Sunday, 30 May 2010
Friday, 30 April 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Monday, 22 February 2010
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
Monday, 15 February 2010
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
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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 BottonMiddlesex 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
Monday, 11 May 2009
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.
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