Book Club

• 2009/2010 Book Reviews
• 2008/2009 Book Reviews
• 2007/2008 Book Reviews
• Book Club Links
• 2010 / 2011 Book Reviews

We now have three book clubs running in the Granary, a morning one and two evening ones. The book clubs meet once a month in the Granary. Each month the groups choose either a fiction or non-fiction book and we then chat about the book at our meeting.

Unfortunately all our book clubs are now fully subscribed. 

Book Club Reads

Read below to find out what the Book Club thought of the books they have read so far. Each book has been given a rating out of 5!

The first review of the new season should appear here in October. To find out what we have previously read take a look at the book reviews for 2007/ 2008 , 2008/ 2009 and 2009/ 2010

Books Under Wraps

Title	Author	Comments	Rating (out of 5)
Citrus County	John Brandon	Strange, set in poor white area ofFlorida. Slow moving	3
The Rest is Silence	Carla Gueffenbein		4
The Invisible Ones	Stef Penney		3
The Villa Girls	Nicky Pellegrino	Lots of food descriptions. Good for Foodies!	4
The Paris Wife	Paula McLain	Interesting read but got a bit tired of the sameness of it towards the end	3
My Wife’s Affair	Nancy Woodruff	Good read. Story within a story. Worth reading	5
Silver Girl	Elin Hilderbrand	Chick lit – a bit far fetched but easy reading	3

Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor

Rating: 3.5 / 5

It was generally felt that the book was good, although the narrative style was confusing. At times it was difficult to follow and it was a struggle to know whether you were in the past or the present.  We did however, find the story absorbing and discussed the many subjects covered in the book i.e.

• The obvious differences between Molly and Synge – age, religion, class, education
• Life in Dublin at the time, theatre life, in particular the Abbey Theatre and the various characters involved in that scene – Yeats, Lady Gregory and J.M. Synge
• Molly’s relationship with Synge
• The differences between Molly and her sister, their careers and the ways their lives unfolded.
• Molly’s life inDublin,AmericaandLondon

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

Book Club Rating: 3.7/5

Set in South Africa under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is a social critique which details the mental, spiritual, financial and marital disintegrations of the lives of Dick and Mary Turner, white farmers struggling to make a living off a sun-baked farm in South Africa.

Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the years on the farm work their slow poison and Mary's despair progresses until the fateful arrival of an enigmatic and virile black servant, Moses.

The novel explores themes relating to the effect of apartheid on the day-to-day lives of individuals both black and white, as well as the slow simmering nature of revenge and an individual's need for self-delusion to avoid facing uncomfortable truths.

The club felt that the book was a tragic story and the title was very appropriate due the easy to visualise descriptions of the surrounding nature, the unrelenting heat and the treatment of the native people with suspense at every page turn. The believable characters illustrate failures in several aspects; the management of the farm and of interpersonal relationships in the story.