This book by Michael Morpurgo, set on Bryher, prompted a lively Second Circle discussion about World War I, the nature of the enemy and the importance of family and friends. When a little girl was found alone and barely alive...
Category: Second Circle
Book reviews from the Second Circle book group.
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
May 2014 Another great discussion at Book Group, with 17 people it was the largest turn out we have had. Here is a list of the marks and very brief comments. For some people the comments are more positive than...
Miss Garnet’s Angel by Salley Vickers
April 2014 Miss Garnet's is a retired teacher who decides on a whim to spend six months in Venice and soon the city is bringing out a warmer side of herself she didn't really know existed. Shy and ascetic by...
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
March 2014 The Birthday Boys was a fascinating read. We all agreed that the author succeeded very well getting into the heads of Scott and the men who accompanied him to the South Pole. Mike gave us an excellent introduction...
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
January 2014 The Waves by Virginia Woolf strongly divided opinion; there were a record number of passes, but if you don't count the passes, average points were high. And as I was updating the points I noticed that the number...