Book Club

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Hi guys, thought I would set up another book club. Good to see what you lovely people are reading.

 

I’m currently still on Lincoln in the Bardo as I haven’t had much time lately.

 

Dom

9 thoughts on “Book Club”

  1. ‘The Golden Mean’ by Annabel Lyon, recommended by Eliza. I started it a while ago but then got sidetracked by other things, like Wallflowers, so am just now returning. The book is about Aristotle tutoring the boy who would become Alexander the Great.

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  2. I’m rereading ‘Do no Harm’ by Henry Marsh, about his career in brain surgery. I read this for the first time last spring and loved it, and it’s again absolutely enthralling. Question for Andrew and Peter – do you enjoy reading doctor-memoirs, or get enough of that at work?

    I’m also in the early stages of Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato, whose work I only recently discovered but now totally love. He’s got that addictive writing style that seems simple on the page but is filled with magical and lasting details.

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  3. I do not chose medical memoirs/ stuff now, but was much influenced by Axel Munthe-“The Story of San Michele, Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage”, A.J.Croniin, The Citadel, Chekov’s Medical stories and as a student I produced Bernard Shaw’s,” A Doctor’s Dilemma”.
    These are very well written and now period pieces.

    I have just finished Edna O’Brien, ” A Pagan Place”, (a state of Catholic consciousness and guilt, a bit overdone to my mind, Virginia Bailey, “Early one Morning”. apparently a best seller which makes me wary, but a thoughtful story, excellent characterisations with a complex plot moving between 1943 and 1973-sh in Rome ,It describes something of Jewish persecution, the ambivalence around sanctuary and what happened afterwards.

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  4. Thanks Dom, it’s so interesting to hear what others are reading.
    I have just finished ‘Lolly Willows’ by Sylvia Townsend Warner which is a sharp and funny story written in 1926 about a woman who breaks away from the stultifying life of an unmarried woman in a most extraordinary way.
    Now I’m reading Patrick Hamilton’s ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ written at the end of WW2, set in London. It’s very funny and beautifully written.
    I loved ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ and Anne Tyler’s ‘Vinegar Girl’ which I read for my local book group run by our bookshop. It’s based on ‘Taming of the Shrew’ but set in modern day Baltimore – very clever and entertaining.

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    • On Vinegar Girl, I believe it’s part of a set of Shakespearean adaptions by well known authors that was commissioned by a publisher a few years ago? I’ve heard Margaret Atwood’s Tempest adaption, Hagseed, is superb as well.

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  5. I’m on The Power by Naomi Alderman at the moment. Quite weird but very intriguing ideas. Similar vibes to The Handmaids Tale but in reverse so women have the power and men are discriminated against. I’m not sure I’ll know how I feel about it until I’ve read it!

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  6. Hi guys, currently reading Joe Hill’s The Fireman. Quite an unsettling view of an American future literally up in smoke. Interesting stuff. Hill has a way of making you comfortable with the characters and then pull the rug from beneath your feet.

    Dom

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