Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

This novel is loosely based on an event which actually happened in Lima, Peru a few years ago when the country was under President Fujimori and terrorists stormed the Japanese Embassy.
We thought this was a very well written novel where Ann Patchett was able to tell the story from seemingly no one particular person's voice.  We were able to sympathise with hostages and terrorists alike and felt this has the makings of a good movie!
I was particularly inspired as I had just visited Lima and had my suspicions this novel was based there even though the author was deliberately vague about the country. The introduction of an opera singer and accompanist added a lovely element to the story.  You almost felt compelled to put on the particular piece of piano music or aria while Ann Patchett was describing the performances...

We rate this book 9/10 and would have given it a higher score if the love stories were a bit more toned down.  The ending also surprised a few of us.

Our suggested list of holiday reading :


Caleb's Crossing : A Novel by Geraldine Brooks
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

We wish everyone a safe and Happy Holiday and look forward to more good books in 2012!

Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi

This book gives the reader in insight into anorexia.  At times confronting, at times unbelievable, this biography of a model/actress who suffered from this all too common eating disorder of today's young girls paints a somewhat intimate picture of the state of mind of an anorexic sufferer.

There is no question that this is a mental illness which seems to consume the entire way of life of the anorexic person.  From the moment she woke up, Portia de Rossi was entirely fixated with how many calories she ate and how much she has burnt through the day.  She resorted to lying to her nutritionist and family and friends to hide how little she was actually eating.

She seemed to blame her mother for starting her down this path where she felt her self worth was entirely based on how she looked.  When she put on weight, she felt that she was an undeserving lazy person. This may be a timely reminder to mothers to be careful about the sort of message you send to your daughters.

I personally found the chewing gum binge scene quite disturbing.  I did ask myself while reading this book how someone can expend so much time and energy on something which should be nourishing your body to do other more meaningful things. This mental illness seems very much tied to one's self confidence and perception of one's self image.

During our discussion, we felt that this book didn't really explain how she in the end was able to conquer this condition and was able to enter into a much publicised relationship with Ellen Degeneres. Or that she was lucky enough not to suffer any longer term detrimental effects on her health. Her shameful feelings of being gay seemed very much tied to her anorexia problem.

We rate this book 6 out of 10.
Our next novel is Bel Canto by Ann Patchett ( a great read!) and will take place on December 6th at 7:30pm at Sharon's.
It will also be our Xmas party so please bring along any suggested holiday readings.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

This is a novel about early onset Alzheimer's and was a great read.  The novel is written from the perspective of the patient and you see her deterioration with each subsequent visit to the doctor.

We felt that this is a must read to get an understanding of this frightening disease.  The author deliberately chose a heroine who dispels our preconceived notions of a "typical" Alzheimer's patient.  Alice is intelligent, articulate, fit and young!  

It can happen to anyone and Alice had the unlucky gene and has passed on this gene onto some of her children.

Would you like to know if you have that gene?  If not, why?  Is it because there is no cure?  All these are very relevant questions.

We found several scenes in this novel particularly confronting : being totally disorientated on her normal everyday run, finding herself in her neighbour's kitchen thinking it was her own and not realising she had just said the exact same thing to her colleagues in a meeting....

It is also very realistic how everyone around Alice is not sure how to treat her once they find out--it is almost like a taboo subject.  Her husband's reactions deserve a mention here.  He is portrayed as quite selfish and cannot even stand watching her take her medications!

We highly recommend this book as it made us all think seriously about Alzheimer's and examine our own attitude towards dementia in general.  We rate this book 9/10.

Our next novel is Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi and our meeting will take place on Nov 2 at Robyn's.  That will leave us with just one more meeting this year where we will discuss the novel chosen by Patricia : Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.  That meeting will take place at Sharon's on Nov 30.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

This is a first novel from Marina Lewycka.  She was born in a refugee camp in Germany in 1946 and moved to the UK when she was one. Short History turned out to be quite successful, winning and being short listed for prizes and her subsequent novels are Two Caravans (released as Strawberry Fields in USA and Canada) and We Are All Made Of Glue.
This is an often humorous book about what happens when an 84 year old widower marries a young Ukrainian bombshell wanting to settle in the UK. Much of our discussion was prompted by Jane asking a list of questions about the characters in the book which I believe was taken from the author's own website.  If you are interested to hear Marina discuss her book and think about the list of the questions, this is the link : http://marinalewycka.com/tractors.html

The book is very much about the relationships in families--between an elderly parent and his grown daughters, between the two sisters, and how these relationships are threatened or transformed by the introduction of the young wife Valentina and her "genius" son into the picture.
Despite Valentina being portrayed as a "gold-digger", there were sympathies for her wanting a "better" future for her son.
We rate the book 7 out of 10.

Our next book is Still Alice by Lisa Genova (another debut novel) and our meeting will take place at Megan's on September 21.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Our meeting on "The Year of Magical Thinking" did not unfortunately take place, again due to last minute cancellations.
Luckily we had a big enough forum to discuss the work of Jacobson.  It was a most enjoyable evening (thank you Sally) despite the fact that most members of the group struggled to finish the book!  Our impression was that this is very much a "blokes'" book and we found the characters and their voices hard to relate to.
We thought that the author was clever using "Finkler" to be synonymous with "Jew" in this novel.  He was then able to freely play around with this word and all it's connotations and variations.  We generally felt that we needed more of an insight into Jewish customs and vocabulary to fully appreciate the author's cleverness and humour.
We give this book a rating of 5/10.

Our next book is A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine by Marina Lewycka and our meeting is now postponed to August 31st at Jane's.

Hand Me Down World

Our book chosen by Sarah was Hand Me Down World but unfortunately, our meeting was cancelled due to poor attendance.  We have decided to let our book group members post their comments about this novel on the blog instead.

Our next meeting is June 22 at Sharon's and the book chosen is The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Thanks!

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is a clever story about a little girl Liesel Meminger and her foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann during the Second World War, told from an unusual point of view, that of the voice of Death.

Some found it hard going at first but for those of us who finished this tome of some 580 pages, we loved it!! We thought the author did a good job bringing all these characters to life and had us interested in their intertwining stories.  One just can't help loving papa and mama and feeling the terrible sacrifices they were willing to pay to hide Max.  The Word Shaker Story was particularly clever. And the bread incident for the starving Jewish man was actually a story that the author's parents told him about the war.  We feel that no one is too old for this story as it is really about humanity.

This author has written other books which are quite different to The Book Thief and this may be his best work yet.  

I'd like to note that there was however a dissenting voice in our group who felt that the characters could not carry the story.

If you should want to listen to this book, it is available at Audible.com and the narrator Allan Corduner is superb.

We rate this book 9-9.5 out of 10.

Our next book is Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones and will be at Sarah's on April 27 at 7:30pm.--news flash : meeting postponed to May 10th.

Island Beneath The Sea

This is the latest novel by Isabel Allende and is a historical novel set in the 1700s in Haiti, formerly known as  Saint-Domingue, a French colony.  We felt that even though there were some surprises, this novel was a bit disappointing as it failed to grab its audience.  We found that the narrative of one of the main characters, Zarité, was not too believable as she is meant to be illiterate.  Even though this novel did give the reader a good background to Haiti's past, we do question how historically accurate the author was to this period in Haiti's history.

The ending was a bit of a let-down as it was quite rushed for a novel of this length and we found that the magical realism doesn't quite come through for this novel, unlike some of Allende's earlier works.

For those who have read her previous works, they much preferred The House of The Spirits or Sum of Our Days instead.

We rate this book 6 ½ to 7 out of 10.

Our next book is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and will be at Marny's place on March 23 at 7:30pm.