Hello Everyone

Sorry about the late post but learn to live with it.

Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barns

#Do you think his childhood  destroyed the man or made the man

#For all the degradation of his childhood and all the bad influences, at the core of the man is he bad or a good person

#I think the men in his life had more influence than his mother who I think was strange, very strange or very sick.  What’s your opinion

I# can’t imagine growing up in such a violent atmosphere or area

#Not as much discussion in the book about music as I anticipated

See you Tuesday 6th Chandler Road Seville

Colleen

Good Afternoon Ladies,
A little to consider to before tonight...

1. How does this book come across to you? What does Sue Klebold say her motivation was in writing A Mother's Reckoning? Does she fulfill her goal?

2. "A mother is supposed to know," Klebold has said. To what extent is she right? How much are parents supposed to know? How much can they be expected to know? If children are aware that their parents routinely search their rooms, won't they simply find better hiding places?

3. Talk about the trajectory of Dylan Klebold from Sue's "sunshine boy" to troubled, deadly killer. Was there any point when the Klebolds might have stepped in, where they might have—or should have—recognized something was amiss with Dylan, something seriously amiss?

4. How much sympathy do you accord to Sue and Tom Klebold? Has your attitude toward them changed after reading this book? Were any myths about the Klebolds dispelled, or misunderstandings clarified?

5. Should A Mother's Reckoning have been written? Should it have come out before this time? Or never at all?

6. Can you put yourself in Sue and Tom Klebold's place? Or is that simply to hard to contemplate?

7. School bullying has always been an troublesome element of childhood and adolescence. How has Columbine changed society's attitude toward bullying? What are the ways in which we're dealing with bullying? Are they effective?

8. What were the differences, according to Klebold, between her son Dylan and Eric Harris?

See you later,
Irene

Book club tonight

Hi All, don't forget book club tonight at my house.
61 Monbulk-Seville Rd
Seville
See you then
Kaye

The Harry Quebert Affair

Overall this book was not well liked with superficial, poorly developed, unlikeable characters.  Harry wasn't forgiven for his affair with Nola, a fifteen year old girl.  The age of consent was discussed.


Tahnee:  3/10 Clumsy and unbelievable.  Who dunnit, who didn't do it.

Trilby: 2/10 Dispicable, misogynistic, men projecting their desires onto empty women

Colleen: 0/10 A Group of words repeated, repeated, repeated...10 hrs and 35 mins out of my life.

Irene: 3/10 Superficial, shallow, stereotyped.

Ann Maree: 6/10 Still trying to work out who did it.

Cathy: 5/10 has potential.

Hannah: 6/10 Dissapointing.

"The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair" by Joel Dicker

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow night it is my house, 36 Railway Rd Seville, for book club.


1. Were you conscious of the fact the book was originally written in French?

2.Were you able to forgive Harry for having an affair with a fifteen year old girl?

3.Did your sympathies for certain characters change as the story unfolds?

4."The truth will set us all free", in the context of the novel do you agree?

5. Marcus potentially exploited his friend while saving his career. Discuss.

6. This book seems to be written to create suspense and surprise.  Did you guess the ending?  Discuss another book you have read that had twists, was it successful?

See you tomorrow night!

Hannah xo

My Brilliant Friend

Hi Everyone

I chose 'My Brilliant Friend' after I read a review in 'The Age'.  Must have missed the bit where it said that it was the first of four.  In any case I've finished all of them now and had promised to post a summary of the story since it was unlikely that anyone was going to read all four.

I will do this soon but realised that unless you were at the last meeting you probably don't know what the next book is (see below).

Scores are as follows

5 - Kaye - Bit of a chore.  Brilliance lost in translation
6 - Irene - Inconclusive
5 - Tahnee - Struggled to connect with the characters and place
5 - Colleen - Still waiting.
7 - Hannah - Enjoyed it.  Good story about two young women growing.
6 - Anne-Maree - Felt compelled to read the next 3.  Needed to know how it ended


July book club is at Hannah's and we're reading The Truth about Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker.

August book club reading is The Secret History by Donna Tartt and we're meeting at Kaye's.

Happy Reading!!

Anne-Maree

Apologies Everyone.  Got a bit keen.

I'll see you all next Tuesday 7 June.

Thanks to Tahnee for letting me know I had the wrong Tuesday.  I would have been a bit disappointed tonight when no one turned up.

See you all next week.

AM

Hi All

Look forward to seeing you all at my house tonight (30 Carters lane, Seville) to review My Brilliant Friend.

Here are a couple of questions to prompt discussion tonight.

• What did you think of the girls relationship?  Could you identify something similar from your own childhood?
• Can friendships that are seemly so one sided last beyond puberty. 
• Nature or nurture?  How much are the girls a product of their environment ?  What of their adult 'role models'?  
• Did you find the style difficult?  The novel was translated from Italian to English do you think this impacted its readability?
• Do you get a sense of the violence of the neighborhood, of its inhabitants? Do you think it was a sign the times (50/60's) or a cultural thing?

See you at 7.30pm.

Anne-Maree

May meeting Cindy's house - Streetsweeper questions

Hi All - hope you all had a chance to read the 'Streetsweeper' by Elliot Pearlman.

The book club is at my place and for those of you that have not been here before it is at 605 Victoria Road, Seville. It is not far from Colleens . Instead of going down Chandler Road to Colleens you keep going along Victoria about 50 metres to the first driveway on the left hand side.

Questions to ponder prior to the night -

1.  Are we too distracted these days to hear people's stories? Why did Henry tell his story to Lamont and not his own son.

2.  How did you feel about Adam and his relationship with Diana and the relationship between Dr Border and Rosa?

3.  The novel brings together different people from different cultures and religions to tell the story of the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement in America. How powerful is this and does it work?

4. Did you find the book a bit too coincidental in parts?

Cheers and see you on Tuesday.
Cindy

Sorry for the delay in posting scores but I was enjoying myself down in Inverloch too much to sit at a laptop!!!

Colleen - 6 - Liked the short stories for a change
Cindy - 7 -  Thoroughly enjoyed the concept of short stories. Very good.
Tahnee - 4 - Possibly an unfair four. Will revisit
Hannah - 7 - It sucked me in
Kaye - 6 - would have liked the last story to be more developed.
Anne Marie - 7 - Really strong characters, particularly given short stories. Very Character driven.
Irene - 9 - Epic yet intimate.

See you all in May.

Two months to read The Street Sweeper

Hi all!

Cindy asked me to post to confirm we are not having an April book club meeting, it will be pushed to May.  This is because there will be a number of absentees in April. 

This means two months to read the book! No excuses people, especially those of us having a holiday.

See you all soon.

Love
Hannah

Good Evening Ladies,

Cakes are cooked and time for some self composed questions....

1. In an interview Colum McCann gives provenance of his stories
     "In the end though, everything we write is autobiographical perhaps more especially
       when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical"
 What do you think he means by this and do you agree?

2. Colum McCann blends his own narrative with fiction. Are there any advantages to this style or would you prefer one or the other?

3. Did you identify any continuance between each of the short stories, or did they all stand individually?

4. From the novella, discuss any irony that although his movements are tracked still no one knows for sure what happened on the pavement?

5. ' What Time is It Now, Where Are You' - For anyone who has aspirations of writing a novel would this be a true representative of the story writing process. If not is it convincing?

6. Was the nuns interaction with her abuser satisfactory and likely to have happened if translated into reality?

See you tomorrow.
Irene