Life changing books

Looking forward to seeing you on Monday, gang. Hope you enjoyed the book – a bit of a contrast to the lazy hazy days of summer I believe you have been experiencing whilst I’ve been getting wet in Washington. But food for thought and talk.
Found this on Mark Robinson’s blog - it’s about which books might have changed your life. Interesting – wondered if you had one or more that you could come up with? I was thinking probably Little Women for starters. The Golden Notebook. And quite weirdly a set of Enid Blyton stories which I will explain if you are interested! Plus a book by Viktor Frankl called Man’s Search For Meaning had a big effect on me. But honestly there is no way I could limit it to 5. Every book I read has some effect, some mind-altering quality (except the really awful ones and maybe even those too). Poetry of course – this by Mary Oliver, but loads going back into nursery rhyme times .. (are the children all in bed? It’s past 8 o’clock ..) Maybe I am entirely constructed out of books. Probably could do with an edit.

p.s. I wanted to tell you

.. next meeting at my house. If you don’t know where that is, you can mail olivia@newwritingnorth.com to find out. And also – it’s my birthday, so you might get a teapot cocktail.

Unending

Sorry we didn’t hugely enjoy Julian Barnes. Always interesting to read a Booker Prize winner, even if we were not that impressed! Who knows what these guys are looking for, or what affects choices like this? Bad enough getting people to agree at your average book group.
Not ours, obviously.
Maybe we should have a book group booker? Favourite book of the year’s choices? Think mine might be Annabel so far.
Next book is My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young, at my house. For those who don’t know where that is, please can you email Olivia at New Writing North? Thanks.
The exhibition I was talking about is at the Durham Light Infantry museum and gallery, more info here.

Happy family picture here, unfortunately not made of flesh. 

Catch up

Hi all and hope you had a good Easter. Thanks to those who made it to the Annabel book group – the discussion was great. It was a really good read in so many ways and I think everybody got something from reading it.
Next book group at Simon’s as it’s a bank holiday. Let me know if you need the address. We will be reading The Sense of an Ending – looking forward to that. Then we will have to discuss next books and also a possible new venue.

Bookgroup Bonkers

Hi all hope you are all happy with changing to Tuesday next week – think I have managed to contact all of you. Just unavoidably detained in Cambridge!
Some of you have said – good – an extra day to read the book! It’s quite a tome isn’t it? But I am really enjoying it – think it’s very clever, and tells me many things I didn’t know. It’s a good, though sometimes harrowing way to learn history.
Always impressed by authors who manage so many intertwined voices. Like J Egan, but perhaps this is going a little deeper? Discuss. We probably will.

techno talk

Thank you all for last night. Just the kind of wide ranging discussion that a good book group can generate. And it didn’t matter that some of us weren’t that into the book – there was so much to talk about.

Re our observations on digital natives / digital immigrants and the “technology is neutral” thoughts – here’s a link to Noam Chomsky’s views on technology and education, vai a blogger. He spoke at the Learning Without Frontiers conference I mentioned last night . Worth tracking the other talks down too if you are interested in this kind of thing.

Different kind of book coming up – let’s hope we get as much out of this one.

I’m in Cambridge tonight and it’s very very cold.

Snowed under

Lovely white stuff – hope it won’t get in the way of tomorrow’s book group. Looking forward to discussing this book with you all. Interesting take on the episodic – which you will either like or not I suppose. My only beef is that there are some characters in the book I would have liked to have spent a little more time with. Rather than seeing first in close up and then only from a distance. But it’s part of the clever construction of this novel, which I really enjoyed. 
Good fun reading poetry at Teesside Library yesterday in celebration of National Libraries Day. Another institution we so can’t afford to lose – in fact I find it hard to understand why anybody would think it a good idea to close a library or an arts centre, given the grim times we are living in. Surely there must be a way to keep vital community resources alive? Maybe the people who make these decisions are too far away from the world in which these places and resources matter.
I think one of my happiest ever memories was going to Newcastle Uni library after I had just started on my degree (not 18 but 22 – it felt mature then God help me) and realising that I was going to be able to use all these resources whenever I wanted to for three whole years. Walking out into the dusk carrying an armful of them. Absolute joy. Reading goes on being one of the top pleasures of my life.
I like snow, too.

Great discussion

Thanks all for Monday’s bookgroup, and welcome to our new members. It was an excellent discussion: betrayal is clearly a topic we all have views on, not to mention Scandinavian thrillers, thrillers in general, and what makes us lose our grip on a novel. I liked the idea that we are very forgiving of McGuffins if we believe the characters and their situation – otherwise holes appear like those in my not very good knitting. I wonder if one night we should ask the knitting group to join us? But that would make it even more difficult for Simon as the token man at bookgroup.
It’s a serious question: why don’t many men come to bookgroups? Or if they do, they tend to join men only ones, treating it like a garden shed type arrangement with no girls allowed. I am certainly going to try to encourage a few more chaps to come along on Monday nights, and maybe you would all do the same?
But really, whatever happens – I love our Monday evenings, thoroughly enjoy our discussions and everybody’s company. Next book is Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad – you can find some interesting definitions of Goon Squad here.

Betrayal

Happy New Year all looking forward to meeting next Monday to discuss Betrayal and any other books you may have got for Christmas or maybe it just gave you the opportunity to catch up on some of those tomes on your bedside pile. I’m reading Michael Ondaatje which is a real treat – found one on a market stall that I hadn’t read and have also downloaded one to my new Kindle ahem yes I am now fully digital in the reading department. Well that’s not precisely true as have also got a stack of brilliant new proper books to read too. Mix and match innit.

Was a bit less than impressed with second series of The Killing in spite of nice knitwear. It just got a bit daft frankly. But was interesting to be watching that alongside reading KA just for the atmosphere. It all went wrong when she went to Afghanistan though didn’t it? The knitwear just doesn’t work. Sorry I am back to The Killing here for any confused readers. All will become clear next Monday I’m sure.

Happy Christmas and a Reschedule

Just to say a very happy Christmas to all of you – it’s been a lovely year for bookgroup. I really enjoy Monday nights with you all and hope we can press on through arts cuts, closures and even the Olympics in 2012.
We won’t be meeting on the 2nd but on the 9th – apparently the 2nd is a Bank Hol which I don’t think I had quite realised and AC is closed.
See you all then – I’m enjoying Betrayal though I’m not entirely sure why!
lots of love to you all

The Thriller it is

Hi Everybody good to see you all on Monday – that was a really fun meeting and I learned quite a lot about my own reading habits and a rather sad adult inability to combine the visual with the textual. Enjoying the book that Amy lent me, though – another kind of graphic novel that seems to suit a square like me – as did Persepolis and Maus.

Anyhow – hope you are all OK if we go for the Scandinavian Thriller – we haven’t done a thriller since the Kate Atkinson days, so let’s see what we make of this one? Karin Alvtegen’s Betrayal. Hope you are all OK with meeting on Jan 2nd let me know if not.

 

January book

We need to choose a book for January and I have some suggestions:
Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt (an exploration of depression)
Betrayal by Karin Alvetegen (Scandinavian thriller)
The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn (memoir: this lady is talking in Newcastle on Dec 1st at NCLA find out more http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ncla/events/readings/)

Let me know if you have a preference please, otherwise I might just go for one (probably the thriller, though I am intrigued by the memoir and think if nobody objects, this could be something we read next year?)
See you next Monday.

Thinking ahead

How are we doing with the graphic novel? I have only just started it so not sure yet – realising it involves a different way to read. I have to slow myself down to take in the visuals which are as much part of the story as the words. I am also wondering how these work on a Kindle. Maybe one of you is using an e-reader for this book? Would be an interesting comparison.
I am finding myself being drawn into e-book world, partly as friends start publishing their own work this way. It’s going to happen I guess.

Do you have any suggestions for next year? I have a couple and will bring them to next bookgroup – you can too.  I hope we will be able to continue using the arts centre at least for a while but if not I will come up with an alternative venue. Really enjoying our group in all its diverse opinions!

In the meantime, Simon and I are planning a party for December 10th just a get together for Christmas not just bookgroup but would love you to come. Details at next bookgroup – it’ll be at S’s house.

Marilyn pics

Some lovely photos of Marilyn in Manhattan.

Maf

Well he’s quite a lovable character, isn’t he? The ideal companion, really – intelligent, well read, humorous, good looking, protective. Unfortunately he speaks such a different language that a relationship with him would be based on soulful looks and some rudimentary communication for practical purposes -a bit like those holiday romances you used to have with the help of half remembered O level Spanish.

I love the references in this book to other dogs in fiction and in the world in general, not to mention the dog’s eye view of real people such as Jack Kennedy, Lillian Hellman, Allen Ginsberg. It all makes a kind of sense. I’m not sure how much more it’s helping me to know Marilyn, although the acting class and her therapy session both show her vulnerability. I like that we are shown her sense of humour too, and that the cruel stuff about her being difficult and impossible to work with are not dwelled on (at least not in the part I have read so far).

There have been moments where I have laughed out loud in this book – I love the description of Lassie: “a dog whose eyes blazed with the existentialist thinking of Martin Heidegger”. We know it ends in tears but I am enjoying the journey.

 

 Have you read other books from a dog’s or other animal’s point of view? I’m  thinking Black Beauty and 101 Dalmatians but I’m not sure if in fact these are told  from the animal’s viewpoint or that’s just my memory. One of the things we might  discuss next Monday, plus who would write your biography, animal or object  wise? Animals would only be able to give a slice – which is why Maf’s part in his  owner’s life is so well timed and poignant. Maybe your handbag could reveal  more about you, a dogsbody in leather clothing.

Canine perspective

I think it might be the first time I’ve read a book from the perspective of a dog, although I’ve read lots of books about Ms Monroe. So far, I’m enjoying this – might be the “funny book” we’ve all been craving? Though perhaps there’s trouble ahead.
In NYC (ahem I’ve just been there actually ..) dogs are all over the place. A lot of them aren’t what I’d call a dog – more a cute accessory, like those phone charms. You can hang them off your handbag, stuff them in a backpack, carry them under your arm. A fluffy thingy which doesn’t seem to react in normal doglike ways. Just behaves. You can also buy your “dog” a full wardrobe including fancy dress.
In the parks, you can go into lovely little play areas with your “dog” so that it can meet other bits of fluff. It wouldn’t be hard to just hoover up the lot of them. Can’t imagine any of them having the wit and wisdom of our Maf.
Hope you are enjoying it and look forward to discussing. Arf.

All set

Hope The Possessions has gone down well with everybody. When I started reading it the weather was fairly awful, in tune with the book’s themes. Unfortunately, the sun has been so cheery and glorious this wek I have forgotten about dark and grim but I’m sure I can slide back into that, no bother. I think there are lots of things in relation to the book and the gothic novel in general to talk about – and
don’t forget that RTK is on at the Durham Bookfest on Tuesday October the 18th. More info  here.  And just to let you know  JC is dressing up as a Georgian Lady  this Sunday and reading poems at Pockerley Hall in Beamish. I will be tracing themes around feminism and the rural life from early 19th century up to now, and will include some of my own work. Plus I have a Northumbrian Piper wiht me. Come along and lob a turnip. It’ll be a great day out – Beamish is fab in a surreal, Prisoneresque kind of way. New fish and chip shop too.

Possessed

Just back from a week in mysterious Suffolk where I finished reading Dr F. Maybe it’s those very dark nights, punctuated by owls and insomniac seagulls, but the book left me with a very uneasy feeling indeed. Interesting neo gothic – or is it? Check what Toby Litt has to say about it here. I thought it was a very good read myself, and there’s a lot to talk about. An article on the radio this week about what happens to models after they hit 30 (or middle age as they like to call it) also made me think about the whole obsession with youth, the pain of losing beauty (or anyway beauty as defined by some people). I dunno – is it really so important?
Babel at The Forum this Thursday – do come on down for some excellent poetry, music and cabaret.

Oops..

Sorry everybody seems like we will all need to buy a copy of Dr Forrest after all – the freebies are just for the people of Durham as part of the bookfest. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

Thanks

Thanks to Dan (and to Laura!) for coming to our bookgroup and to everybody who came along. It was really good to have an author at bookgroup and to be able to ask some of those burning questions. Plus good to know more about the origins of a book, and to find out more about Dan’s new work.
I’ll collect our next book from Durham next week and drop them off at the Arts Centre for collection – I hope this will give everybody enough time to read it. Look forward to seeing you all in October (just before my holiday in NYC ahem ..)