Book Club Pages

September Book Club by Liz Dobson

Book Club has got a bit lost recently. Not surprising really, on top of losing our leader Jane Upperton in July, the restrictions imposed then put paid to the very few of us still in Bangkok continuing to meet up. We are around 16 members, but at present most are in Europe, Australia or Phuket and they all probably have more to do than sit around reading books like me.

As Jane prepared to leave we were reading “The Midnight Library by Matt Haig”. Quoting Amazon here, “Nora’s life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived.” Comments included a number of people who thought there were too many lives, but liked that she had to confront the reasons for her depression and evaluate her life.

Marks given 8/10; 8/10; 8/10; 8/10; 7/10; 7/10.

Jane left us with “Next book: The Four Winds by Tristin Hannah”. I waited for Kinokuniya to deliver my copy and began to read comments on our What’s App group chat saying that some had downloaded the sample on their kindle and didn’t like it enough to lay out the £7.99 for it! Is the kindle a blessing or a curse for a Book Club? Personally I love it when I travel, a lot less bulky than a pile of books and I do indulge in the Kindle Daily Deal at 99p if it’s something I’ve wanted to read. I prefer the real thing mostly probably because I always have to refer back to remind myself of happenings or characters. So The Four Winds arrived and I started on its 465 pages. Quoting Amazon again, “Texas 1934. Elsa Martinelli had finally found the life she’d yearned for. A family, a home, a livelihood on a farm on the

Great Plains. But then drought threatens all she and her community hold dear. She wakes to find her husband has fled and she is forced to take her two children west to California in search of a better life.” Comments from other Book Club members who read this book included finding it a bit repetitive and lacking in character development. It is certainly not a cheery read dealing with abject poverty and desperation, in fact pretty depressing, but interesting. I also agreed that it didn’t give much weight to the rise in the fight for workers’ rights of the time.

Marks given 6/10; 7/10; 8/10; 8/10.

At present we are reading “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce” partly because it is said to be uplifting and redemptive. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it in book form and had to resort to my AA Road Atlas to follow his route as I read it on my kindle. Our next two reads are “A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James” and then “Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu”, mixing it up a bit and keeping it below £7.99!