Alice I have been by Melanie Benjamin

A few quetions to think about.....Book Club will be at TAHNEE'S house on TUESDAY the 7th of JUNE..... thanks Tahnee



Alice became famous through no fault of her own. Can you come up with a modern day version of Alice? How do their lives compare?

Alice refuses to read Alice in Wonderland until she is well into her eighties. Why do you think she avoids reading the story she inspired?

What part of the book speaks to you and your experiences in life?

Before reading Benjamin's novel, had you already read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? If so, does it make you want to read it again? Why or why not?

What do you think of an author writing a biographical novel using only notes and references and filling in the gaps with intelligent supposition?

The Scores so far

As promised, we thought it would be interesting to see what the average scores were per person, so I have put my number crunching hat and the results are:

Colleen - 5.16
Tahnee - 5.33
Trilby - 5.89
Meg - 5.13
Liz - 7.17
Kay - 6
Debbie - 6.38
Kerry - 6.14

So surprisingly I have enjoyed the books less than Colleen!!!! And just for fun, below is the summary of all of Colleen's comments:

• Didn't think it was particularly well written


• Didn't seem real, felt contrived


• Easy read but boring


• Flowed well and had a great story line


• good holiday read.....characters soft and uninteresting


• Well you would think that the members of the book club, being very
  intellectual type of people would show some respect for the hostess with
  the mostess and not be rude to her. The said hostess has read the book
  and liked it very much. I think I am qualified to report. I find this author
  very true with his writing and his discriptive ability to bring to lif a charactor
  or place is superior to his peers. The book comes to life with his ability to tell
  a story. I love the discriptive pieces about the bush and his ordinary day
  to day happenings. I have read most of his works and enjoyed them all.


• Could seperate the author from the story line


• (read the first three chapters) believed that the writing was over desriptive and did not excite interest.


• A very enjoyable read, soft book


• bland and boring


• laborious, didn't like writing style, liked the issues


• Really enjoyable, liked the format


• Felt planned, story line good, writing not, Miles Franklin committee flawed!


• stolen from my shopping cart (if you weren't there trust me don't ask!)


• Also blown away by the amount of money spent or should I say squandered. Unbelievable amount. The amount of hours all the workers did was amazing. They just seemed to work abound the clock. A slow read but feel it was a bit of an education for me. I feel it was a well written book but not particularly enjoyable one.


• Good book..ending fissled out


• Bloody awful

And my personal favourite from colleen:

Self indulgent crap - struggled to finish - Eat, Pray, Love

Happy reading gals

M xox

Do No Harm - Carol Topolski

Many of us found this a compelling and intriguing story in spite of our selves. All agreed that the writer may've been a little to leisurely in the execution and development of the novel in the initial stages only then to change gear and speed towards the finish tabloid style, to the novels detriment. Many struggled with the dark subject matter, the novels constant toing and froing of times, places and characters and period inaccuracies. Despite the lead characters horrific acts, we all felt that Virginia was a robust and very real character. An average rating of  4.

• Trilby-Roux    4/10 Disjointed, second half like a trashy novel.
• Irene              3/10 Unfocused, disappointing character development
• Meg               5/10 Disjointed, unsatisfying 
• Kerry             6/10 Kept my interest, didn't like the content
• Kaye              6/10 Intriguing but creepy
• Colleen           2/10 Bloody awful
• Tahnee           5/10 Liked the in depth initial character development, went down hill in second half 
• Elizabeth                  Didn't read it - tried but couldn't 
• Debbie                     Didn't read it - gave it to Elizabeth  

WHATS NEXT
The next book for discussion at June's meeting courtesy of |Elizabeth, venue TBA is 'Alice I Have Been' Melanie Benjamin.

The book for discussion at July's meeting courtesy of Colleen is 'Lord of the Flies' William Golding.

Kaye will select the book for the August meeting and will let us know at the next meeting what it is.

OTHER STUFF
Welcome newcomer Irene, if we didn't scare her off, she may be back.


It was all agreed that people would like to know how/why each person selected their book for that month before we commence discussion.


BLOG STUFF
Trilby - would you be able to assist Meg in changing her e-mail address for the blog.
Trilby - would you be able to provide a brief tutorial on linking the books we have done section on the blog.
Meg -   would you be able to provide Irene and I with an e-introduction.

Aprils book club - The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Well better late than never, again i have lost the notes i took.... can i blame it on the pregnancy i reckon i should lol.
The night got off to a slow start with just myself, Elizabeth and Kaye we actually had thoughts about holding off any discussion on the book until this month. However eventually Leslie joined us after spending half an hour arguing with her tom tom about where i live thankfully she listened to it in the end.
I was going to cheat and use the recommended questions (on the internet) but they were all so tiresome like what was Jacobs relationship which each of his wives ect... ect... So i went with my own, something along the lines of do we as women in todays world have an equivalant "Red Tent" with general concensus we decided that things like mothers group and indeed this book club was a little like the red tent.
Other random discussion included:
Housework and who keeps a tidy house
The new Tim Tam flavour can't remember what it was but it was yummy - Thanks Kaye
Cups and Periods - guess you had to be there.

Hmm the ratings well i lost them again but we we all agreed it was an enjoyable read.
Look forward to seeing you all at Tahnee's next week.