Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

OMG  I just loved, loved, loved this book.  How amazing is this writer!  Just beautiful and thoroughly engrossing.  Short enough that you could read it in one sitting (if you are a super fast reader) but it only took me three nights!  Just so wonderfully evocative and the protagonist is just so winsome, you want to spend time in her world.

Some Suggestions from Across the Ditch

Hello all - I am off to Tanzania and won't be able to join you all for this month's meeting.  A friend whom I met in England but now teaches in Auckland has made some suggestions re New Zealand writers.

Going West by Maurice Gee, Queen of Beauty by Paula Morris and a suggestion set in Northern Ireland  Lies of Silence by Brian Moore.

Enjoy and looking forward to seeing you all in August.

Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran

A very enjoyable morsel which certainly evoked for me the west country of Ireland which I loved when I was there.  The characters are totally engaging and a small amount of magic realism thrown in for good measure.  Not quite in the league of Yann Martel's Life of Pi, but certainly a diverting time spent beneath Croagh Patrick's shadow.  I was fortunate enough to see the Northern Lights over Croagh Patrick and have flown into THE most hilarious international airport at Knock.  Pilgrimages by the faithful are seen as an opportunity to do penance - one is supposed to crawl on their knees to the summit - no thanks!

If you would like another diverting slice of magic realism that is light and not too taxing, a girlfriend of mine recommended The Good Mayor by Andrew Nicoll.  A quite unusual narrative which also uses magic realism as its foundation - which some may find a bridge too far - but if you are willing to go it is certainly romantic!

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

How exciting, with the Writer's Festival currently on in Sydney, Lionel Shriver is being interviewed by Richard Fiedler on The Conversation Hour this week - Tuesday I think.

I know that We Need to Talk about Kevin, certainly polarises people.  However, her next book is just engrossing.  A "Sliding Doors" conceit - the what if concept of a woman in a happy relationship being tempted to kiss another man - what happens if she did, and every alternative chapter, what happens when she didn't.  Just fabulous.  I couldn't put it down and definitely didn't want to go to work as it was going to interrupt my immersion in this wonderfully constructed and observed world. And I got my copy cheap at Big W.

Possible Books for May

Too many books and not enough time.

I thoroughly enjoyed The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. Check out his website for more information about the intertwined narratives about Eliza Ann Young and her divorce from Brigham Young, second prophet of the Mormon Church and a modern day murder mystery which is set in a polygamous compound in Utah.  http://www.ebershoff.com/ .  Read the first couple of pages at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0552774987/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-page

And then I am currently engrossed in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - which is the winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize. A wonderfully evocative historical fiction set in Henry VIII's world of political intrigue, religious schism and bloody coups.  Told through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell who rose from lowly beginning in Putney to become Henry VIII's chief minister by 1532. Great Uncle of Oliver Cromwell - who we all know plays a very interesting part in English history a little later on! Just a couple of suggestions.


 Here is the link to the website for Ian McEwan's Solar : http://www.ianmcewan.com/bib/books/solar.html and the link to the discussion on the ABC show First Tuesday Book Club: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s2819640.htm

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

I heard about this novel on 2BL and thought it sounded interesting.  Check out the review of it and see if it appeals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/06/skippy-dies-paul-murray

The Boat by Nam Le

Website: http://www.namleonline.com/

Use Amazon's read inside feature to read the first 15 pages:
http://www.amazon.com/Boat-Rough-Cut-Nam/dp/030726808X

The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper

Website: http://www.penguin.com.au/thetallman/

Read the first 3 pages at Amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Man-Doomadgee-Chloe-Hooper/dp/1416561595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264718411&sr=8-1

Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

Extension English Reading

Check out this list of recommended novels for Extension and Advanced English students, there could be some in this list that we could read for book club:

Must Read:

Mrs Dalloway: Virginia Woolf

The Trial: Franz Kafka

White Noise: Don Delilio

Should Read:

The Tree of Man: Patrick White

The Handmaids Tale: Margaret Atwood

Great Expectations: Charles Dickens

Lord of the Flies: William Golding

Waiting for Godot: Samuel Beckett

Tess of the D'Ubervilles: Thomas Hardy

Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four: George Orwell

A Doll's House: Henrik Ibsen

The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank

Suggested Reading:

The House of the Spirits: Isabel Allende

The God of Small Things: Arundhati Roy

The Blind Assassin: Margaret Atwood

Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte

Ned Kelly: Peter Carey

The Alchemist: Paolo Coelho

Heart of Darkness: Joseph Conrad

David Copperfield: Charles Dickens

Out of Africa: Isak Dinesen

Silas Marner: George Elliot

The Great Gatsby: F Scott Fitzgerald

The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Richard Flanagan

Howard's End: E.M. Forster

My Brilliant Career: Miles Franklin

The Children's Bach: Helen Garner

Memoirs of a Geisha: Arthur Golden

The Eyre Affair: Jasper Fforde

Catch 22: Joseph Heller

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemmingway

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Victor Hugo

Brave New World: Aldous Huxley

The Cider House Rules: John Irving

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man: James Joyce

A Taste of Death: PD James

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ken Kessey

Sons and Lovers: D H Lawrence

To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee

Picnic at Hanging Rock: Joan Lindsay

Johnno: David Malouf

One Hundred Years of Solitude: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Rebecca: Daphne du Maurier

My Place: Sally Morgan

Beloved: Toni Morrison

In the Skin of a Lion: Michael Ondaatje

Sabriel: Garth Nix

The Getting of Wisdom: Henry Handel Richardson

The Catcher in the Rye: J D Salinger

Frankenstein: Mary Shelley

The Man Who Loved Children: Christina Stead

Of Mice and Men: John Steinbeck

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Robert Lois Stevenson

The Joy Luck Club: Amy Tan

The Hobbit: J R R Tolkein

Huckleberry Finn: Mark Twain

The Color Purple: Alice Walker

The Sculptress: Minette Walters

The Time Machine: H G Wells

Breathe: Tim Winton

Cloudstreet: Tim Winton

Suggested Biography/Autobiography

The Story of Joan of Arc: Beyond the Myth

Joe Cinque's Consolation: Helen Garner

The Fatal Shore: Robert Hughes

The Story of My Life: Helen Keller

The Autobiography of MLK: Martin Luther King

Biography: C S Lewis

My Life: Bill Clinton

My Journey Behind the Veil: Kay Rasool

Mao's Last Dancer: Li Cunxin

The Brain That Changes Itself

Here is the publisher's website for this book: http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/thebrainthatchangesitself

and "Dodgy Norman's" website:

http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge/MAIN.html

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Remarkable Creatures

The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Slap

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, a graphic novel by Nicki Greenberg

50 Books to Read Before You Die

Here is the list of the "50 Books to Read Before You Die" :

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1984, Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, A Passage to India, The Lord of the Flies, Hamlet, A Bend in the River, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar, Brave New World, The Diary of Anne Frank, Don Quixote, The Bible, The Canterbury Tales, Ulysses, The Quiet American, Birdsong, Money, The Harry Potter Series, Moby Dick, The Wind in the Willows, His Dark Materials trilogy, Anna Karenina, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Rebecca, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, On the Road, Heart of Darkness, The Way We Live Now, The Outsider, The Colour Purple, Life of Pi, Frankenstein, The War of the Worlds, Men Without Women, Gulliver's Travels, A Christmas Carol, Huckleberry Finn, Robinson Crusoe, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catch 22, The Count of Monte Cristo, Memoir of a Geisha, The Divine Comedy, The Picture of Dorian Grey.

March

by Geraldine Brooks