Stoke book chat March
We meet on the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 5:30pm at Stoke library. All welcome.
Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson
A witty retelling of the Noah’s Ark story. A pleasure boat company is transformed when the proprietor, Noah, is chosen by the "One True God" to put "sunny" faith back in the world and women back in the kitchen. (Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/324271.Boating_for_Beginners ) Our reader was keen to read this as he had previously read and enjoyed Winterson’s Whitbread award winning book "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit", but he found this one a bit too clever, and didn’t really enjoy it.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
This story starts with an older woman recalling her childhood, and flicks back and forward between time zones, and between life and fiction as there is a novel entitled The Blind Assassin within the story. Our reader was enjoying it but finding the four strands make it a book that needs consistent reading rather than a story to dip in and out of.
Wikipedia mentions there is a third novel within the story – embedded within the fictitious story that is embedded within the novel! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Assassin
"The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. Brilliantly weaving together such seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision and unforgettable impact"--Publisher.
A re-telling of a Greek myth. In the house of Helios, God of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.
Despite not really enjoying this novel, perhaps because it made her feel a little uncomfortable, our reader felt compelled to continue with it.
On Two Feet and Wings : One Boy’s Amazing Story of Survival by Abbas Kazerooni (Children’s Senior Fiction / Young Adult Fiction)
This autobiographical story starts in Iran during the Iran/Iraq war and follows the life of 9-year-old Abbas. Abbas’s, previously materially comfortable family lose almost all their possessions, then when they find out the age of recruitment for the army is to be 10 years old, they decide to scrape together all the money they can and send Abbas and his mother to Turkey, in the hopes of escaping to England where they have a relative. At the airport the authorities won’t let Abbas’s mother leave, so Abbas embarks on the journey and a new life on his own. This journey turns out to be just the beginning of a story that is awful, inspiring, and amazing. Our reader found this a beautiful, but harrowing read and her best book yet for 2025!
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (Thursday Murder Club Mystery, 4)
‘Shocking news reaches the Thursday Murder Club. An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. As the gang springs into action, they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers’
Our reader really enjoyed it: ‘just as charming as the other three books.’
You don’t need to have read the earlier books to enjoy this one.
A Time to Remember by Anna Jacobs (Rivenshaw Series, 1)
Set at the end of WWII in the small Lancashire town of Rivenshaw, where Judith Crossley fears her abusive husband’s return, and decides she must leave him for the sake of her children. Help comes in the form of Mynard Esher, who converts his large house into accommodation to assist with the post war housing shortage. Jacob’s novel shows the effects of war on people. Our reader loved the references to place, as she had previously lived in Lancashire.
Protest!: Shaping Aotearoa by Mandy Hager
Protest examines aspects of kiwi life that have attracted protest over New Zealand’s history: Land, Employment, Gay Rights, Disability, Vietnam War, Racism, People Not Profit, Environment, Climate Change, Pacific Neighbours. It covers 51 protests. Our reader found the descriptions very good and recommends it as a reference book – to be dipped into, rather than read cover to cover.
Angel of Grasmere: From Dunkirk to the Fells by Tom Palmer
This senior children’s novel is Set in Grasmere (Lakes District of England) in the 1940s. Tarn is mourning the loss of her brother at Dunkirk and along with friends Peter and Eric keeps a look out for a Nazi invasion. As the war drags on the villagers become aware of someone performing acts of kindness. But can Tarn accept the truth when the Angel’s identity is revealed? Our reader loved the references to Grasmere.
Amma follows the stories of three women, against the background of shifting cultures, and over generations from 1950s Singapore to New Zealand in the 1980s, and London in 2018. It's beautiful story about trauma and trying to fit in when you don’t fit in. It’s also very ‘Kiwi’.
A couple spend the night together on 15 July 1988, knowing they must go their separate ways the next day. The novel then visits their lives on 15 July every year for the next 20 years. ... Nicholls adapted his book into a screenplay; the feature film, was released in August 2011, and a television series for Netflix, premiered on 8 February 2024.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
This story is unique – and strange. It’s about Lauren, who one night finds a strange man in her flat, who claims to be her husband. Lauren’s attic is creating an endless supply of husbands for her. To change husbands Lauren simply has to get them to go into the attic – when a husband disappears into said attic, a new one climbs down the ladder a few minutes later. Although on one level it’s frivolous, unlikely and perhaps even ridiculous, it is also greatly engaging, entertaining, and on a deeper level it talks to our modern lives with the enormous numbers of choices we have – and the extent to which they influence who we are fundamentally as people.
Words:
Vestigiel
(adjective)
’forming a very small remnant of something that was once greater or more noticeable.
(of an organ or part of the body) degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution. "the vestigial wings of kiwis are entirely hidden"
Lascivious
feeling or revealing an overt sexual interest or desire. "he gave her a lascivious wink"
Avaricous
(adjective)
having or showing an extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
Soughing
(verb)
(of the wind in trees, the sea, etc.) make a moaning, whistling, or rushing sound.
From: Definitions from Oxford Languageshttps://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
In a brown study...
Daydreaming or deeply contemplative, as in Margaret sits in the library, in a brown study. This term dates from the late 1500s, and although by then in a study had long meant “lost in thought,” the reason for adding brown is unclear. Moreover, the present idiom also is ambiguous, some holding that it denotes genuine thoughtfulness and others that it signifies absentmindedness
