April book: The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter

March 2010 Book: Cold Comfort Farm

February Book 2 2010 - Day After Night by Anita Diamant

Book Rating:

Range: 6.5 - 7.5

No. of members rating: 6/12

Average: 6.9

February book 1 2010 - Things Without a Name by Joanne Fedler

Book Rating:

Range: 6-7.5

No. of members rating: 10/12

Average rating: 6.85

June: in which we discussed our favourite books

This month we decided to forego discussing a book in favour of discussing all books. Our favourites.

Each member took it in turns to offer up their two, three, ten or even fifteen favourite books. People chose books that they loved as a child or that meant the most to them at a particular time. Others chose bodies of work or a series. One member catagorised hers by genre and even had a cookbook in the list. It allowed us to talk about our literary influences and gave a peak into why and how we choose books.

Here are our lists (not all members had a list):

LJ

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCulloch

A Suitable Boy by Vikrum Seth

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

"I read A Suitable Boy when I was an expatriate in Malaysia when I had the time to absorb it".

DVdB

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

"Thomas Hardy has great character names and stories about women who are wronged"

KM

Goodnight Moon by

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Dark is Rising

The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder ("I read the whole series every year")

The Perfect Storm

Out of Africa by (an absolute favourite)

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

"I love books that give you information about stuff"

FR

Funniest: The Mozart Maulers by Dorian Mode

Classic: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Saddest: April Fool's Day by Bryce Courtenay

Childhood favourite: Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Play: A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare

Teenage Favourite: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein

Australian: Dirt Music by Tim Winton

Recent: Still Alice by Lisa Genova; Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres; Harry Potter Series by J K Rowling.

TD

The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

The Moonstone by Collins

"The Regeneration Trilogy had a huge impact on me"

Fe

The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Original Sins by Lisa Alther

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

Hidden Agendas by John Pilger

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My Mother, My Self by Nancy Friday

M

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells
The Long Ships by Frans G Bengtssen
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Cautionary Verses by Hillaire Belloc
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell by Sussana Clarke
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

My main concern in the last twenty-five years has been to go back and find members of my own family who were not talked about for various reasons, forgotten, quietly erased. Sebastian Barry

The central character of The Secret Scripture is Roseanne McNulty a lady nearing her 100th birthday who has lived in an Irish psychiatric hospital for over 60 years. The hospital is about to close down and director Dr Grene has to assess patients for their suitability to either move to the new hospital or be placed back into society. Dr Grene is curious as to why Mrs McNulty was admitted to the hospital and is suspicious of the motives to admit her in the first place.

So begins a book consisting of two narratives. The narrative of 100 yo Roseanne who is recalling her younger life and the narrative of Dr Grene as he tries to piece together Roseanne's life from records and interviews with those close to her.

With any narrative we must first consider the reliability of the narrator. Is the narrator telling the truth? Does the narrator have the whole story? In this novel we have to balance the reliability of the memory of a centenarian with the subjective interviews conducted by Dr Grene in order to piece together Roseanne's life.

Sebastian Barry based the Roseanne's character loosely on that of one of his great aunts who was reputedly placed in the Sligo Mental Asylum for being 'no good' in some fashion. Perhaps for being outside the bounds of society's mores at the time or for the crime of being beautiful.

Sligo is a location that is linked to Sebastian Barry's own history but also serves as a bleak little visited outpost of an Ireland close to the border with Northern Ireland. The character Roseanne is a protestant in a catholic town and grew up during "the troubles" and civil war of the 1920s. This book is as much about the impact of the civil war on Ireland and the relationship between the catholic and protestant churches as it is about the plight of Roseanne herself.

Sebastian Barry sees his novels as 'a family' and the character of Roseanne in fact appeared in his previous novel The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty. In turn characters from other books appear in The Secret Scripture, thereby creating an interwoven family of stories across a number of novels.

The Secret Scripture was on the shortlist for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and won the Costa Prize in 2008 (formerly called the Whitbread prize). It is rumoured that despite being the favourite to win the Booker, the novel's ending was the reason it was looked over.

Seven people attended this bookgroup discussion with the scores ranging from 7.5 to 8.5 and an average of 8/10 across the group.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company"

"You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice."

Jane Austen novels are unashamedly romances where the girl always gets the guy, in the end. But first she, and he, must endure tortuous twists of fate through which Ms Austen takes us on a journey through the social mores of early 19th century England.

Persuasion was published in 1818 one year after Ms Austen's death in 1817 and is perhaps the book where she takes the independence of her heroine to new heights.

The main character, Anne Elliot, is the sensible second daughter of three in an aristocratic family. Since the death of her mother when she was young her father has become increasingly pompous in his position as Baronet, preferring to read the Peerage over any other book and only interested in making acquaintance with those of equal or greater social standing. His spending habits and poor investments have left them needing to quit their family home and rent it out to an Admiral Croft who has recently returned from the Napoleonic wars, wealthy from his exploits.

Meanwhile Anne is pining for the memory of love lost eight years earlier when she was persuaded not to marry Federick Wentworth, a young naval officer, because he had no position, no money and no prospects. At 27 she is considered 'on the shelf' and unlikely to marry.

It turns out that Admiral Croft's wife is the sister of the now wealthy Captain Wentworth and so we embark on a journey around south-east England (Lyme, Bath and the surrounding countryside) and experience the tortuous twists which bring Anne and Captain Wentworth back together again.

Jane Austen is a master observer of English society at this time managing to be abreast not only of the aristocratic sensibilities but also those of the middle class, the merchant class and those who have 'fallen'. This fabulous book observes the gradual decline of the wealth of the aristocratic class following the Napoleonic wars and the rise of the wealthy merchants and Naval officers which start to question the social balance in England.

Mr Elliot at first objected to renting his house to a Naval man

"... as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction..."

but then realised he had no option or he would have to 'retrench' (sell off his lands).

This book also raises questions about whether it was sensible to persuade a young 19 year old girl not to marry a man who had not made his fortune. At the time, and perhaps still now, it would have been imprudent to marry someone without an income because there were limited ways of earning an income, and still remain in 'good society', at the time. Anne Elliot's family and contemporaries came into money through inheritance.

All those present scored this book highly, with scores ranging from 7 to 9 for an average of 8/10.

We noted that there are two recent movie adaptations: A 1995 version with Amanda Root and a 2007 version with Sally Hawkins as Anne. Having watched both I think the 1995 version is a grittier closer approximation of the book.