Our next few meetings are to discuss books as follows
July Meeting - Joanne Harris - Blackberry Wine
August Meeting - To be confirmed
September Meeting - Jenny Erpenbeck - Go, Went, Gone
See Links below for more information on the upcoming titles.
Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris : Best known for her 1999 book, later made into a popular film, Chocolat (and with sections based in the same part of France), this is partly a coming-of-age story, partly the story of the same man now aged 37 and feeling increasingly unfulfilled.
- Goodreads - As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of "Jackapple Joe" Cox. A lonely child, he found solace in Old Joe's simple wisdom and folk charms. The magic was lost, however, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall. Years later, Jay's life is stalled with regret and ennui. His bestselling novel, Jackapple Joe, was published ten years earlier and he has written nothing since. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet. There, in that strange and yet strangely familiar place, Jay hopes to re-create the magic of those golden childhood summers.
- Wikipedia - a magical realism novel by Joanne Harris, narrated by a vintage bottle of wine, this uses her typical split-narrative technique and follows two separate timelines. One is set in Yorkshire, and follows several formative events in the adolescence of Jay Mackintosh, as he meets Joe Cox, a gardener, poet and everyday magician - the man who is to become the main influence of his life and literary career. The other, which continues in the present day, is set in the fictional village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, and follows Jay's attempts to recapture the magic of those early years, and cure his writer's block...
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:
Knife by Salman Rushdie, Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende, 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).