Category: Second Circle

November 2013 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was certainly a polarising novel. We all found it slow starting, though most enjoyed it very much once the story got going about a third of the way through. But for...

April 2013 Unusually, The Accidental by Ali Smith was almost universally disliked.  Over the last year many of us were beginning to think that, because we knew we were reading for the Circle, we were being more open-minded and less...

March 2013 Many had a bit of a sticky start with The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger. A couple in our group found this tall gaunt Etonian arrogant, presumptuous and tedious, not to mention chauvinistic. One reader was prompted to...

January 2013 Everyone who started Disgrace finished it - no passes, which says a lot, though the most common phrase of the evening was, 'well, I can't truthfully say I enjoyed it,' but points were high. Beautifully written, it is...

December 2012 Though quite a few liked the book, no one loved A Visit from the Goon Squad. Some chapters had been previously published as short stories and the novel interweaves a long list of people, times and places with...

November 2012 This was our first book for which points never dropped below 8. We all thought Harper Lee created unforgettable characters and scenes; we liked the fact that it was unsentimental and could be funny at the same time....

September 2012 Some 70+ years after being published, as far as we know it is still impossible to find a journalist that hasn't read and enjoyed Scoop.  A few in our group were a bit sceptical.  They compared it to...

June 2012 Greene was already a prolific and popular novelist when he spent the winters of 1951-54 in French Indochina as a war correspondent for The Times where he wrote and set this novel. At its core is a friendship...

October 2011 Perfume is a story that generated some controversy on the night of our meeting. It could almost be called a page turner. The book is concisely constructed and  beautifully written, with a serial killer who provokes a morbid fascination. But it is outlandish, a tale of supernatural...