December: A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
We all loved this short little book about the life of an uneducated man who lived in the mountains, spoke very few words and whose life spanned the 79 years over two world wars.. The translation from German was wonderfully done with lots of gentle phrases which encapsulated the essence of the book. Namely, that of a man who had an unhappy childhood being fostered by an uncle who treated him brutally, not really going to school but having a love of nature, fresh air, and an ability to fix things which were broken. The life span takes him into marriage, death of loved ones in an avalanche, the war in Russian Caucasus, and his return and subsequent odd-jobs servicing cable cars and ski lifts as they made their entrance. His first glimpse of television and Gene Kelly were wonderfully portrayed. We gave an average of 4.3 compared to Goodreads 4.0.
November: Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada
This was a long book with a weighty topic. Probably half the group thought it was too long and it could have cut some of the middle bit. Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is a gripping wartime thriller following one ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule in Berlin, 1940, where the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, this is where we thought the book could have been shortened. .We had a good discussion on the portrayal of the Nazi situation and how horrible it was. The author was asked to write the book by the East German dept (Communist) after the war. It is interesting to see the similarities between extreme Communism and extreme Fascism. We gave an average of 3.4 from 8 people, lower than Goodread's 4.2 from 29000 people but this score may have been taken in 2009 which is when the book was first released in the translated issue in the UK.
October: My Sister's Keeper by Judi Picoult
Amazingly, all 10 members turned up for this fascinating discussion. We all commented on how surprising and indeed, shocking, the ending was. Very well crafted and imaginatively written. The story contained some moral issues, namely whether to have a genetically similar baby in order to allow Kate to have transplants when needed, is this fair on Anna the donor who was expected to comply as a child and suffered from not being able to be a 'normal' child. Then Jesse the older child had his father ignore his dangerous fire-lighting activities, all of which were seen to be a cry for help and recognition. We all liked the humour of Campbell's interaction with his dog and were all surprised at how relevant this all became in the last few chapters. One member actually had a grandaughter die of cancer and this book really brought things home to her again. We gave it an average of 4.4 compared to Goodreads' 4.1
September: The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
There was good discussion from the 6 members who attended the meeting. We understood that, having lost their home and livelihood, there were not many options open to them, but the fact that Moth had been given a terminal diagnosis, made their plan to walk the South West Coastal path somewhat foolhardy. Made even more so when Ray remembers that she has left his medication in the back of the van! We all agreed that the medication would have been at the top of the ‘list of important things to remember’. However, despite living on a diet of fudge, chips and pot noodles and walking miles each day - a feat which healthy, younger people would find challenging - Moth actually seems to improve and copes very well doing most of the things he was categorically told not to do by his consultant. Brave man!
Some of us had seen the coastal path, some had actually walked parts of it. None of us felt any sense of urgency to walk the entire path! It was felt that some of the descriptions of the surrounding countryside, were good. Apparently, the book was based on Ray’s diary which she kept throughout the trip. We felt that Moth often played a minor role in the story, while Ray was more to the front. Brief references to the fact that Moth was lying on his back and couldn’t get up, almost trivialised his problem. Sadly, I don’t think most of us found it particularly heartwarming or uplifting.
There was good discussion from the 6 members who attended the meeting. We gave it a score of 3.5 which was higher than many thought it deserved!
August: The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
Most of us enjoyed the book. A couple of people thought it was a bit far fetched and unbelievable. We felt the characters were well written and rounded, even the unpleasant ones like the American father, Priscilla and the corrupt policeman. We thought the blossoming love between David and Aycayia was gentle and tender. We felt some sympathy for Arcadia Rain being in the unenviable position of being half white and owning a lot of the area, although she didn’t seem to reflect in any personal power from her position. Overall, we gave it a score of 3.6 - many of us awarded it 4 as we thought it was such an original book. We also liked the structure - poetry, diary, narration, which, once we got used to the pigeon English, we found easy to read.
As usual, we met in Meopham library and had an animated discussion on this novel, which gave a sort-of diary of events from the viewpoint of Elizabeth Macarthur, in 1788, who went to Australia with her husband. Who was she, really, Grenville’s novel asks? How did the demure farmer’s daughter from Devon with no substantial fortune wind up with a man so obsessed with his own status and advancement? And what on earth might it have been like to be married to a sociopath like John Macarthur? If Elizabeth had been able to write her own story, what might it say? Kate Grenville imagined what Elizabeth's real thoughts and feelings were and wrote a delightful novel of short instances in time, which showed Elizabeth's feelings and how she managed to work out her own life despite being married to a brutal man. We gave an average of 4.3 compared to Goodread's 3.9.
June: The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
We all loved this book except for one person, who found the descriptive accounts and general atmosphere of witches being tried and killed especially by burning, too graphic for comfort. The story was so beautifully written hlwever, that, as one person said, we had to read every word because it was so well written, rather than skim read it. The story was based on true facts in the late 17th century in a village north of Kirkenes, ie above the Arctic Circle, when witches were condemned for the slightest unorthodox behaviour. The atmosphere of dark cold nights was well portrayed. we gave it a score of 4.1 which compared well with Goodread's score of 4 from nearly 30,000 people.
May: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
We all enjoyed the writing in this book and 7 of us had an excellent discussion on how being a black person in America when Obama was elected president must have felt. There were many delightful catch phrases. The book started with a visit to the hairdresser to get the Nigerian's hair braided, and was an education in itself to us all! We thought there were too many people in it, with names difficult to remember, but the interest held and we could all relate to the comments on American life, the blue airmail envelopes and the characters of Aunty Uju and and Ifemelu's various boyfriends before she finally settled with Obinze, the young man she'd been with at school. We gave an average of 4.3 which was exactly what Goodreads gave it.
April: The Last Hours by Minnette Walters
Only 4 of us managed the meeting, with apologies from the rest due to Covid, holidays and family visiting. Nevertheless, the book gave us plenty to talk about. We all said how good it was towards the end, and how the pace stepped up dramatically, and then the book suddelnly finished, with a 'To be continued....' underneath the last line. We thought this was rather cruel, almost blackmailing us into buying the next one. Some of the historical facts of the Black Death in 1348 were interesting. The fact that ships were not allowed to land in Dubrovnik for instance if they had come from England showed that some of the world appreciated that isolation was a good way not to get the disease. Also the fact that people had no way of finding out the true facts as people didn't travel very far in those days. It was also a surprise that they didn't know where the sea was ie south, if you were living in Dorset. We gave an average of 3.6 from 11 votes, compared to Goodread's 3.9.
March: Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
This delightful book told the story of Jean, an unmarried spinster from the 2nd world war, who was expected to look after her mother as she had no husband, while her sister Dorrie married and escaped to South Africa. Jean was a journalist and we all enjoyed her thrifty quotes she wrote in her Kent newspaper. Her observations of human behaviour in those times were pert and humorous and again, very easy to relate to. She fell in love with Howard during a journalistic investigation into parthenogenesis or Virgin Birth, which was actually prevalent at the time. The book had a good ending in one way, and caught us all by surprise. We gave it a score of 4.3 compared to Goodreads' 3.9. We were higher as we could all relate to life in the 50s.
February: I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
This book really sent us out of our comfort zones, all 900 pages of it! It was written in 2013 ie after 9/11. "The only thriller you need to read this year" says the sticker on this mould-breaking thriller, and it's true! The 7 of us who made it to the end of the book were unanimous in our admiration for the plot, that of a Muslim terrorist, the Saracen, from Saudi Arabia, who watched his father being beheaded for saying things about the Saudi Royal family. and vowed vengeance on the Americans who were funding the Royal family. The method this lone young man, the Saracen, used was to develop a virus which would be extremely contagious and deadly, and smuggle it into the USA. He was chased by our hero, Pilgrim, with very many cliff-hanging adventures, and finally Pilgrim halted the virus in the nick of time. Given that we are only just coming out of the Covid crisis, 2 years after the first signs, the whole plot gave us a sense of deja-vu. One of the group couldn't make it to the end but the rest of us gave it an average of 4.2, compared to Goodreads' 4.3 from over 140,000 responses.
January: Love is Blind by William Boyd
What a delightful first book of the year! We found every nook and cranny of detail interesting. It tells the story of a Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner at the end of the 19th century who left his miserable hypocritical father and moved to a new job in Paris. His descriptions of people; his family, friends and co-workers in all the different countries he visited, made us feel we really knew these people. Although not all 'nice' their interactions were all enjoyable, and descriptions of family and other relations were all effective. The book had many cliff-hangers and subtle twists of the plot, and indeed the author said that 'The ending is crucial to the success of a novel. A bad ending can ruin a good novel'. Altogether a real treat. All 9 of us who were there gave an average of 4.1, similar to Goodreads 4.0