Book Groups

Do you all belong to book groups? I belong to two: this one and another that a friend invited me to at the beginning of the year. Both are very different but each are fun and a great way to meet new people (in a strange city) and discuss books with like-minded individuals face-to-face.

The book group that Simon S and Kim started is only in its third month but already it looks as if we are going to be reading some interesting books that will generate a lot of discussion. This month's meeting takes place this evening (I'll be blogging about the book tomorrow) and we are reading Voice Over by Celine Curiol, which is translated from French and was shortlisted for The Independent's foreign fiction prize. This is the synopsis:

A young woman works in Paris, at the Gare du Nord. She spends every day talking into a microphone, announcing platforms and timetables, invisible to the world. And then she falls in love with a man who, in turn, loves another. To our heroine, her rival is stunningly beautiful, as beautiful ‘as an angel’. So she decides not to pursue the man, rather, she is prepared to wait, alone. That is, until one night a male friend of the ‘angel’ asks her what she does for a living and without thinking she answers, ‘prostitute’. She decides to play her new role to the hilt.

What makes book groups so great is that I wouldn't have come across this book otherwise. Our next book is my choice (we choose in alphabetical name order) and I can't reveal it until after book group but what I will say is that it is also a book in translation and one I have been wanting to read for some time; another plus for book groups is that they allow you the opportunity at times to read "must read" books on your own to-be-read list.

My other book group meets next week and this month we are reading The Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham, which I am very excited to read (this weekend) and discuss. We meet over dinner and our reading choices have somewhat of a feminist slant, with a good mix of fiction and non fiction. The non fiction is a definite positive for me as I am such a lover of literature that it is pleasant to read something anthropological, economical, or historical every so often to force myself out of my comfort zone.

Next month's book is also, coincidentally, my choice but I am flummoxed as to what to suggest. I was tempted by Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood but I have a feeling that it will be too similar in genre and perhaps tone to Trouble with Lichen. I also considered The Color Purple by Alice Walker as I haven't read it yet but I plan on reading it anyway, there's a chance others in the group will have already read it, and I do like to choose books that are a little off the beaten track... I think that instead I will suggest non fiction and I considered Married Love by Marie Stopes until I realised my copy was at home in Glasgow and my library doesn't stock it. Now I am thinking about Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves because, yes it's a Persephone, but it is also topical and relative to a group of females in London supporting themselves and running a household. What do you think or suggest?