the second wife of Maxim De Winter. Inexperienced and gauche, she is very much out of her depth and much of the book is taken up with her fantasies, many focused on Maxim’s first […]

There were very mixed reactions to ‘The noise of time’ by Julian Barnes. The book is about Shostakovich but the structure isn’t a straightforward narrative. It takes 3 episodes in his life when brushes with ‘Power’ brought crisis and reflection for him. The story is told through his recollections and feelings and over the course […]

Tangerine is the debut novel of Christine Mangan. The story unfolds from the viewpoints of Alice and Lucy both of whom prove to be unreliable narrators but for very different reasons. They had developed a deep friendship at university but an incident resulted in a separation. The story begins with Alice living in Tangiers with […]

Very mixed views on ‘Transcription’ – some really enjoyed it, others found it slow and dull – ‘Le Carre Lite’ seemed to be the best description. Set largely between two time periods we are introduced to Juliet. In 1940 she found herself working for the secret service transcribing recordings of meetings between a spy and […]

Wise children by Angela Carter is largely told as a long set reminiscences by Dora Chance – looking back over a career in music hall with her twin sister Nora (one of many sets of twins) and tempestuous family relationships. They are the illegitimate daughters of Melchior Hazard, a leading Shakespearian actor who refuses to […]

‘The Allegations’ engendered mixed feelings – it was funny, and the writing was good, and certainly for the first half it was a good read  but then it started to drag. It contrasts the fortunes of two men – friends and academics – who are both faced with allegations. Tom is accused of bullying and […]

I think all of us felt this was not a book we would have chosen to read (it was a little grim in places!), but we all ‘enjoyed’ it. ‘The Last of Us’ is set in the Western Isles in a dystopian future where the majority of the population has been wiped out by an […]

Apologies to fans of Nadine Dorries but we were united in feeling that ‘Shadows in heaven’ had not left us with an inclination to read more of her books. It was an easy read (although the huge cast of characters did lead to some confusion initially), however the characters lacked depth and there was an […]

The history of bees is an interesting and ambitious book that generated a lot of discussion ranging from family relationships and the expectations parents put on their children to the current decline of the bee population and the environmental challenge the world is facing – climate change and plastic pollution. Back to the book itself […]

  Jane Harper’s debut novel was enjoyed by all – generally regarded as a real page turner – a quick read. Luke Hadler, his wife and child are found brutally murdered, and the assumption in the town is murder/suicide. Aaron Falk, a policeman has returned to the town he was driven from many years previously […]