'Foal's Bread' provides much food for thought

Gillian Mears' ability to authentically capture the spirit and nature of Australia's show jumping heyday really inspired enthusiam in one of our book clubbers. Her life experience had so mirrored some of the experiences described in the book that she lent her copy to her father who was a horseman of old. He also was impressed by the book's feeling of authenticity.

Some readers were concerned that the book's 'horsiness' would isolate non-horse inclined readers but this did not seem to be the case, rather Gillian Mears' passion for horses converted readers rather than turned them off. Her characters seemed true to their time and there was much discussion about how attitudes to social issues, in particular the treatment of animals, as well as human beings, had changed over time. Noah's 'cruelty' towards the horses made many of our readers cringe yet many of the group related personal experiences and stories of how in earlier times animals had been kicked and hit to 'discipline' them.

There was discussion of how the author's own illness might have informed and coloured the descriptions of Roley's increasing loss of mobility. Today's concept of counselling was not even a notion in those times and Roley's increasing withdrawal as he tried to cope with his increasing disability was particularly heart-breaking. Noah's resilience in the face of such persistent emotional isolation was cause for admiration from many of our readers.

Some of our readers had not finished the book but following the book club discussion they were keen to finish reading it.

Our next book club selection has quite a different flavour. It is a contemporary novel which takes us to a small town in the United States mid-west. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is quite a dark psychological thriller and it will be interesting to hear our book clubbers' reaction to it.

Oliver Burkeman, writing for 'The Guardian' had this to say about Gone Girl.

Next month's book club should certainly be interesting!