Our book group meets the first Thursday of every month at the Wynnum Manly Leagues Club. New members are always welcome. Debby Raymond is our trusty leader and can be contacted by email at 2debbyraymond@gmail.com.
July 2016 review – The Boy Who Fell to Earth by Kathy Lette
This book resonated for several of our readers because it related to a child with Asperger’s. The boy who features in this book doesn’t have friends and can’t communicate socially with people. Such children can take things literally, meaning it’s too easy for adults to say things to them they afterwards regret.
We were very emotional during the introduction to the story as we thought it was memoir, till a little research showed us this was, in fact, a work of fiction, very believably written.
One of us couldn’t finish the book, finding it a bit confrontational. Others, who have family members with this condition, found it very close to home. Nevertheless we enjoyed elements of it because there were certainly some funny bits. A laugh is a good way to deal with things.
We found the love story aspect somewhat grating: it was predictable and cheesy. One reader felt the ‘Mills and Boons’ bits were unnecessary, and that the romances were too much. However, others felt that when there appears to be nothing in life for you, any little bit of romance is welcome. The Aussie boyfriend in the story was overplayed, but he was very nearly correct when he said ‘the only thing wrong with Merlin is his mother.’ And when it came to her in-laws, she was absolutely cutting. She didn’t hold back when putting them down. The truth was, they always deserved it.
We know that everyone has strengths and weakness, that we’re all different. It was an eye-opener to one of our members to learn you get ‘statemented’ with your disability.
As a society, we struggle with labelling people with their conditions. Though ‘labels’ are useful, we should try not to judge; rather use the description to understand.
One of our members has teaching experience in England where, she felt, the kids are much tougher than they are here in Australia. In mainstream schools in any country, however, bullying is rife for kids who are different.
Some Asperger’s-affected people can be ‘all limbs in jerky movements’. It’s quite poignant to hear such a young man say to you, ‘I’m teaching myself to smile.’
We liked the realism of how the boy’s family fell out and then got back together at the end, over the boy’s father – the ex-husband – coming back.
Overall, The Boy Who Fell to Earth was very realistic, and at the same time a moving and quite hard-hitting book.
June 2016 review- Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Those who attended June’s meeting of the Bay Belles book club were all enthused by Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue. They liked this non fiction work. Great choice of book, said Rachel!
This is in Josephine’s area of interest, who writes ‘what!’ in some parts of her copy when the author informs us of some remarkable (or doubtful) point. Debby has overcome her reluctance to write in books and now happily underlines informative passages and even writes in margins… How much easier it is then, to locate lines you want to come back to, facts that can be used elsewhere. Rachel loved it and found it so interesting, especially how Shakespeare developed so many thousands of words. Sue observed that the American billion is substantially different to the British one.
This was a surprisingly good read. Some people present even introduced us to their own new words – ‘confloxions’ was one, and ‘musgoes’ another.
We can’t afford to be rigid about the English language because it evolves on an almost daily basis. So many words come from Latin and Greek roots that to know these helps us to understand today’s English language. Josephine brought along Chambers Dictionary of Etymology to show us – an amazing book!
We also learnt there is only about 20% of the original Anglo Saxon left in our English language. More of it today has come to us from French.
One remarkable point we learnt was that the Chinese language has so many characters it’s difficult for people to use a keyboard, it would have to be so huge. That there are differences between the three Japanese languages of kanji, katakana and hiragana was also brought to our notice.
Not knowing another person’s language is a stumbling block to communication but sometimes language is not needed at all. Drawing stick figures can bridge ethnic and cultural boundaries, which can also lead to some hilarity. Sign language is so important. We use our hands to further illustrate what we mean.
We loved that the Inuit people have 50 different words to describe snow and aborigines have many words for trees but neither race apparently has the collective noun. Debby was amused to read about the difference between native creole and pidgin English.
Bill Bryson always acknowledges his sources which lends credence to its historical accuracy but can slow down the reading of Mother Tongue. Bryson also writes travel books which are quite amusing. One book club member read his book about Australia before migrating, to learn about the country.
Why isn’t there a revised edition of this book? It’s so good but it was written in 1990 and it needs updating.
Let’s give the closing line to Bryson himself. ‘Language is more like fashion than science. It wanders around like hem lines.’
March 2016 Review – Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay.
Picnic at Hanging Rock was a most descriptive and atmospheric book by Joan Lindsay. Readers felt there was not a lot of substance in it but its atmosphere was remarkable.
The story is not about what happened to a group of schoolgirls and their teacher, it is the mystery of their disappearance. What was noticeable was the disruption this event caused in their community and its lack of resolution to the mystery. In fact, the whole book is full of mysteries.
We recognised that the author must have had a supernatural bent. A time warp was what she was alluding to, even if the phrase wasn’t specifically mentioned, and there were occasional references made to aliens. We found one episode spooky when the schoolgirls were having a gym class during which they ‘spaced out’.
We were not supposed to like the school’s headmistress Mrs Appleyard nor did we like the character Michael, who came across as being ‘straight off the boat.’ However, we did like the stable hand, a down-to-earth guy.
Apart from the disappearance of the picnicking party at the rock, another of the girls died at the school. Was she murdered or did she commit suicide? For some readers it was unclear but some felt the headmistress covered up Sara’s suicide because she knew it to be her fault.
We questioned how true to the era, the early 1900’s, was the depiction of how Valentine’s Day was celebrated? And we also noted how women were very much judged on their appearances in that era.
One reader had read the children’s abridged version of the story and saw, even there, it includes some of the innuendo that is more overt in the full version.
The book group member who suggested we read this didn’t get out of it what she hoped, although she enjoyed it. Another member researched to find out why swans stand on one leg.
One reader was bothered by the stilted style of the writing. However, another found allusions to Roald Dahl with his twisted humour.
This was a somewhat ‘different’ mystery book of the era to have read but many of us found we might have spent our time more usefully and got just as much from it if we had watched the movie of the book, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay.
February 2016 review – The Black Tulip by Alexander Dumas
Our book for February was The Black Tulip by Alexander Dumas (first published in 1850; translated from French). Several of us had not managed to read the book.
The Black Tulip is set in The Hague and other areas of Holland, following the height of the tulip trade; it centres around the story of a prize of 100,000 guilders being offered for producing a black tulip, and the obsession of an otherwise shy and unassuming tulip grower to claim the prize, while his jealous neighbour is equally determined to do so, at the protagonist’s expense.
While the plot is fiction it is based around historical events, particularly the lynching of Prime Minister Johan de Witt and his brother in 1672, an event which is described in gruesome intensity at the beginning of the book.
While I had not remembered how shocking the beginning of the book was, the rest of the story was not quite as edge-of-the-seat dramatic as I remembered from reading it as a teenager. I was fascinated by such intensity over a flower. It’s an interesting read about a somewhat unusual historical topic.
The group was interested in discussing Alexandre Dumas as an author. The Black Tulip is one of his lesser known books compared to The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo. His books are sometimes described as “historical, but not history”.
We also discussed other books we have recently been reading, discovering that two have very much enjoyed The Lake House, a crime mystery and the story of a family, by Kate Morton, a Brisbane writer. Other book club members were keen to try this local writer. Though The Lake House is set in Cornwall, England, most of her other novels are set in and around Brisbane.
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, also set in Holland in a similar era to The Black Tulip, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, were two more books that members had opposing opinions about.
Alison highly recommended a little book called The Common Reader, about Queen Elizabeth visiting a mobile lending library.
Review submitted by Josephine Herbohn.
September 2015 review – The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin.
As a pseudo-autobiography this book worked because it was based on fact. The author substituted the many gaps in her subject’s history with fictionalised versions of what might have been happening in her life at the time. Extracts were quoted from contemporary newspapers at the beginning of each chapter to give Vinnie’s story its historical context. The backdrop was the development of the railways and then the civil war. Train travel at the time was very novel so it was well described whereas paddle steamers had been the commonly accepted way of travelling so were less referred to.
The book begins in 1841 with the birth of Lavinia (Vinnie) Mercy Warren Bump. Vinnie grew normally until she was about two, then her body simply stopped growing taller although she developed normally in all other ways. She remained all her life only two and a half feet tall and encountered many problems because of being only that height.
Vinnie’s family was very important to her, especially her younger sister Minnie who was likewise very small of stature. Their mother was a worrywort, always wanting to protect her children. Their father was the silent and practical type. He made Vinnie an essential set of steps to take everywhere with her so she could reach things, even to get up into bed. When Vinnie left home and went on the stage at the age of 18 she took her steps with her but left behind her embarrassing last name.
Vinnie was depicted as a rather self-centred person but her saving grace was that she had enough confidence to meet people as equals. She was well-educated and intelligent. She was ambitious as well and ultimately, she had the status and power to influence people about how women should be perceived. However, the reader was aware throughout that not being at the same level physically as other people can be intimidating. Because of the challenge of her lack of height she was familiar with the sturdier things of life; its foundations, the things that reach from the ground upwards. She knew to judge other women by the hems of their dresses. She was a vain woman and was always working out what other people thought of her.
Her relationship with PT Barnum, the great showman and entrepreneur, was romantic on Vinnie’s side but purely business-like on his. Barnum had a talent for reading people and he used it well, making him a true confidence man, if not trickster.
Background research on the content of this book was carried out by one reader to check how true some aspects of the story were. Vinnie, for instance, married a man who was similarly affected by proportionate dwarfism. Vinnie’s husband was known in his public life as Tom Thumb. Their wedding was like a royal event, with Vinnie’s wedding gown copied all across the American continent. People held ‘Tom Thumb’ parties not alone for themselves but also for their children. Throughout this pseudo-autobiography, Vinnie claimed never to have had marital relations with her husband, Charles. How did Charles accept the lack of sex with his wife? We never learned. This claim may not have been factual. We’re not even sure whether they had a baby together or if the baby was a foundling borrowed for their stage act.
In the end we came to the conclusion that what Vinnie wanted principally, was to be remembered. In The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb, she is.
As an aside, it was the availability of multiple copies at the library that made this a good suggestion for a book club.
August 2015 Review of China Court by Rumer Godden N/A
July 2015 Review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
A non-fiction book where the author’s aim for her family was to grow and eat only seasonably available foods.
There was a lot to digest (smiles!) in this real-life story, making for a slow read. However, we found the writing fluid and descriptive. We enjoyed amongst other things, Kingsolver’s account of going to her cheese-making classes and buying her preserving equipment. Above all, we liked the emphasis on family and community and the importance of community gardens and farmers’ markets.
We felt that daughter-and-cook Camille’s recipes were an essential contribution to the book, but we had to plough through the husband-and-scientist’s pieces. We compiled a list of our most important kitchen implements: good knives; kitchen whizz; Kenwood chef; dishwasher; and last but by no means least, husband. As Australian readers of this book we liked the nod to the Queensland blue pumpkin for making good soup.
People’s perennial obsession with food could almost be called ‘food porn’ because food and love (or love of food) certainly go together.
Kingsolver’s gentle introduction to her holiday with friends corrected some impressions we had held of the Amish people. We now understand more about their ethos regarding the use of technology.
For most cultures socialising occurs around the dinner table. In some cities of the developed world, housing is now being built without kitchens because the inhabitants eat out all the time. Many people today have been reared without the knowledge of how to make a meal with basic foodstuffs. Nor do they seem to understand that food bills for people who cook at home are far cheaper for those who buy the ingredients at the supermarket than for those who buy their meals out all the time. Eating vitamins is not a replacement for proper food.
Food packaging is a major aspect of food production, a topic not addressed in this book which we felt was a missed opportunity.
On a global level we are aware that international food aid is tied into political payback.
This book taught us how much we need to look at bio-security, where our food comes from and the importance of a varied diet. Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle prompted us to make more informed and long term decisions about the food we eat.
June 2015 review – The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson.
It is remarkable how, in a very enjoyable book, we had little to say about it at the outset because we were all in such agreement over it. The story was totally improbable but had plot “in spades” so that it was a real page-turner. We loved the unpredictable twists in it. With the twins called Holger 1 and Holger 2, we wondered how on earth did No. 1 survive, he was so stupid! We didn’t, however, dispute that a girl such as Nombeko could be so smart.
What was good about this book was how world politics were woven into it. This kept an otherwise unbelievable story grounded in reality. We also liked the history and the sense of place in it. More importantly, we thanked god we don’t have the responsibility of an atom bomb to mind!
We enjoyed the read for the escapism it offered us, were agog at the ineptitude of the National Task Force, and laughed at the far-fetched idea of a king and a prime minister happily rolling up their sleeves to get stuck into the washing up after a meal in a humble home.
What each reader learned from this book was how little interest we took in the world outside us years ago; the lack of racism but very defined class distinction in some people’s lives, and that other people’s lives can be a whole lot worse than yours.
Although the passage of time sometimes eluded us in this story we all agreed on the pure enjoyment we derived from it. In fact, we loved Jonas Jonasson’s book The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden so much that we’ve launched off straight away to read his others.
May 2015 review – The Fig Tree by Arnold Zable
Our book this month was The Fig Tree by Arnold Zable, a non-fiction memoir of the author’s family and heritage, inspired by the birth of the author’s son. It also revolves around the value of stories. The chapters are self-contained though they weave in and out the many topics of heritage, literature, and family; and migration, dispossession, and re-finding or re-remaking home. The first and last chapters highlight storytelling.
The author is of Polish Jewish heritage and his wife’s family are mostly from the Greek island of Ithaca.
On recommending this book I was conscious of the audience I had invited to read it, and wondered what they might think of it! Would the writing I found so lovely and poetic when I first read it many years ago sound slow to them and would the focus on literature, writing and story-telling be as interesting to them?
One of our ladies focussed on finding the overall meaning and point of the book, and could not come to a firm conclusion. On second reading I too found many more themes than I remembered. We all tended to like (and dislike) different stories and chapters.
The father’s story of how he had wanted to be a poet throughout all his working life but had subjugated his own wishes to his family’s needs, and then coming back eventually to his writing in retirement, was a favourite.
The stories of the wife’s family on the Greek Island of Ithaca, and the author’s family’s visit there with their little boy (‘Ancestral Roads’), were the most impressive and interesting, but some readers found them long-winded.
The actual story ‘The Fig Tree’, impressed us and meant something to us, not for all the same reasons. The author wrote sensitively about his mother-in-law dying. We empathised with the hospital scenes.
We were all taken with the passage near the end of this chapter that begins: “Emerging from St. Vincent’s for the last time, just hours after Lily passed away, I am struck by the contrast between the stillness that has been induced in us after three weeks of vigil…, and the hurried steps of passers-by, the drone of traffic careering along a busy road. And the thought rears up: what is the destination of all this movement? Where are we headed for in this dash through life? Why is it that it takes a brush with illness and death to make us think about deeper values, about fig trees and ancestral roads, and loved ones and the fragility of life.”
April 2015 review: The Kitchen’s God Wife by Amy Tan
Present: Alison Ashkar, Deb Raymond, Debbie Cheeseman, Helen Brownbill, Josephine Herbohn, Natalie Russell, Sue Brown.
Apologies: Andrea Economou, Pat Dacomb.
This was a difficult book set to a background of war which affected all of society, and having as a foreground the domestic abuse suffered by the main character and narrator, Winnie. Winnie’s recall as she recounted her life from a very early age was remarkable. We discussed Winnie’s relationships with those around her, particularly between her and her daughter. Were their difficulties due to cultural differences between life in China and life in America? We all agreed that every point of view is unique and different to others’ and that having secrets never makes for good communication. Some families are more open about sex, less naïve than in Winnie’s era in China as she grew up and became a young woman during the Second World War. Being unhappy in your marriage is not a feature felt only by Chinese people. We enjoyed the dig that was made at the abusive man, Wen Fu, who preferred the sound of the name Judas rather than the first American name allocated to him by Jimmy Louie, the man who would become Winnie’s second husband. Some of our favourite parts included Winnie’s discovery that her children were equally rebellious despite their different parentage; some of the female relationships were comfortable, amusing even, demonstrating a deep-down love despite their superstitions for everything; and where Winnie pointed a gun at her abusive ex-husband forcing him to lose his trousers was Winnie’s first act of vengeance showing that she came out on top in the end.
March 2015 review: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Life of Pi, our suggested book for our March book club meeting, provoked lively and intense discussion. One reader looked throughout for the deeper symbolism of the characters. For her, the tiger suggested death and the orang utan purity. Or perhaps they represented parts of Pi’s personality or spiritual aspects of life.
Another reader who didn’t enjoy it so much, was left wondering why this book won the Man Booker prize for 2002? Another again disagreed entirely with the description of it as a ‘feel good’ story – the potential audience was misled by the rear cover ‘blurb’. One lady freely admitted to being gullible and wanting to believe the story was true because she loves survival stories.
We found it all rather too incredible so it was difficult to find anything believable about it. What was least believable was that a 16 year-old boy could think so profoundly.
What facts did we learn from this book? How a solar still works to collect sea water and convert it into drinking water; and that Pondicherry is a real place in India.
What did we think of the similarities drawn between religion and zoology? We liked this approach by the author which we discussed at length.
We each read aloud a favourite paragraph. This novel has had several reprints so beware quoting a page number as it may not be the same page number in another version.
Although one reader found the ending(s) disappointing, some of us read this book in only 2 days, finding it difficult to get into to start with but enjoying it by the end.
February 2015 review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
The premise: The German Occupation of Guernsey during WW2 and how the islanders coped for 5 years.
The setting of this book, Guernsey, made the island almost a character in itself.
The characters came to life as being people we could visualise. We acknowledged that ‘you live your hardship’ in dealing with whatever life throws at you. The epistolary style of this book was felt to be a bit challenging by one reader; but another felt it was good to be able to dip into. By coincidence, the three members present all happened to be the eldest of their families. Will this be a trend? Smiles!
We raised a point about ‘generational memory’ and our sadness at its loss.
Regarding food and its critical lack during the war years, especially on an island we wondered if, in the present day, we as parents have done our job too well in catering for our offspring? We constantly come across occasions when our children simply don’t know what to do about basic food preparation or provision perhaps because we, as mothers, have looked after them too well as they were growing up.
The Cadbury family were understood to be Quakers during the war years, conscientious objectors.
At the end of the day we realised the truth of the saying ‘You learn who your friends are when you are faced with adversity’.
Bay Belles QCWA 