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…Or the Murder at Road Hill House.
Synopsis (from book cover):
It is midnight on 30th June 1860 and all is quiet in the Kent family’s elegant house in Road, Wiltshire. The next morning, however, they wake to find their youngest son has been the victim of an unimaginably gruesome murder. Even worse, the guilty party is surely one of their number – the house was bolted from the inside. As Jack Whicher, the most celebrated detective of his day, arrives at Toad to track down the killer, the murder provokes national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes – scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy and loathing.
This true story has all the hallmarks of a classic gripping murder mystery. A body, a detective, a country house steeped in secrets and a whole family of suspects – it is the original Victorian who done it.
Revue:
Kate uses documentary evidence and newspaper articles of the time to explain the details of the case. There are wonderful descriptions of life in a well to do Victorian household. It also gives incite into policing and detective work which is in sharp contrast to it’s modern day equivalent.
The book starts off just before the child goes missing and explains how the murdered child is found. It then goes on to describes in detail the horrific wounds that were inflicted upon the body.
The book then details the different members of the household and how most of them could be considered as having a motive for the murder. The police made a lot of mistakes at the beginning of the case which led to vital clues and evidence being lost. Even the great detective Mr Whicher is brought in to solve the case cannot bring a case against the person he supects. Kate pieces together the evidence and the case unfolds over a number of years leaving the reader with more questions than answers and wondering if the case had really been solved…
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and other crime novels of the era used many ideas from this crime.
For a personal read I would give the book 4 stars and for a reading group 5 stars.
Synopsis (from book cover):
Sun Shuyun grew up in China and has always been fascinated by Tibet and by Buddhism. Accompanied by a television crew, she spent a year in a remote town in the Tibetan mountain area and recorded what life is like for the people there.
Despite half a century of Communist rule, the residents of the town of Gyantse have been returning to religion and much of the traditional way of life. But as Sun Shuyun follows the daily lives of a shaman and his family, of monks, a village doctor, a party worker, a hotel manager and a rickshaw driver, it becomes clear that the community is facing the pressures of change.
Capturing the tensions between the Chinese and Tibetans, between an ancient and an alien culture, and between continuity and modernization, this is a rare and vivid insight into Tibet’s isolated communities.
Review:
The author deals with the subject in a very sensitive manner as she describes the lives of the Tibetans, whose culture is in stark contrast to the authors communist upbringing.
During her year long stay there, she befriends the Tibetans which enables her to explain the daily lives and rituals of the different characters that appear in the book. Shuyun explains how she struggles with some of the Buddhist ideas and rituals, but she always discusses the subject delicately. Although she was researching and filming for a documentary, the sensitivities of the people were always put first and this stopped her from filming some material.
The timing of her visit was prior to the Tibetans taking to the streets of Lhasa in March 2008. she deals with the political situation very well in that you are not led to take sides and are only left to witness the daily lives of the Tibetans. Despite all the difficulties they face you get the sense that they are serene and able to take every setback in their stride.
The book covers topics such as healthcare (traditional and modern), schooling, marriage, sky burial, polygamy, rituals, Buddhism and the many Tibetan Gods.
Above all the book gives a vivid description of the daily lives of Tibetans and what it is like to live there. A must read for anyone who wants a feel for what it is like to live in Tibet.
Synopsis:
Born in a village in heartland India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coals and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape – of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga, into whose depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations.
The White Tiger is a tale of two Indias. Balram’s journey from darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.
Review:
The book is written in the form of Balram writing a series of letters to the premier of China, who is due to visit the country. The book describes modern India and refers to the deprived areas as ‘the darkness’, where the lower classes live. It highlights the differences between these lower classes and the landlords and how, by taking drastic action which is hinted at towards the front of the book, Balram is able to rise from the role of servant to become an entrepreneur making money of his own.
The book is a page turner with a very easy writing style and is a very enjoyable read. I like the way the story is presented via the series of letters.
On reflection I am not sure whether or not it would make for an interesting book group discussion. There is certainly enough material in there to get you thinking, but maybe not enough if you have already discussed another novel set in India. However I think I would need a second opinion on that.
…The planet, life & people from the big bang to the present day…
Synopsys (from book cover):
How old is the universe? When did life on earth begin? What happened to dinosaurs? How was the moon created? How did ancient Chinese science shape the modern world? How did Islam trigger globalisation? Are humans really superior to other living things? And how can you fit the complete history of the planet into one pocket-sized book?
These are just some of the questions answered in CHRISTOPHER LLOYD’s acclaimed 13.7-billion-year-history, now in brief. In this thrill-ride across millennia and continents, the complete history of the planet unfolds: from the Earth’s fiery birth to life’s near-obliteration in the Triassic period, and from the first signs of humanity to the tentative future of a world with a burgeoning population and a global warming crisis. Covering a wide range of topics including astrophysics, zoology and sociology, and complete with maps and illustrations, WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED?…IN BRIEF is an endlessly entertaining story of the planet, life and people.
Review:
This book is an abridged version of What on Earth Happened, it was first serialised in The Independent newspaper in February this year. It quite literally takes the reader through time from the big bang to the present day.
It covers life before man, human evolution and both ancient and modern history. In fact it covers just about everything you can think of in the history of the planet. Written in chronological order I gives a great perspective, showing how different events relate to each other and how they shaped the history of the planet. It helps bind separate bits of knowledge together and put them in context with everything else. The timespan is condensed to fit into a 24 hour clock making it easier to see when things took place.
It comes complete with colour plates, time lines and top 10 lists cover important events and species. Most importantly, it has an index.
Despite the nature of the subject, it is very easy to read and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. I enjoyed it so much I have purchased the unabridged hardback copy and am looking forward to reading even more interesting snippets from planet earth.
If that has whetted your appetite you can find out more information from the book’s website.
Group Read – 4 star
Personal Read – 5 star
Synopsys (from book cover):
Katherine Swift takes the reader on a journey through time, back to the forces which shaped the garden, linking the history of those who lived in the same Shropshire house and tended the same red soil with the stories of those who live and work there today. It is an account which spans thousands of years. But is also the story of one of one life: of relationships tested to breaking point, of despair and loss as well as joy and achievement. It is a journey through the seasons, but also a journey of self-exploration. It is a book about finding one’s place in the world and putting down roots.
Review:
The book is very elegantly written with beautiful prose, it deserves to be read slowly so you can take it all in and feel the wonderful atmosphere. The book is all about time and the garden and how the author made a new garden for the Dower House at Morville when she moved in and leased it off The National Trust in 1988.
The chapters are structured according to the medieaval Books of Hours and each chapter is named after one of the Hours of the Divine Office. The book includes line drawings that are styled like illustrations in the Books of hours.
It describes life in the rural Shropshire countryside and includes many interesting and fascinating topics such as gardening, astronomy, language, religion, horticulture, beekeeping and the history of Morville and the surrounding Shropshire countryside. It is also part autobiography.
It is well worth a read for anyone who enjoys the countryside and gardens or who has a love of lyricl prose.
This good article from TimesOnline gives a bit of background information about Katherine and the garden.
Group Read – 3 star
Personal Read -5 star
Synopsis from book cover: “One of the most vivid and realised characters of recent fiction, Willie Dunne is the innocent hero of Sebastian Barry’s highly acclaimed novel. Leaving Dublin to fight for the Allied cause as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he finds himself caught between the war playing out on foreign fields and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising. Profoundly moving, intimate and epic, A Long Long Way charts and evokes a terrible coming of age, one too often written out in history.”
So what did we all think of it?
I think it is probably the first book that we have read that we all agreed on. We thought it was an excellent novel although we all got so wrapped up in the narrative we had to remind ourselves that it was a novel and not a biography. The characters are very well drawn and filled out. The descriptions of what it was like on a WW1 battlefield and in the trenches were so well described you actually thought you were there yourself. It describes the awful conditions and lack of food and it portrays many different human emotions; fear, love, loss, betrayal, confusion etc The narrative is very lyrical which makes the book quite compelling despite the horrific details of the battlefield. One of the most awful passages for me was the description of the first time they soldiers encountered mustard gas!
The author also manages to bring in the political aspect of the war and the Irish situation and reasons for why some of the Irish soldiers were taking part in the war. The political views of the main charater change as the war leaves it mark on him, leaving him to feel confused about the situation.
I would thoroughly recommend anyone to read this book, especially if you are interested in WW1.
…Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife
The book is set in 1960’s Boston in an urban area that is scheduled for regeneration. The novel is narrated by Fermin, a rat who lives in the basement of a run down bookstore. Fermin was the runt of the litter and always last in line to get food. In order to stay alive he start nibbling on the books in the shop. After a while he gains the ability to read. He thinks and sounds more like a human than a rat. At the begining of the novel if I hadn’t already know in advance that I wouldn’t have realised he was a rat.
Firmin is a gallant soul who is gifted and wise. He is shunned by his fellow rats and makes plans to befriend the bookseller. In addition to reading books Firmin has a fondness of the local picture house where he views what he calls his lovelies on the big screen.
The book is very philosophical and has well drawn characters, and Fermin is quite charming. The book is interspersed with pictures of characters and events that Fermin encounters along the way, I found these quite charming. Before each chapter there were also pictures of book covers these didn’t really add a lot for me.
I really enjoyed the book and found it quite a page turner.
Group Read – 3-star
Personal Read – 4-star
Synopsis:
The nameless and beautiful narrator of “The Gargoyle” is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is over – he is now a monster. But in fact it is only just beginning. One day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles, enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates equally mesmerising stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland, Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life – and, finally, to love.
Review:
The version of the book that I read had a red cover adorned with golden arrows and a flaming heart. The outer edges to the pages were coloured with black signifying burning, which fits with the theme of the book.
The book graphically describes the effect of the burns and their treatment, but despite this I found the book very compelling. The story slips between the present day and the 14th century as Marianne tells the tale of their previous life together. The telling of the tale makes you believe the unbelievable, making you reassess what is fact and what is fiction.
Many subjects are covered in the book; such as burns, mental illness, Christianity, history and medieval Europe.
In some ways the book describes a tragedy as a beauty is transformed into a beast. But that is only the physical aspect, mentally I think the journey is reversed.
I really loved the book and think it is an impressive first for the author. However I do think it is one of those books you will love or hate.
Group Read – 4-star
Personal Read – 5-star
We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it so we will just say this: This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they meet again — the story starts there! Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.
Review:
Group Read – 5-star
Personal Read – 5-star
Jun 11
The Queen of the Tambourine
by Jane Gardam
Eliza Peabody is one of those dangerously blameless women who believe they have God in their pocket. She is a modern-day Florence Nightingale, always up at the Hospice or the Wives’ club; she is too enthusiastic; she talks too much. Her concern for the welfare of her wealthy south London neighbours even extends to ingenuous, well-meaning notes of unsolicited advice under the door. It is just such a one-sided correspondence that heralds Eliza’s undoing. Did her letter have something to do with Joan’s abrupt disappearance from number forty-one? What to make of the long absences of her husband and Joan’s, and of the two men’s new, inseparable friendship? And why will no one else on Rathbone Road speak of Joan? As Eliza’s own life seems to disintegrate, she finds that, despite the pity and embarrassment with which her neighbours greet her, she is at last being drawn into their lives – although not in the way she had once fantasised about. This is a sharp, poignant and wickedly funny tale of love, heartache and disillusionment.
Jul 9
Small Island
by Andrea Levy
From the perspective of four different characters, Small Island tells the story of the first wave of Caribbean immigrants to Britain following World War II, through the life of Airman Joseph Gilbert and his wife Hortense. Despite fighting against the Nazi’s as a member of the RAF, when Gilbert returns to his ‘Mother Country’ with ambitions of training to become a Lawyer, all he finds in London is unfriendly faces, hatred, and a job as Royal Mail driver. However, he does find accommodation with Queenie Bligh, who, in need of rent, lets the empty rooms of her house to immigrants and faces just as much scorn and hatred from her neighbours as a result. Events soon come to a head when Queenie’s husband, Bernard, returns home from India two years after the War has ended.
[2004 Orange Prize Winner]
Aug 13
The Virgin Blue
by Tracy Chevalier
This book is from the bestselling author of “Girl With a Pearl Earring”, a reissue of her first novel, which was first published in 1996. This is the compelling story of two women, born four centuries apart, and the ancestral legacy that binds them. Ella Turner does her best to fit in to the small, close-knit community of Lisle-sur-Tarn. She even changes her name back to Tournier, and knocks the rust off her high school French. But it is all in vain. Isolated and lonely, she is drawn to investigate her Tournier ancestry, which leads to her encounter with the town’s wolfish librarian. Isabelle du Moulin, known as Le Rousse due to her fiery red hair, is tormented and shunned in the village – suspected of witchcraft and reviled for her association with the Virgin Mary. Falling pregnant, she is forced to marry into the ruling family: the Tourniers. Tormentor becomes husband, and a shocking fate awaits her. Plagued by the colour blue, Ella is haunted by parallels with the past, and by her recurring dream. Then one morning she wakes up to discover that her hair is turning inexplicably red!
Sep 10
Saturday
by Ian McEwan
Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. He is troubled by the state of the world – the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat. Later, Perowne makes his way to his weekly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. Towards the end of a day rich in incident and filled with Perowne’s celebrations of life’s pleasures, his family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appearance of Baxter, Perowne’s earlier fears seem about to be realised.
Oct 8
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
by Marina Lewycka
For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other – they have their reasons. But now their aging widowed father is sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and is keen that he will leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. For Nadazhda and Vera, separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat – Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, which explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. Oblivious to all of this, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.
Nov 12
The Tenderness of Wolves
by Stef Penney
Canada, 1867: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man’s cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township – journalists, Hudson’s Bay Company men, trappers, traders – but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it? One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape, home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good. In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly waves adventure, suspense, revelation and humour into a panoramic historical romance, an exhilarating thriller, and a keen murder mystery.
[Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2007]
