The Long Song by Andrea Levy

I hadn’t heard of this book until I saw it mentioned on The TV Book Show on Channel 4. They seemed to like it so I thought I’d give it a try with the group and see what everyone thought.

The Long Song is Andrea Levy’s first novel in six years, following the critically acclaimed and award-winning Small Island.

Told by July, a slave girl born on a Jamaican sugar plantation in the 19th century, this is the story of her life during and after the last years of slavery.

We had a few interesting topics to discuss in the group arising from this book and one particular topic (discussing the similarities of slavery back in 19th century Jamaica, and the comparisons of modern living and working) made for quite an interesting chat! (The similarities can be very scary!)

As a whole, our group found this to be a very interesting, enjoyable and thought provoking book about slavery in Jamaica in the 19th century and the tribulations of those unfortunate souls who worked on the sugar plantations. It made me wonder just how much truth was in those pages so I did a little research and found an essay which the author wrote explaining what The Long Song meant to her.

Here is what I found:

At a conference in London, several years ago, the topic for discussion was the legacy of slavery. A young woman stood up to ask a heartfelt question of the panel: How could she be proud of her Jamaican roots, she wanted to know, when her ancestors had been slaves? I cannot recall the panel’s response to the woman’s question but, as I sat silently in the audience, I do remember my own. Of Jamaican heritage myself, I wondered why anyone would feel any ambivalence or shame at having a slave ancestry? Had she never felt the sentiments once expressed to me by a Jamaican acquaintance of mine? ‘If our ancestors survived the slave ships they were strong. If they survived the plantations they were clever.’ It is a rich and proud heritage. It was at that moment that I felt something stirring in me. Could a novelist persuade this young woman to have pride in her slave ancestors through telling her a story? That was where the idea for The Long Song started.

You can see the full essay which Andrea wrote about the writing of The Long Song here:

http://www.andrealevy.co.uk/

It makes for interesting reading and I encourage anyone who has read the book, and would like to know more about the reasons for its writing, to take a look and have a read.

I thank everyone again for attending the book group in our shiny, new venue and look forward to seeing everyone at the next meeting on Tuesday 1st May. We will be discussing Night Waking by Sarah Moss.

See you there!

Middlesbrough Book Group is now Tees Valley Book Group – New venue, new name

Hello everyone,

This is just a quick message to say that after a lot of thought (and many attempts at other venues) we are now moving to Stockton Central Library for our meetings.

Due to the move we are also having a name change and are now called Tees Valley Book Group.

It’s still going to be the same friendly faces, just a shiny new venue with tea and coffee still provided.

The new address is:

Stockton Central Library

Church Road

Stockton-on-Tees

TS18 1TU

There is parking across the road in the Splash car park and also parking to the side of the Municipal buildings (next to the library) both are free parking after 6pm and both are just one minutes walk away from the library.

I hope that this proves to be a good, permanent move and I’m sure it will create a great atmosphere for a jolly good book group.

If anyone has any queries or questions please don’t hesitate to post a comment.

Courage, action and ultimately undying hope – The Lieutenant’s Lover by Harry Bingham

Misha is an aristocratic young officer in the army when the Russian revolution sweeps away all his certainties. Tonya is a nurse from an impoverished family in St Petersburg. They should have been bitter enemies; and yet they fall passionately in love. It cannot last, and Misha must flee the country as Tonya faces arrest and possibly death.

Thirty years later, Misha has survived the War and seeks to rebuild his life in the destroyed city of Berlin. Drawn into spying for the British, he learns of a talented female agent from the Soviet quarter. Can it be his lost love? And how will they find each other, as the divide deepens between East and West?

This was an interesting book for our group as there were mixed opinions which created a few discussions and debates in our meeting.

As a reader of Harry Bingham I had been looking forward to reading this book for some time. Although I did enjoy this novel, I found it written in a different style to previous books which I wasn’t quite expecting. In some cases, less is more, and we are left with many a few questions that we have to answer ourselves. For me, this wasn’t a problem, but for my group they found this book a little harder to enjoy as they couldn’t quite get the feel for the characters and setting as it seemed to skim over issues which my group would have loved to have explored in more depth.

Overall, the group felt that as a book it was lacking in depth and detail, but could actually see it making quite a good TV series! There is an awful lot of scope with this book and we would have loved to read more about the finer details of the story, but on a whole we did manage to discuss a few burning issues arising from the novel and had a few questions from the author to help us on our way.

Here are the questions Harry kindly sent over for our meeting:

1. What is this book about? Ultimately about, I mean – the way that Spy Who Came in From the Cold is ultimately a book about love & betrayal, not about spying.
2. Why is Willi there? What does he add? What about Rosa?
3. The second world war has a huge profile in the British imagination, but we almost always forget about the aftermath in Germany. How did the book change your view of the war of Germany?
4. What about your perception of Russia?
5. This book is a romance, a love story. Structurally speaking, it’s got loads in common with any Jane Austen – or indeed to any Barbara Cartland. But it’s also massively different in some ways – what ways? And does it work for you?

I haven’t included our answers as I wouldn’t want to put any spoilers in here, but if you also read the book how do you think you would have answered these questions?

Harry also kindly answered five questions that arose from our meeting. Here are the questions and answers:

1) Would you class this as a love story or a spy story? (We felt that it was one or the other rather than both, but we are keen to hear your view.)

It’s a love story first and foremost. No question.

2) What inspired you to write this book?

Um. Not sure. I think I was drawn to the challenge of writing a romance and liked the Russian/German settings.

3) What (if anything) would you change about the story now?

Nothing really. I’ve moved on since then, but the story is what it is.

4) Where did you do your research?

Books. One of the most useful things was personal memoirs and diaries, especially of the post-war German stuff. It was finding out what people ate, where they lived, etc.

5) What similarities do you see in this book to authors such as Jane Austen?

Structurally, this book is pure Pride & Prejudice. You can take every structural element in P&P and find it’s corollary in TLL, and vice versa. The cute thing about TLL is that it takes the “winter of hope” present in any romance and stretches it out to massive proportions. So in P&P, the winter of hope starts when Lydia elopes with Wickham and ends when D’Arcy has launched his rescue. So maybe a week or two, and a few pages. In TLL that period lasts 25 years, stretches geographically from Berlin to Vladivostok and takes in 2 world wars, the Great Purges, prison camp, &c &c &c. It’s a massive distortion of the traditional structure …. yet still replicates that structure exactly.

I would like to say a big Thank You to Harry for taking the time to provide the group with our book group questions, and also answering our five questions from the meeting too.

Love, corruption, murder, deceit – A Simple Act of Violence by R.J.Ellory

As the heading may suggest, this is a very powerful and thought provoking novel. Although the length of the book was a deterrent at first it was certainly filled with enough detail and depth to keep you reading to the last page. Based in Washington DC our detective, Robert Miller, is assigned a very unsettling case. Catherine Sheridan has been murdered in suspicious circumstances that have a disturbing resemblance to previous murders in the area. As Detective Miller digs deeper into Catherine’s death he seems to find more questions than answers. Following up leads which seem to go nowhere, people that don’t exist, messages left without apparent meanings – Miller fails to see the connection between the victims until a breakthrough; he has a name – John Robey. Robey seems to fit the profile, but finding Robey turns out to be the beginning of something much more sinister. What follows is a whirlwind of murder and corruption at the highest level which will keep you guessing until the very end.

As a group, we all enjoyed this novel with only a couple of members finding either the length of the book hard to digest or the plot hard to believe. The characters, plot and shift in protagonist coupled with the wonderful writing style made for a good read and a few readers will certainly be trying a few more of Ellory’s books on the strength of this one.

I contacted Roger to ask if he would be kind enough to send me some book group questions that we could use for the meeting. He very kindly agreed to do so and sent quite a few questions for us to use. The only problem we had is that we ended up running out of time! I was going to post both the questions and answers on here but as we had a few varied opinions (and I don’t want to be giving any spoilers for those who may want to read the book) I’ve decided to just post the questions, so here they are:

1) Regarding the first victim, Catherine Sheridan: What were your initial thoughts and feelings as she seemed to simply accept her fate at the hands of her killer?

2) Who do you feel was the most personally identifiable character for you in the book, if there was one, and why?

3) Did you feel, in reading Robey’s account of his life, that you could understand his actions?

4) Who do you feel were the real criminals in this novel?

5) Based on the fact that those actions undertaken by the CIA, as detailed in this novel, are entirely factual, what are your thoughts about this organisation?

6) Do you feel that general Poindexter and Colonel Oliver North should have been legally prosecuted for the things that they did?

7) Do you feel that a government is ever justified in interfering in the national affairs of another country?

8) The epigraph at the start of the book from Disraeli, ‘Assassination has never changed the history of the world’ – would you agree?

9) In completing the book, what are your thought about the relationship between John Robey and Catherine Sheridan?

10) What would you like to see for Robert Miller’s future?

Roger also kindly answered five questions that we had from our book group meeting. Here are our questions and Roger’s answers.

Do you see yourself as Robey and the readers as Miller? 

There is that perennial question: How much of an author’s work is autobiographical, or at least, how much of what you write are really your own perceptions or attitudes about the world?  I think some of me is Robey, and some of me is Miller, and – at the same time – I want the reader to feel like Miller, at least from the viewpoint of how layer after layer of what really happened is revealed. I knew a lot about what had happened in Nicaragua before I started writing the book, but the more I researched it and the more I learned, the more surprised I was that the US intelligence community managed to do this. But then this is what governments have been doing for decades, if not centuries, and they are still doing it! I think we absorb so much from life – some of it good, some of it bad.  We take in events and circumstances, we deal with them (or not), we recover, we carry on, we try our best with everything we do.  Sometimes we get it right, other times we get it wrong. That is life, and that is living. As with any field of the arts – whether it be painting, sculpture, choreography, musical composition – the creator must draw on personal experience and personal perception in everything he or she creates. I think that what we paint and what we write and what we sing are merely extensions of ourselves, and that extension grows from personal experience. I think there are very few writers who write their own lives into novels, but I think there are a great deal who write their perceptions and conclusions and feelings about their own lives and the lives of others into the characters they create.

Why do you write in America?

I think I grew up with American culture all around me. I grew up watching Starsky and Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, all those kinds of things. I loved the atmosphere, the diversity of culture, the fact that every state is entirely different from every other, and there are fifty of them. The politics fascinated me. America is a new country compared to England, and it just seems to me that there was so much colour and life inherent in its society. I have visited many times now, and I honestly feel like I’m visiting my second home. And I believe that as a non-American there are many things about American culture that I can look at as a spectator. The difficulty with writing about an area that you are very familiar with is that you tend to stop noticing things. You take things for granted. The odd or interesting things about the people and the area cease to be odd and interesting. As an outsider you never lose that viewpoint of seeing things for the first time, and for me that is very important. Also many writers are told to write about the things they are familiar with. I don’t think this is wrong, but I think it is very limiting. I believe you should also write about the things that fascinate you. I think in that way you have a chance to let your passion and enthusiasm for the subject come through in your prose. I also believe that you should challenge yourself with each new book. Take on different and varied subjects. Do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of writing things to a formula. Someone once said to me that there were two types of novels. There were those that you read simply because some mystery was created and you had to find out what happened. The second kind of novel was one where you read the book simply for the language itself, the way the author used words, the atmosphere and description. The truly great books are the ones that accomplish both. I think any author wants to write great novels. I don’t think anyone – in their heart of hearts – writes because it’s a sensible choice of profession, or for financial gain. I just love to write, and though the subject matter that I want to write about takes me to the States, it is nevertheless more important to me to write something that can move someone emotionally, perhaps change a view about life, and at the same time to try and write it as beautifully as I can. I also want to write about subjects – whether they be political conspiracies, serial killings, race relations, political assassinations or FBI and CIA investigations – that could only work in the USA. The kind of novels I want to write just wouldn’t work in small, green, leafy villages where you find Hobbits!

Four years on, is there anything you would change about the novel? (Characters you would remove/add in etc.)

I think it’s true to say that if you read something you wrote six months ago and you cannot see how you could write it better, then you are not improving as a writer.  So yes, I think I would go back and change some things.  I don’t think I would change a great deal about the plot itself, but I would change some of the way the plot has been delivered.  I think the more I write the more able I become to say more with fewer words.  I think I am – at last – becoming more succinct.

Are any of the characters based on anyone you know? 

Not really, no. Perhaps the elderly Jewish couple. They are sort of like a couple I know, but the couple I know are not Jewish. I think there are certain facets within every character I create that are taken from people I know, people I meet, people I remember from my past. No-one is lifted in their entirety, but this kind of relates to your first question as I think the attitudes and characteristics you will find most evidently in any of my books actually come from myself.  We all make mistakes, we all get things wrong, we all have thoughts and ideas that we are not willing to share with the world. We survive because we are right a little more than fifty percent of the time. We get things wrong all the time. The kind of book I really don’t like is the book where the central character is always right, always at the scene at the right time, always making the right decision. This is not the human condition. I think we like to read about people who are flawed in the same way as ourselves, as it reinforces our faith in our own humanity. It reminds us that it is okay to be fragile, and yet still make it through and survive. So I do have a pet hate when it comes to crime fiction, and that is the character that is kind of unbelievable. I want to read about people that I feel could be real, the kind of people that seem to be doing the best they can despite everything, and that’s always the kind of character I am trying to write about.

When’s your next book out?!

The next book is number ten, it’s called ‘A Dark and Broken Heart’, and that’s out in May 2012, but I am also releasing a trilogy of short stories as e-books called ‘Three Days in Chicagoland’, and they come out two weeks apart through March and April this year. They are called, respectively, ‘The Sister’, ‘The Cop’ and ‘The Killer’, and the first one’s available in the middle of March. They are each about twenty-five or thirty pages long, and they tell the story of a young woman who was murdered in Chicago in 1956, but from three different viewpoints.

Some superb answers here if I do say so myself! The trilogy of short stories sounds very appealing due to it’s content and length so I’ll certainly be giving them a try when they’re out.

May I also say, on behalf of Middlesbrough Book Group, a huge ‘Thank You’ to Roger Ellory for giving his time to add something a little different to our normal book group sessions. It was very much appreciated and certainly brought the author that little closer to the reader.

Thank you.

Living the dream or living a nightmare?

When you’re stuck in a bit of a rut and fancy a change some people like to go on holiday, others like to get a new haircut and some may like to blow a weeks wage on a shopping spree. As for Cassie, our main character in As Far As You Can Go by Lesley Glaister, she fancies a relocation and fresh start. Cassie is hoping to add a bit of ‘umpf’ to her tired relationship and decides to apply for a job in Australia in the hope that her partner will tag along and their relationship will hit new heights. Cassie applies for the job and is successful and her partner, Graham, decides to accept this new adventure and away they go. Cassie is to complete house duties for a couple who live on their own in a remote setting and Graham can chill out and enjoy the scenery which tempts him back into his painting. A dream job if ever there was one.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, arriving at your accommodation and finding that there is no bathroom is a little unnerving to say the least, but our characters do not let this dampen their spirits and continue to sample the delights of the Australian outback. The tranquility, the scenery, the endless supply of good food and wine – oh, did I mention the wife who lives in a shed? No, I don’t think I did. Well the wife lives in a shed. Something I’d find a bit on the odd side but not Cassie and Graham. In fact, they very rarely seem to be unsettled by any of the odd goings on which start to happen on this desolate patch of land. As the story tootles along, as a reader we can see that there are some serious issues surrounding their employer and his disturbed wife. Cassie and Graham eventually start to understand that their life changing adventure may in fact cost them their lives. The unsettling events which begin to arise force them to make the decision to escape, but will they escape unharmed or will they be scared forever?

Interesting stuff, and I for one quite enjoyed this little novel. Yes, it was predictable in areas but the idea of the story did catch my attention and successfully managed to hold it for the whole 336 pages. As for our group, we had mixed views on this one. Apart from the odd one who really didn’t take a liking to it, the general feel was that it was an interesting read but nothing to get too excited about. The way in which it is written is simple enough and the intrigue of the storyline will keep you turning the page to a certain point. There are some disturbing and creepy aspects to the book which may unnerve you a little but it’s the psychological aspect to the book rather than gruesome goings on that will chill you to the bone.

We did manage to squeeze out a good discussion for this book and found that the author left us with more questions than answers but although this is a book we all managed to finish it wasn’t a book that we could easily recommended to a friend. Maybe to one who has a taste for the psychological thrillers but who doesn’t care too much for any twists and turns and ‘wow, I didn’t see that coming!’ bits in it! Like I say, I did enjoy this one and it certainly wasn’t a book to go on our ‘oh my god that was horrific’ list so I guess I can safely say give it a try and see what you think!

Our next book is A Simple Act of Violence by R.J.Ellory. Roger has kindly agreed to send the group some questions to help with our discussion and has agreed to answer several burning questions that may arise in our group meeting – so it should be a good one!

When God was a Rabbit – or maybe not . . .

When God was a Rabbit – a little bit ambiguous but we all generally thought that this would be quite a religious book. In some ways it was, but the general story is centered around a young girl and her family in the 1960s, (not actually about God when he was a rabbit. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t but I’d have loved to have read about it if he was!).

This is the blurb on the back of the book:

This is a book about a brother and a sister. It’s a book about childhood and growing up, friendships and families, triumph and tragedy and everything in between. More than anything, it’s a book about love in all it’s forms.

I was intrigued by this at first and couldn’t wait to find out about all of the above. You can imagine my disappointment when all of these were covered, but none at any great depth. As I prepared for book group I was excited about the meeting – it’s nearly Christmas and I was bringing mince pies – but shouldn’t I have been more excited about the book? Yes, I should have, BUT – I have to admit that during the meeting, once we’d chatted and discussed, I actually changed my mind and decided that I did quite enjoy some bits. More so than others, but nevertheless I can say that I did enjoy it.

The first half of the book covers the life of Elly – a young, naive little girl with a rather overly excited friend called Jenny Penny. We see Elly growing up and dealing with various struggles and life changing experiences. It was interesting to see those experiences through such young eyes but they were all things we are familiar with. There weren’t any new issues being brought to the table. As we trundle along we begin to see the bond between both her and her brother and also see the bond within her family. There are street parties and nativity plays but once again, nothing out of the ordinary. After a stroke of good fortune Elly is separated from her friend and is whisked off for a better life in Cornwall. In the second part we see Elly in her older years. Many of her worries and problems from her childhood have vanished but new ones seem to arise. Such is life. A majority of the group decided that the first half was much better than the second. Some of the events in the book were interesting as everyone could relate to them in some form, but sometimes it felt as though such events were ‘thrown in’ to ensure that the reader didn’t nod off. Take some bits out, add a few bits in and hey presto – a jolly good book.

Overall, the general feel for the book was quite a positive one. We neither hated it, nor loved it, but rather thought it was quite a pleasant read. There were many issues and areas explored in the book – abuse, terrorism, amnesia, loyalty, love despair and hope – but having so many areas to cover in one book can take away the feel and direction and a few readers felt that there was just too much going on. Disjointed in areas, stories that drifted off with no answers and a large jump in the timeline seemed a little ‘off putting’ and took away the flow and intrigue of the story. As a group we felt that as a whole book it lacked consistency, but when we separate the different parts of the book and look at them more closely, we enjoyed the excellent one liners and quite frequent thought provoking scenes. There was even some humour thrown in there with the nativity scene a clear favourite.

It was a nice book to finish on for the year and I hope that 2012 can continue to bring some excellent people, books and discussions. Our next book is As Far as You Can Go by Lesley Glaister and we shall be meeting on Tuesday 3rd January.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Here’s to 2012!

Mr Chartwell – questions please!

“I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.” - Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Mr Chartwell is based on the infamous ‘Black Dog’ which Winston Churchill mentioned on many occasion in reference to his depression – or a manifestation of it to be precise. Rebecca Hunt’s novel is based around Mr Chartwell (the Black Dog) and how he worms his way into the life of a young widow whilst relentlessly hounding (no pun intended) Winston Churchill.

Our group was a little mixed on this book. Some thoroughly enjoyed it, others despised it and some merely thought it was OK. One thing that we did all agree on was the lack of conversation we could drum up about the book. The story itself is pretty much based around the theme ‘depression’ and there is very little else to talk about. I even spent quite some time searching for suitable book group questions on the internet to find nothing but a few interviews with questions such as ‘If Maf the Dog and Mr Chartwell were to have a fight who do you think would win?’ Inspiring stuff, but not quite what I was looking for.

After finding little to talk about we found ourselves discussing previous books, potential books, films we’ve seen, films due out and had a nice cup of tea with some biscuits. That pretty much sums up the discussion of the book I’m afraid!

So, a bit of a short post this time, I just hope that we can have more to say about our next book – When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman – so until then, goodbye for now!

Gothic? I’ll let you decide . . .

I had the great pleasure of being able to attend a gothic tour of Durham recently which was quite fitting to our most recent book – The Possessions of Doctor Forrest by R.T.Kelly.

Gothic is the term originally used to describe things pertaining to the gothic people and then reused in a variety of contexts. The creation of literary works that employed such late medieval backdrops to explore dark aspects of human nature and the supernatural led to the creation of gothic fiction, which was the origin of the modern horror genre.

On my intriguing gothic tour I found that the true origins of the gothic culture are now more related to the disturbing and the macabre. The Possession of Doctor Forrest – for me – certainly covered both of these, but was it enough to keep the cover over my head and the lights on? I’m not too sure.

Richard.T.Kelly was a guest author at the Durham Book Festival this year and wrote this short piece about his novel:

Let me welcome you to ‘the dark side’ – the place, I daresay, from which my novel, The Possessions of Doctor Forrest, comes. 

It’s a tale of mystery and the supernatural, very influenced by the old literary style known as ‘gothic’, even though the story takes place in the present. But in writing the novel I wanted to see if that rather vintage style could still entertain modern-day readers – because it’s always delighted me.

When I was a boy first discovering books I had the child’s customary fascination with the uncanny and the macabre. Some of the first novels I loved were gothic classics of the 19th century – Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. All of these stories – indeed, most ‘horror’ stories – are really about our (very natural) fear of death, and our common yearning for a life beyond the expiry date of our bodies: that date unknown and yet assured…

I wanted to transplant the themes of these books, and their eerie atmospheres, into a 21st century story set in London, about a successful cosmetic surgeon – Doctor Forrest – who goes missing in strange circumstances. He has two dear old friends, Doctors Lochran and Hartford. They had suspected Forrest was already

in a bad way and now fear something dreadful has happened to him. But as they attempt to investigate his disappearance for themselves they are drawn into a world of menace and threat, where they discover that their friend was not the man they thought.

A good gothic story should unnerve us by dint of its darkness. But there’s also something in the dark that can be enveloping, and alluring. So I hope this novel will give you a fright – but that you find pleasure in it too.

Richard T Kelly

Book group questions

Here are a few questions that the author thought might help with our discussion. How do you think you would answer these questions?

1) What does the term ‘gothic’ mean to you in describing a story? Is it a style that you recognise? Were there things about this novel that felt ‘gothic’ to you?

2) Do you think Richard T Kelly’s style of writing was appropriate to the sort of story he was telling? Did the novel feel ‘old-fashioned’ to you in any way?

3) As you went along, were you reminded of any other horror stories or supernatural stories that you’ve read previously?

4) How soon did you guess ‘the secret’ of what had happened to Dr Forrest? Was there a specific point in the story where you were sure you had cottoned on? What were the main clues that helped you to guess?

5) Why do you think Doctor Forrest accepted the ‘bargain’ offered him by Dijana Vukovara?

6) To what extent do you believe that the way we look, our physical appearance, defines who we are as people? If your appearance changed very radically, could you still be the same person? Or would something essential about who ‘you’ are have changed, too?

7) The three doctors – Forrest, Lochran and Hartford – are markedly different from one another. What do the choices they’ve made in life (their wives, their homes, professions, hobbies, enthusiasms) tell us about the sort of men they are?

8) Did the novel remind you in any way of your own friendships, or friendships you used to have? Do you think we forgive our oldest friends for behaviour that we wouldn’t tolerate from other people? Or is it possible, as Hartford says of Forrest, for even one’s oldest friends to ‘lose the things we liked about them’?

9) Was the ending of the novel an appropriate, satisfying resolution to the story for you? Or would you rather it had ended differently?

10) Can you imagine what might happen next to Dr Forrest after the book’s final page?

11) Looking back, do you think there was a moral to this book? Dr Forrest says he has had ‘no end of a lesson.’ Do you agree? If so, what sort of a lesson was he taught?

The questions above moved our meeting on at a good pace and really fuelled our discussions to the very end. However, we did find that this book failed to deliver that fresh, new gothic novel we were all so hungry for. Frankenstein, Dracula, Dorian Grey, Doctor Faustus – they all seemed to be woven together to create a patchwork quilt rather than spinning a new yarn and creating a brand new sheet! We felt as though we had been there before which made it harder to get into the true bones of the story. The beginning and middle seemed more of a murder mystery and it wasn’t until the latter part that we really see the gothic genre coming to the front of the storyline, but by then – it’s just too late.

However, we did have an amazing book group discussion on this novel and for that I thank Richard.T.Kelly for this inventive gothic piece.

Art with bottle – How to Paint a Dead Man

Well, here is my first official post for Middlesbrough Book Group – hope it’s a good one!

Firstly, I’d like to say a big ‘Hello’ and ‘Welcome’ to everyone who attends the group. I hope I can continue the good work our previous book group leader has delivered.

Our September read was an interesting one. How to Paint a Dead Man delivers on many levels, although a few of our readers – including myself – found it a very hard read which was difficult to follow and seemed disjointed in areas.

We had mixed view points on the style, voice and plot of the novel and the general feel of the group was that this book would not be one they would recommend.

Having said that, we did have some great discussions on how the four stories of the book came together in their subtle ways, and also picked up on issues such as loneliness and coping with death.

Here is an interview with Sarah Hall which I found on the Man Booker Prize website: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1262

We did sift out a few questions in the meeting: Why is the title as it is and are the chapters named after paintings? I will endeavour to find out these answers!

The next meeting is on Tuesday 18th October and we will be discussing The Possessions of Doctor Forrest by Richard.T.Kelly.

See you all there!

Clocking Off

I  normally update this blog a few days after our meeting, to give me time to think about what to say. Tonight is different, as tonight was my last group as leader, and I thought it best to document it whilst it’s not a hazy memory.

We discussed ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ . Some thought Henrietta’s family were unsympathetic, others wanted to learn more about the Nuremberg Trials and slavery. Some enjoyed the science, others got a bit lost but carried on and finished the book. Everyone had something to say.

The group of people there tonight were regulars – but as always, there was a new face there. Tonight we had Olivia from New Writing North – my boss- who complimented us on being a very interesting and solid group of people. I love that we have regulars now, and there is always a good welcome for new people, regardless of background, confidence levels, or opinion.

Although I originally said yes to running the group to give me somewhere to gabble on about my obsession with words, it’s also led me to meeting some lovely people, and tonight, some of them threw me a tea party, and gave me cards and presents which I didn’t expect and am very grateful for (especially the cards which made me a bit emotional in the safety of back home).

The group is one of the things (including my job as a journalist, my roller derby league,  my house, my friends and family) which I’m leaving behind to move away and study Midwifery down South, but I’m pretty good at staying in touch with people, be warned!

I have absolutely loved meeting up every month, and know that the new leader Stephanie (who will be blogging here soon) will carry on the laid-back feel of the group, and add her own touches just like I did. I think she’ll a grand job, and wish her lots of luck.

So yes, it’s nice to end on a high note, after 3 years of being chucked out of various venues, heated debates, numerous cups of tea and cocktails, and getting to meet a most excellent bunch of people.

Over and Out.

xx