Sunday 21 November 2010

Christmas Fun

The winter has snuck up on us and as people keep reminding me Christmas is not far off so we thought that we should probably put a date in for a Christmas meal before people get too booked up.

Wednesday 15th December is the date set, venue to be decided at the next meeting so if you have a suggestion then come along or put a message up.

If you can confirm your attendance below, or come to the next meeting, then we can get an idea of numbers to book somewhere.

We'll do a secret santa book swap too. Wrap up a book of your choice and bring it along to put in the sack!

I'm not even going to think of saying Christmas greetings yet!

Saturday 13 November 2010

Fancy a Short Walk?

Thanks to Eleanor for taking notes:

Rather a lot of disruption at the last meeting, those pesky students! There was a party of sorts going on in the pub, pretty noisy even in the back room, and THEN they put the football on full blast so we were forced to retreat and wander around Clapham trying to find another pub to accommodate us. The Belle Vue at Clapham South satisfied our needs in the end and once we'd intimidated people enough to get them to leave we even ...managed to get a whole table!Exciting stuff but I'm very very sorry to anyone who came a bit late and found us gone, apologies, we did wait til about twenty past eight but couldn't hold our fort any longer!

ANYWAY, thumbs up for Iris Murdoch, everyone enjoyed it's farcical humour and ridiculous partner swapping. Definitely a recommended read and it's made us all want to read some more of hers so any good suggestions are welcome.

The next group is on the 1st December and we're reading'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' by Eric Newby. I'm sure some good travel writing won't go amiss to get us through the distinctly wintry weather!

A real mix of other suggestions including:
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemmingway
Kalooki Nights by Howard Jackson
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

We will still meet in the Bread and Roses on Clapham Manor Road. I'm guessing the quiz will be on again so we'll sit in the back room and hope that they don't put the football on. IF there is football on we will wait until 8.15/8.20pm and then leave a message at the bar as to where we've gone so hopefully others can catch us up.

We also had a brief chat about having a Christmas meal and all thumbs up so there's a provisional date of the 15th December. I'll make an event and if people could indicate if they are keen to come, we can arrange the venue at the next meeting so have a think about any suggestions.That's all folks!

Monday 8 November 2010

The Severed Head

Adding this far too late as I forgot to copy it across from Facebook. Oops... Thanks to Eleanor for taking notes on the night:

General consensus that we enjoyed 'Gilead', which I was obviously pleased about! Good discussion on the various themes, actually I think we did mostly talk about the book!

Next we are reading 'A Severed Head' by Iris Murdoch. Don't be put off by the title, I'm pretty sure there's no blood and guts in it, just a lot of sex and relationship confusion I think! Actually it was a pretty close call with 'The Slap' by Christos Tsiol...kas, we had some subtle changes of allegiance and almost went to a third round! So if anyone fancies suggesting it another time please do.

Other suggestions were:
Kalooki Nights by Havard Jacobson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
THe Owl Service by Alan Garner
Mother's Milk by Edmund St Aubyn

Meeting will be on Wed 10th November at the Bread and Roses on Clapham Manor Road.

Just to let everyone know that they are now holding a quiz on a Wednesday evening in the pub so we will meet in the back part of the pub (just walk straight through). It's not too noisy but might get a little chilly in the winter so bring a jumper! I suppose if a book is terrible and we can't bring ourselves to talk about it we could always do the quiz instead!