Our next few meetings are as follows
Mon 11th May - Isabel Allende - Portrait in Sepia (Delayed by 1 week, to avoid clash with Bank Holiday Monday)
Mon 1st June - Salman Rushdie - Knifed
Mon 6th July - Jenny Erpenbeck - Go, Went, Gone
See Links below for more information on the upcoming titles.
Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende: An historical novel and family saga set at the end of the nineteenth century in Chile, as a young woman searches for her roots. This Chilean American author is said to be the most widely read Spanish language novelist, often drawing on themes from her own life
- Goodreads - A spellbinding family saga set against war and economic hardship. Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, she grows up in a privileged environment, free of the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she decides to explore the mystery of her past. Portrait in Sepia is an extraordinary achievement: richly detailed, epic in scope, intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties..
- Waterstones - Best selling international author, Isabel Allende tackles her homeland head-on in this staggering, epic romance. ‘Portrait in Sepia’ is both a magnificent historical novel set at the end of the nineteenth century in Chile and a marvellous family saga peopled by characters from ‘Daughter of Fortune’ and ‘The House of the Spirits’, two of Allende's most celebrated novels..
Knife by Salman Rushdie: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder to give its full title is an autobiographical book by the British Indian writer Salman Rushdie, first published in April 2024, after a attack on the life of this Booker-winning renowned writer, who had lived under the threat of a fatwa in response to earlier books having been deemed offensive to the muslim faith. Telling the story of his recovery and how it changed his views.
- Goodreads - From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after a fatwa was ordered against him. Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide. It is a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.
Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck: The plight of African asylum seekers in Europe is vividly drawn in this powerful, candid novel, written by an author from Berlin, based on an academic in that city becoming more aware of the people and events around him, including the groups of migrants with different back stories.
- Goodreads - One of the great contemporary European writers takes on Europe's biggest issue. Richard has spent his life as a university professor, immersed in the world of books and ideas, but now he is retired, his books remain in their packing boxes and he steps into the streets of his city, Berlin. Here, on Alexanderplatz, he discovers a new community -- a tent city, established by African asylum seekers. Hesitantly, getting to know the new arrivals, Richard finds his life changing, as he begins to question his own sense of belonging in a city that once divided its citizens into them and us.
- Waterstones - At once a passionate contribution to the debate on race, privilege and nationality and a beautifully written examination of an ageing man's quest to find meaning in his life,
Previous Selections:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell; Restless by William Boyd; The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin; The Marriage Act by John Marrs; There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak; The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller; Blast from the Past by Ben Elton; The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne; Taft by Ann Patchett; The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes; American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins ....
(All selections taken from recommendations from members of the group, aiming to get titles that are readily available in paperback or on kindle. Most will be a few years old, so typically available from libraries or second hand from Bookcycle, World of Books or Charity Shops).