November 2015 Chris is 40 and bored with his life. He has a daughter that he adores but is not particularly happy in his marriage (calling his wife ‘The Great White Loaf’). One evening he spots a prostitute, the first...
Second Circle
An Italian Education by Tim Parks
November 2015 This month I had to say, 'Sorry!' for suggesting a book that left most of the group unimpressed and a few rather irritated. An Italian Education by Tim Parks was so underwhelming no one finished it. Not a single person....
Second Circle
The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
September 2015 We had a warm enthusiastic discussion of a bleak, dispiriting book. What made The Grass is Singing so impressive? It's the first novel of the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Doris Lessing. In an interview at the age...
Withiel Book Circle
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin
June 2015 Who was Samuel Pepys? He wrote a diary. But what else? He is one of those people from history I knew of but knew next to nothing about. This biography by Claire Tomalin went a long way towards...
Second Circle
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Have you ever described an odd plant in your garden as a triffid? John Wyndham's novel brought the term into our vocabulary in 1951, and it entered the Oxford English Dictionary, rather late I think, in 1986. What is it...
Withiel Book Circle
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
March 2015 This month’s book represented a new venture for our group as it described Native American life on a reservation in North Dakota. The author, Louise Erdrich, has a wealth of experience from which to draw. Her German-American father...
Withiel Book Circle
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
February 2015 George Edalji is a vicar’s son from Staffordshire. A quiet, precise person, he never really fits in with the local community, even as a boy. After qualifying as a solicitor, George begins work at a law firm in...
Withiel Book Circle
2015 Poetry Sampler
January 2015 We decided to postpone our normal Play-reading in January and instead it was suggested that everyone bring along a favourite poem, or two! Easier said than done for some of our group – how does one choose a...
Second Circle
Stoner by John Williams
October 2014 Stoner was a great hit. The novel tells the story of William Stoner, a farm boy whose parents made huge sacrifices to send him to college to study agriculture, but he fell in love with literature and became...
Second Circle
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
August 2014 Though I expected to like the book much more than I did, the book's puzzles gave rise to an especially interesting discussion. Sputnik Sweetheart tells an unusual tale and, as Roger's very thorough introduction explained, the author leaves...