{"id":4675,"date":"2025-01-02T19:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T19:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ovra.org.uk\/wp\/home\/?page_id=4675"},"modified":"2026-04-03T20:36:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:36:49","slug":"book-groups","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ovra.org.uk\/wp\/home\/book-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To see the latest set of book reviews scroll past this introduction<\/strong> to the Book Reviews section<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to our new page all about Book Groups. Discussing a book with a group of people is a great way to develop new friendships or deepen existing ones. If you feel inspired to start a new Book Group and would like OVRA’s help to publicise your group please email us at info@ovra.org.uk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Martyn Parker is a retired secondary school headteacher and English teacher. He has a passion for books and book groups and he is OVRA’s very own Book Guru! He has agreed to oversee this page and every term he will be adding some more reviews of books which he feels will promote stimulating discussion in book groups as well as being wonderful books for anyone to read. If you can’t wait that long, then you can always follow Martyn’s book blog, the details of which are in his article below.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An introduction by Martyn Parker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1990s seem to be back in fashion – a Labour landslide, an Oasis reunion and the Macarena (this last one may just be a bad fever dream brought on by the return of Strictly). Something that also seemed to really take off in the 1990s, and has never really gone out of fashion since, is the popularity of book groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first book group is recorded as taking place in 1634; and women\u2019s reading circles were extremely popular in 19th<\/sup> century America as an understandable act of intellectual independence against their restricted lives. However, in 1996, Oprah established her influential book club, the inspiration for thousands of copycat groups – so let\u2019s go back to that Britpoptastic decade. As Tony Blair proclaimed a new dawn outside Downing Street in 1997, a literary new dawn was also rising in Bannisters Road as my wife, Sarah, and I hosted the first meeting of a book group that is still going strong in 2024. Being rather new to this sort of thing, we chose two books for that first meeting \u2013 \u2018One True Thing\u2019 by Anna Quindlen and \u2018A Thousand Acres\u2019 by Jane Smiley. This organisational error led to a rather disjointed consideration of the books because, busy people as we were in that child rearing decade, most of us chose to focus on reading one of the books: unfortunately, we didn\u2019t all read the same one. As this was the 90s, when reasonably priced supermarket wine was also in its pomp, we probably over compensated for the lack of structure by responding enthusiastically to the refreshments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this stuttering start and several changes of membership as well as tweaks to the way the meeting was organised, we have found our feet; and as we near our third decade, the monthly meetings are as enjoyable and stimulating as at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now if the first and second rule of Fight Club (another 90s phenomenon) are that you never, ever talk about Fight Club, there are only two rules for book clubs. Rule 1 – there are no rules. Rule 2 – but if there were, the best rule is that members should read and complete the chosen book. Non-adherence to this rule can often lead to frustrations, including endings of the book spoilt for some, or over-reliance on the refreshments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I believe there are no rules, it might be helpful if I explain, briefly, how our group runs. After all, we\u2019ve had since 1997 to craft an approach that suits us. There are twelve of us in the group, including four men, which I do think is a strength. That\u2019s not because I subscribe to the idea that there are gendered books – browsing the book covers in Waterstones might suggest that publishers think differently. I believe that we have an eclectic spread of reading tastes in our group and, if one of the reasons for joining a group is to read books outside of your comfort zone, the mixed gender nature of our group enriches that aspect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We meet on the third Thursday of every month except in August which historically was left free because of school holidays but which now also allows us space to explore our own non-book group reading. We take turns hosting which means importantly that the host chooses the book under discussion and even more importantly supplies the wine. The host also starts the discussion by saying why they chose the book and what their initial reaction to it has been. They may also slip in some research about the writer or the theme – for example during a recent discussion about Elif Shafak\u2019s novel set in 1970s Cyprus, \u2018The Island of Missing Trees\u2019, Caroline, our host, fed in some really useful information about the Civil War between the Turks and Greeks on this divided island. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This host\u2019s intro is just a way to get things going, though, and because we are a long-established group of friends there is no issue with people chipping in. We have no set order for talking about the book but just pick up an incident, idea or character and run with it. If it\u2019s been a good discussion, usually about books that inspire different responses, then the discussion lasts about 90 minutes or more. A book that we all respond to positively sometimes, counter-intuitively, leads to a shortened discussion. Nevertheless, books with heft and style can often lead you on myriad, discursive pathways; and so, at the end of this article, I have listed some recent books our group has read that engendered sparky, substantive discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is, however, one benefit from a shorter than usual discussion:  we can quickly move on to one of the highlights of each book group meeting – admin! This can involve discussing the next host\u2019s ideas for his\/her book choice, shifting the date of the meeting because all the retirees are spending the children\u2019s inheritances on non-term time holidays and, of course, arranging the group\u2019s regular socials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the way we do it but in accordance with Rule 1 of book group, you might choose to meet say every six weeks to allow sufficient time for people with busy lives. You might also select the books more democratically and include non-fiction. You could go out to the local pub for the meeting or have different people hosting and providing a meal. You might prefer more structure with each person taking turns to speak or even sending out those \u2018back of the book suggested questions for book groups\u2019 prior to the meeting so people can prep. You might even break rule 2 and move very quickly from book to admin and onto socialising. However, I do think that this is to miss out. A good discussion of a book, with people who come from slightly different perspectives is a lovely experience. When a book group works well it is, in a small way, an antidote to the angry culture wars that seem to predominate at the moment, with people taking aggressive, no compromise positions about everything. Spending time with friends in a relaxed atmosphere and listening to someone\u2019s view of a character might just make you think again about a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onslow Village is awash with well-established book groups, so there must be something good about this 1990s phenomenon that has outlasted New Labour and, thank goodness, Beanie Babies. If you\u2019re interested, just ask around and your friends will probably know about a group. Better still set up your own group, with your own friends and own rules, if for no other reason than to revel in the admin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommendations below; and if you want more than you can read my rather pompous, overlong reviews on a user-unfriendly blog via this link 618c44dc9479d.site123.me<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons by Ian McEwan<\/strong> \u2013 This is our great contemporary novelist at the top of his game in a sprawling novel that takes in events from the end of World War II to the present day as seen through the eyes of a diffident, everyman narrator. Clearly drawing on McEwan\u2019s own experiences, this is a book that looks at how we find meaning in our lives as well as the experiences and forces that shape us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons in Chemistry<\/strong> by Bonnie Garman<\/strong> \u2013 Now an established book group favourite, and television series, that has a positive, life-affirming message centred around one remarkable woman\u2019s determination to forge her own life and career as a scientist in conformist, patriarchal, post war America. Don\u2019t be fooled by my seemingly positive precis, though, as I found aspects of the way this book problematic after the sugar rush from reading it. Remember what I said about contrary views often leading to good discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett <\/strong>\u2013 It\u2019s hard not to be bowled over by this accomplished account of twin black girls from Louisiana whose lives take radically different turns when they run away from home. One of the twins decides to pass \u2013 pretend to be white \u2013 as a way to secure a better, safer life for herself. The consequence of this decision develops into a riveting exploration of identity and the fault lines at the heart of the American Dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ideas from other book groups<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A book group with book themed socials <\/strong> by Michelle Moyer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been a member of a wonderful book club for ten years and 100+ books. We met on the Fiction of Relationship class on Coursera (an online platform offering free university course content). Initially we met up weekly to discuss the set texts, but after the course ended, we decided to morph into a monthly book club with a twist. We thought it would be more interesting if we found a cultural activity to do with each book. We\u2019ve done a huge range of activities from immersive theatre to magical brunches to West End plays and even a trip to Vienna. Some highlights were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Life<\/em> by Tom Crewe combined with a visit to the LGBTQ+ Museum, Queer Britain
I\u2019ll Be Right There<\/em> by Shin Kyung-sook with a visit to see Ahn Sook-Sun perform a Pansori
The Hounds of the Baskervilles<\/em> by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a brilliant afternoon at the Sherlock: The Time is Now escape room<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Book Reviews<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Set 5<\/a>: Book, Lights, Camera, Action!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamnet <\/strong>by Maggie O’Farrell – film review<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House of Sand and Fog<\/strong> by Andre Dubus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death on the Nile<\/strong> by Agatha Christie<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scrublands<\/strong> by Chris Hammer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy Jones and the Six<\/strong> by Taylor Jenkins Reid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 4 : Four from 24<\/strong>
– 4 Great reads from 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Husbands<\/strong><\/a> by Holly Gramazio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Time<\/a><\/strong> by Kaliane Bradley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Girlfriend<\/a><\/strong> by Michelle Frances<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Fours<\/a><\/strong> by Miranda July<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 3: Something to Say <\/strong>
– books dealing with contemporary issues<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yellow Face<\/strong><\/a> by Rebecca Kuang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Pleasure<\/strong><\/a> by Mary Gaitskill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorrow and Blis<\/a>s<\/strong> by Meg Nolan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perfection<\/a><\/strong> by Vincenzo Latronico<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter Ghost<\/a><\/strong> by Isabella Hammad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An American Marriage<\/a><\/strong> by Tamari Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorial<\/a> <\/strong>by Bryan Washington<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machines Like Me<\/strong> <\/a>by Ian McEwan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Set 2: Literary Prize Winners<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girl, Woman, Other<\/strong><\/a> by Bernadine Evaristo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scrublands<\/a><\/strong> by Chris Hammer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kala<\/a><\/strong> by Colin Walsh<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust<\/a><\/strong> by Herman Diaz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small Things Like These<\/a><\/strong> by Claire Keegan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 1<\/strong>: Historical Novels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precipice<\/a> <\/strong>by Robert Harris<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beginning of Spring<\/a> <\/strong>by Penelope Fitzgerald<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brotherless Night<\/a><\/strong> by V. V. Gananshananthan <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Great Swindle<\/a> <\/strong>by Pierre LeMaitre<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booth<\/a> <\/strong>by Karen Jay Fowler<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Passenger <\/a><\/strong>by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamnet <\/a><\/strong>by Maggie O\u2019Farrell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White Girl<\/a><\/strong> by Tony Birch<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Rising Man<\/a><\/strong> by Abir Mukherjee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence of the Girls<\/a> <\/strong>by Pat Barker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free <\/a><\/strong>by Andrew Miller<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Set 5: Books, Lights, Camera, Action!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having just seen Hamnet, I thought about some of the books I\u2019ve read that have been adapted for the screen. Of course, O\u2019Farrell\u2019s book might be a topical choice for a really intriguing discussion especially as the film has received mixed reviews. I posted my review of the book in an earlier article but click this link<\/a> to read my film review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My book group\u2019s first go at comparing a book and a film was in our youthful late 20th<\/sup> century period when we had the energy to read \u2018House of Sand and Fog\u2019 by Andre Dubus III and watch the film adaptation starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read this book, before I wrote reviews, but I remember it as a powerful drama where a specific struggle between two under pressure characters provides the reader with a perspective on the state of America in the 1980s. We have a former high ranking Iranian Air Force officer, Behrani, exiled after the Islamic Revolution, who is trying to re-build his family\u2019s life in America. When he buys a house at auction, he seems to be advancing. Unfortunately, a bureaucratic error with the auction sets the house\u2019s owner, Kathy, a recovering addict, in conflict with Behrani to keep her home. It\u2019s a terrific story, tense, tragic and well-written. For what it\u2019s worth, I think the film matches the power of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classics such as Austen and Dickens provide ample material for this type of exercise and streaming makes this more manageable. Mind you, renting the \u2018House of Sand and Fog\u2019 video and piling round to Brendan\u2019s for a cinema night was a good bonding session for our group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For variety, I\u2019ve also attached a review by a guest contributor to my blog of \u2018Death on the Nile\u2019 <\/a>by Agatha Christie. It provides some fertile ideas for discussion whether you watch Ustinov\u2019s, Suchet\u2019s or Branagh\u2019s version of Poirot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have the time, then these two books have produced enjoyable television adaptations: \u2018Scrublands\u2019 <\/a>by Chris Hammer and \u2018Daisy Jones and the Six\u2019<\/a> by Taylor Jenkins Reid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scrublands is a well-crafted thriller set in Riversend, an isolated, drought-ridden Australian town. A year on from a tragic shooting in the town when a charismatic priest goes on a bloody spree before killing himself, a journalist, Martin Scarsden, arrives to report on how the town is recovering. Martin has his own demons and not long after he arrives another tragic event plunges Riversend into more national notoriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy Jones and the Six is set in the heady days of the early 1970s amongst the pop and rock giants of America\u2019s west coast. It charts the history of a legendary band who made one great album, headlined a giant tour and then disappeared from public view. The story is told as a series of current day interviews where all the band members and their entourage give their take on the story. A lazy analogy might be to think Fleetwood Mac but this story has artistic spats, sexual tension and musical highs that turn things up to eleven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 4: 4 from 24<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m limiting my recommendations for this issue. After all most of us will be inundated with reading ideas from those Best Reads of 2025 that proliferate at this time of year. Counterintuitively, I\u2019ve chosen four books that were released in 2024 \u2013 and at least two were regularly found in those best of lists from this time last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think these are all interesting books in their own way and being a year old you can, of course, purchase a paperback or a kindle version at a reasonable price. Reading as a hobby is great but can be an expensive activity if one is always buying hardbacks. With these choices, you get the pleasure of books that are still part of the current literary discussion but at an affordable price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a book with a striking narrative premise. Lauren arrives home after a boozy evening with her girlfriends and sees a man climbing down from her attic. Her partner, of course, as he asks about her evening and behaves with an easy warmth. The only problem is: Lauren is a single thirty something without a significant other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsequently she finds her husband changing every time there is a visit to the attic. This allows Lauren to experience a range of different possible relationships with the option to try something new if things aren’t working out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gramazio handles this narrative device with an engaging mixture of humour and humanity. Whilst making one laugh it also allows reflection about love and relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial conceit of The Ministry of Time is at once familiar \u2013 the complicated consequences of time travel \u2013 but delivered in an original narrative that allows emotional impact and moments of sly comedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel is set in the UK of the near future with an incredible premise bearing in mind the current view that nothing works in this country: the UK has discovered how to time travel! The project is incredibly hush hush and the Ministry of Time is assessing the impact of time travel by bringing back figures from the past to work alongside a group of trained government staff known as \u2018bridges\u2019 who will help the travellers acclimatise to the present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our focus is on one bridge and her charge. He is Commander Gordon Gore a naval officer who had been part of Franklin\u2019s ill-fated expedition to the Arctic in 1840. His bridge is a mixed race second generation British woman. Putting aside the improbability of a fairly straitlaced Victorian man being accommodated with a woman, the writer gets great value from the relationship between this odd couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a funny and moving sci-fi rom com and thriller. Well worth reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve reviewed this under my blog’s page turner section as it is the sort of psychological thriller that that you will have read or seen on television many times. That doesn’t mean it’s not an engaging example of the genre. It has sold well and been turned into a big budget series on Amazon with Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When charming Daniel is looking to spend his extensive trust fund on an expensive new home, he falls for Cooke\u2019s beautiful estate agent, Cherry. She is self-made, sharp, from a totally different background and on the lookout for the sort of life Daniel can offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She becomes engaged in a battle of wills for Daniel’s affections with his possessive mum. Neither woman is sympathetic and things quickly turn toxic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that’s your sort of thing then this is well done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Fours by Miranda July<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undoubtedly, this is one of the weirdest books I have read and also, at times, one of the most uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story begins conventionally enough: our unnamed narrator is a 45 year old multi-media artist who is quietly dissatisfied with her life. She has a reasonable level of recognition for her work but questions what next, creatively; and that sort of uneasy questioning applies, equally, to her family life and her entry into middle age. So far then so conventional. And you think you know where this story may be going when her husband, Harris, persuades her to take some time for herself by making a leisurely road trip from their home in California to New York for a potentially exciting new collaboration with a hot, young creative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that point on, though, bonkersness takes hold. She drives to a small town, Monrovia, about half an hour from her home and checks into a motel. She doesn\u2019t leave this for the entirety of the time she is meant to be travelling to and from the east coast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an awful lot going on in this woman\u2019s life that fuels her inner turmoil; and this is all gradually revealed. She exposes herself with searing honesty to our scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought this was a terrific book, compelling, discombobulating and illuminating. For a man to read it is an eye opener but a woman might get so much more and may not have reacted with some of the queasiness I express in my fuller review. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 3: Something to Say<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel is a great art form for exploring universal themes and contemporary issues. For this issue\u2019s recommendations, I am going to concentrate on several novels that I have read over the last few years that deal with ideas or situations that seem particularly pertinent to the times in which we live. They are all novels that tackle their themes head on. As a result, I would expect any of my choices below to generate a lively discussion in your book group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m certain you could all draw up your own lists of the things that are demanding our attention at the start of the twentieth century, and I\u2019m pretty sure that social media and its effect on behaviour would be on that list. Even though I have read some novels that tackle this subject – Nobody\u2019s Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize was probably the most intriguing – none of them really made an impression on me. However, for some of the recommendations below and many novels by a younger generation of writers in the Sally Rooney mould who live their lives as digital natives, the online world is an integral part of their everyday experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of other points before I get to the recommendations. First of all, I have chosen these books because I think they focus on a feature of our contemporary world in an interesting and engaging way. This is the thread that connects the books rather than just the nature of the subject explored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, I started writing a review blog in 2018 when I retired, and looking back at the earliest reviews included here, it is clear how quickly things have moved on for many of the issues. Also, I must apologise for the spoilers in my earliest reviews – the mistake of an amateur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yellow Face by Rebecca Kuang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

June is present when her friend, a successful young Asian American writer dies unexpectedly. She purloins her dead friend\u2019s first draft and notes for a new novel. Crafting and completing the book, she sends the finished novel to her publisher as a desperate gamble to re-start her faltering literary career. Success follows but at a price and with the ongoing anxiety of discovery and exposure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural appropriation, political correctness and identity politics are under scrutiny here along with the corrosive effects on the literary world of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book, written at the height of MeToo, is a short but powerful look at the playing out of accusations of sexually inappropriate behaviour by a powerful man in the New York publishing world. What makes the book particularly compelling is that it is narrated by a close female friend of the accused man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nuances and ambiguities of this issue, the abuses of power in the relationships between men and women in the workplace, are scrutinised in a concise but thought-provoking way in this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Nolan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book manages to blend laugh out loud moments about a forty year old woman in the Fleabag mould. Bluntly, it is about a woman with mental health issues who knows there is something wrong with her; this manifests itself in a sense of helplessness about her capability to change her damaging behaviour and dark moods, as well as in her lacerating sense of being useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family and relationships are explored through the lens of mental illness. It is moving but consistently engaging because our protagonist is kind, intelligent and funny alongside her chaotic nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perfection by Vicenzo Latronico<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story begins in the early 2000s with a couple of digital natives who re-locate to the coolest city in Europe, Berlin, in order to curate their perfect life. It\u2019s a short, highly stylised novel – the couple are never named nor properly differentiated – whose life is described by their possessions and activities rather than their hollow (perhaps) lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As traditional ways of living and working change for particular groups of society, what does it mean to lead a purposeful, meaningful life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot going on in this ambitious novel that looks at the disjointed, disrupted and historically blighted lives of Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in 2017. The story is told through the experiences of a London-based Palestinian actress visiting Israel  to see her family whilst escaping a failed relationship. She gets drawn into helping out with a Palestinian production of Hamlet, a form of cultural defiance, that enables the author to present the pressures on Palestinians as they try to lead their everyday lives. It also presents the rivalries between different groups within the Palestinian community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story deliberately wants to look at the Palestinian community and the Israelis are largely absent. It may seem dated after recent events in this part of the world but it does give a thought provoking perspective from a group of people whose experiences I knew little about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An American Marriage by Tamari Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ambitious and talented young black man is accused of a crime that he did not commit. So, yes, a familiar story from modern America but played out in a powerful and slightly different way than might be expected. The young man has an equally talented and ambitious wife and the story is about how their relationship responds to this miscarriage of justice. It is, therefore, as much about the nature of love and the relationship between black men and women in such a hostile environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorial by Bryan Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is again about the black experience in America but wholly different from An American Marriage.  The dilemma facing the two central protagonists, Mike and Benson, is universal \u2013 they are a few years into their relationship and are beginning to suspect that it may have run its course. The fact that Mike is Japanese, a decent chef working several jobs in not very decent restaurants, and Benson is a slightly buttoned up young black man who works in a day centre looking after disturbed children, and both have fraught, distant relationships with their respective families, only provides further complexity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not McEwan\u2019s best book of recent years, but still worth reading. This focuses on AI, with a twist – the twist being that a counterfactual history for Britain is created setting the story in a version of the 1980s where Alan Turing\u2019s pioneering work has led to the creation of androids for consumers to purchase. Of course, such a dramatic development brings unexpected consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some reminders of Ray Bradbury\u2019s sci-fi short stories from last mid-century but because it\u2019s McEwan there is also a metaphysical depth to his treatment of a world where people live alongside their AI counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set 2: Literary Prize Winners<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This term, I\u2019m looking at books that have won some of the top literary prizes and might be good choices for your book group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Booker Prize and The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for a short period, attract the attention of non-professional but enthusiastic readers of contemporary fiction \u2013 readers like me. The fulsome citations from the judges and the appearance of big name writers at these award ceremonies \u2013 McEwan, Atwood, Rushdie \u2013 always tempt me to make an expectant purchase. Unfortunately, as often as some books live up to the hype, many disappoint. This may be because, as a Booker judge once revealed, readability is not the main criterion for a novel to be in contention for the prize. In fact, a quick search will reveal several book blogs listing the worst prize-winning novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t intend to indulge in a naming and shaming exercise, tempted as I am having endured some wilfully complex, turgid novels. After all, books are incredibly important to people and I wouldn\u2019t want to decry a book for its stylistic excesses and impenetrability if it was someone\u2019s life changing, go to read. I\u2019ve put my foot in it too often in the past because of my aversion to magic realism!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, therefore, I\u2019m going to pick out five novels that I think thoroughly deserve their awards. In some cases, such as my first choice, I took up the book fearing it was more loved by the professional book reviewers than the common reader, only to then be pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, here are my five winners. And, even if your book group disagree with my choices, there will be ample opportunity for the sort of discussion that goes: I can\u2019t believe that (insert title) won (insert prize).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker Prize Winner 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel tells the story of twelve characters, mainly women, from a range of backgrounds who are often outsiders or at the margins of society. They are fully realised with all their flaws and vanities examined but also their humanity and warmth. Evaristo avoids presenting a polemic about the state of our contemporary, multicultural society by focusing on engaging characters with interesting stories. The different sections are loosely structured around a National Theatre premiere of a play by a middle aged black woman about a tribe of African Amazonian lesbian warriors. And it works perfectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scrublands by Chris Hammer<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Award for a debut crime novel in 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you enjoyed Jane Harper\u2019s \u2018The Dry\u2019 then \u2018Scrublands will appeal to you as it uses a similarly harsh Western Australia rural setting for a dark murder mystery. Like that novel, the setting, a sparsely populated and isolated town called Riversend, has formed its inhabitants: the good and the bad, their resilience and secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kala by Colin Walsh<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irish Book Award for Newcomer of the Year<\/strong> Prize 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the best page turner that I read in 2024. It has an archetypal murder mystery set-up but is a book with real depth and psychological insight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set-up \u2013 old school friends meet up in Kinlough, on the west coast of Ireland, 15 years after their world was ripped apart. In the summer of 2003, their final year before finishing school, the beautiful, charismatic and fearless Kala, the core member of their gang of six school outsiders, disappeared. Now a music gig and family wedding see the remaining five all together, again, in Kinlough just at the moment that the remains of a body are found in nearby woodland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trust by Herman Diaz<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book would appeal to the literati such as the Pulitzer judges and also to the wider reading public. The latter would respond to the gradual revelation of its central characters\u2019 secrets. Whilst the literati would respond to its four different narratives that circle around the lives of Andrew Bevel, a wealthy New York businessman from the early 20th<\/sup> century and his enigmatic wife, Mildred. All readers would lap up the book\u2019s exploration of where truth lies in every individual\u2019s story, whose perception can be trusted and how truth can be constructed and mis-constructed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keegan is a noted short story writer and this is a novella \u2013 I read it in one lazy afternoon \u2013 and, like the best short stories, it packs a powerful punch and leaves the reader with a sense of lives and events that will carry on after the story comes to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 1985 and Bill Furlong, a small businessman with his own coal merchant business in a small Irish town, is on a treadmill of hard work and family life. He is making his way with diligence and good humour \u2013 his energy and enterprise, we assume, will in a few years fuel the Celtic Tiger economy. Now, though, he is bound by the restricted and traditional society of this church dominated country. Keegan subtly hints at Bill\u2019s restless inner life that occasionally bursts through the conscientious routine of his daily life. He reflects on issues of fairness in such a hierarchical society, and beyond the ties of family he considers the individual\u2019s responsibility to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one Christmas during his final delivery to the local convent, an unexpected encounter forces him to challenge his passively complicit role in such a restrictive, cruel society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Set 1<\/strong>: Historical Novels <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the first set of recommendations to help you choose something for your book group. I have listed 11 books, each with my best attempt at a snappy synopsis. If you click on the link, though, you\u2019ll get a longer, slightly pretentious, and definitely verbose review \u2013 you have been warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I\u2019d start with historical novels because how successfully the author evokes the specific period covered is often a good starting point for discussion. Many of the books recommended here are also set in foreign countries and go back quite a way \u2013 the Greek-Trojan War is the most distant in time and the most recent is set in Sri Lanka in the last couple of decades before the millennium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope you find these titles helpful. I always like to hear what other readers think, so please drop a line if you feel the urge to berate me for wasting your time with a hopeless book! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Precipice by Robert Harris<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the historical hook is well known but rather at the margins\u2013 Herbert Asquith\u2019s relationship with a young aristocratic woman, Venetia Stanley, as he leads the country into conflict with Germany in 1914; and marked by his almost obsessive writing of scores of love letters, sometimes as he was chairing the cabinet. Harris, a masterly storyteller, brings the personal and public thrillingly to life as his characters and the whole of Europe teeter on the precipice.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This short, consistently enjoyable book is worth reading alone for its brilliant and, what seems, authentic depiction of Moscow life in 1913. Frank Reid, Russian born but from an English family, is the owner of a small printing business in Moscow who is coming to terms with his wife Nellie\u2019s sudden departure from the family home. Once again, the personal and private are in crisis as Frank tries to make sense of what has happened and take care of his children, all against the backdrop of the faltering Tsarist regime.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Brotherless Night by V. V. Gananshananthan <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This epic novel spans the decades long Sri Lanka civil war and focuses on the Tamil community. We see this brutal conflict from the perspective of Sashi, an intelligent, idealistic young woman whose youthful hopes and happy family life are battered by violence and tribalism. This is a tough read, with only a few shards of hope, but it is packed with powerful evocations of the people and events from an often over-looked conflict.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Great Swindle by Pierre LeMaitre<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a fictionalised account of a real-life scandal in France after the first world war. As the country tries to come to terms with its grief and looks how best to honour the dead, others see an opportunity to make a killing of their own. The story moves seamlessly between the most powerful in society and those scrabbling at its bottom end in the manner of a Dickens\u2019 novel.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Booth by Karen Jay Fowler<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is always heading towards the murder of Lincoln by the book\u2019s eponymous, actor assassin. It focuses, therefore, on an interesting study of the Booth family – theatre royalty – and the psychological forces that formed this notorious figure in American history. As well as some fascinating insights into what it meant to be an actor in the relatively newly formed country, the book considers the fissures in the US that resulted in the civil war and are with us today.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was written in 1938 by Boschwitz, a young German Jew who fled to London from his homeland to escape the Nazis. In a dramatic opening, Hitler\u2019s thugs are rounding up Berlin\u2019s Jews in a bogus response to an assassination in Paris. They arrive at the home of Otto Silbermann, who is forced to flee out the back door and keep moving. And that in essence is the plot \u2013 the novel is subtitled \u2018The man who took trains\u2019 and Otto spends most of the novel moving around the country in a Kafkaesque limbo where all his attempts to escape the country or seek other possible solutions are thwarted.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hamnet by Maggie O\u2019Farrell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his son\u2019s death, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, a great play obsessed with death and pervaded by a sense of loss and melancholy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Farrell makes a virtue of our sketchy knowledge of the bard and also his family who stayed rooted in Stratford whilst he ascended to literary immortality in London. This book is partly about him and his grief even though he is never named; but it is more about his wife and family and their life in a provincial Elizabethan town.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The White Girl By Tony Birch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a quietly powerful story about the experience of Australian Aborigines in the period straight after the second world war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel is set In Deane, an isolated, small, rural town, where the Aborigines live separate from their white neighbours and are alternately brutalised or condescended to but always seen as a group to be guided like children by an overweening state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story focuses on Odette a resilient older aboriginal woman whose skill as an artist gives her a degree of financial independence, and her thirteen year old granddaughter, Sissy, the white girl of the title. We quickly learn that Sissy\u2019s mother, Odette\u2019s daughter, left when Sissy was a baby, traumatised and shamed by what had been done to her and which had resulted in this fair skinned, mixed race child. As such she attracts the wrong kind of interest from those who should be protecting her.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Rising Man<\/strong> by Abir Mukherjee<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is 1919 and Sam Wyndham an ex-Scotland Yard detective, is newly arrived in Calcutta headhunted as part of a new CID force. He is looking for a fresh start following his experiences in the trenches and the death of his wife to Spanish Flu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The uncertainty and turmoil in his own life is matched by the turbulence of Calcutta. A mixture of terrorist attacks and the more damaging effect of the nascent non-violence\/non-cooperation movement are beginning to undermine British rule in India. He quickly has his first murder case to investigate whilst navigating the political pressures on him to reach the right outcome. This was the best sort of detective novel, not just because of the characterisation but the authentic whiff of fully realised historical milieu.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barker\u2019s 2018 novel is one of a recent trend of books based on well-known stories, many drawn from the classics, that present events from a female perspective. Here, the text is the Illiad and the main narrator is Briseis, a Trojan princess from the city of Lyrnessus. When the city is captured and sacked by Achilles and his Myrmidions, she is claimed as his prize. In one fell swoop her world changes utterly: she witnesses her husband and family being butchered by the seemingly unbeatable Achilles before being dragged to his camp on the beaches outside the great city of Troy as his prize, an object, and his slave who is forced to wait on him at post-battle feasts and in his bed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barker gives this intelligent and resilient woman her voice and perspective on the epic events going on around her.
Click here<\/a> for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a historical novel with thriller elements and characters coping with physical and psychological issues that they struggle to overcome. The early nineteenth century world is engagingly and plausibly realised as is the mood in Britain as it responds to or turns away from the looming threat of Napoleon\u2019s rampaging across Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Lacroix, a cavalry officer, brought home to his rundown family estate in Somerset, has escaped the Napoleonic War, fleeing from defeat in the Spanish Peninsular. He is injured and carrying an emotional burden that is just as damaging. He seeks solace and then escape in his love of music by setting out to the remotest areas of Scotland to collect folk songs. It is a deliberate turning away from his unfinished military responsibilities. However, the sinister forces of real politik are on his trail.
Click here <\/a>for the full review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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