2020 Book Group News
Hello and welcome to the Book Group Page
Amidst the current Pandemic we have had to postpone our usual format for our long running book group. However we are continuing to meet and discuss the written word via Zoom. Please see below for further details.
May Book Group
Book group will be held on Zoom next Tuesday 19th May at 8pm. There is still time to read the book if you would like to join in. If you want to join, please email us at debeauvoirwi@gmail.com with Book Group in the header and we will send you the number and password for the meeting. The book is The Mary Celeste Papers by Paul Gallimore.
The Mary Celeste Papers is a mystery novel with laugh-out-loud consequences, which bubble up and explode out of the grit and grime of a dead-end railway depot in England. Every character you meet in the book is fully three-dimensional, with the possible exception of Billy who may even have a foot in the sixth dimension.
If you are interested in reading and discussing books, please do come along to our virutal book group. We do ask that if you are going to come along you really should have read the book.
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com
The De Beauvoir WI Book Group
We meet once a month and discuss the book we chose between us at the previous meeting. We try not to stick to a particular genre or type, and suggestions from all members are welcome – and more importantly – acted upon.
For April, the book group were planning to read Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, which was a co-winner of the Booker prize last year. Much to our shame none of the members of the book group had read any of Evaristo’s previous work, so we eventually read Blonde Roots, because Girl, Woman, Other was not available in paperback. Blonde Roots was very good; it inverted the black white power ratio in the transatlantic slave trade to challenge the perceptions of the reader. Sort of like a more nuanced Noughts and Crosses, (BBC). Evaristo is an amusing writer with a wry outlook, an appreciation of the truth in cliché and an accessible style. And GWO was more upbeat than the previous two choices – actually The Wall (January’s choice) wasn’t very happy either – so was probably more in keeping with our needs at the moment. And it is now out in paperback.
In January we read The Wall, a dystopian science fiction about Great Britain with a wall built all around it, guarded by Keepers, to keep out The Others. If a patrol of Keepers let in any Others, they are thrown out over the Wall into the sea to replace the Others they had allowed in. Written by John Lanchester in his easily accessible style, it is a well thought through, readable and highly believable story projected only a short while into the future. Bear in mind, the American President is talking of building a wall and the Greeks announced at the end of January they were thinking about building a barrier at sea. It’s only thirty years since the Berlin Wall came down. Recommended – even without the prescience.
What with half term and everything, we held our March meeting was on 3rd March. And because it was a long break between sessions, we attempted to read two books.
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
A novel about mishaps, misunderstandings and the depths of the human heart. Also supposed to be funny. Winner of the Pulitzer 2018
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Surprisingly wise – a novel to be reread and remembered, recalling some of the master of Indian fiction with a deft comic touch. And it won the Man Booker in 2006.
If you have any questions please do contact us through the De Beauvoir WI email and one of us will get back to you.
And do bring along your own recommendations for future reads for the group. It should be out in paperback, you shouldn’t have read it already and if you want to come to the meeting, you really should read the book we chose.
Many thanks
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