Category: Book Review

In September 2011 Judith Tebbutt and her husband David set out on an adventurous holiday to Kenya. After a joyous week on safari in the Masai Mara, they flew on to a beach resort forty kilometres south of Somalia and Read More …

Wintergirls is a tale written with teenagers in mind looking at eating disorders. We all felt it was a good read – the story certainly pulled you through. We see the world from the point of view of Lia, a Read More …

As ever a book that produced a range of reactions – most felt it was a good read. It was written well – gritty and true to life with quirky description and phrasing (some esoteric words not often used) and Read More …

Olive Kitteridge produced a broad mixture of reactions in the group ranging from ‘I loved it’ to ‘I hated it’. The book is set in a small coastal community in Maine and Olive is presented in a series of linked Read More …

Harold Fry receives a letter from an old colleague informing him that she has cancer and is writing to say goodbye. He pens a response, sets out to the pillar box, can’t bring himself to post the letter and walks Read More …

‘His bloody project’ by Graeme Macrae Burnet gave rise to a lot of discussion around a variety of topics. The book purports to be a piecing together of contemporaneous documents relating to the trial of Roderick Macrae for a triple Read More …

The Secret Scripture divided opinion – some of us loved it, and others were less impressed not finding themselves gripped by Sebastian Barry’s story (and maybe too much doom and gloom). There is certainly a lot that goes wrong in Read More …

This was a venture into non-fiction. It is a beautifully written account of the history of lemon cultivation in Italy. Attlee’s writing is very evocative, and on the way we learnt a certain amount of Italian history as well as Read More …

We all agreed that Her Fearful  Symmetry was a good read. The characters are interesting and well drawn, and Audrey Niffenegger’s writing style is easy and fluent. The story starts with the death of Elspeth, a middle aged woman who Read More …

The Gracekeepers was certainly an unusual book  with many interesting ideas but in the end the story itself didn’t quite hang together for us. The world Kirsty Logan has created is a future society, based on a flooded earth where Read More …

In choosing to read a classic which has been made into a film even those of us who hadn’t read the book still came to it with preconceptions –  Atticus Finch had to look like Gregory Peck and the book Read More …

We all enjoyed this book although the ‘off-the-wall’ ideas were a bit confusing for those that like their time frames and narratives to proceed in a logical fashion! Thursday Next, the heroine, is a detective investigating literary crimes, and as Read More …