Cityside readers start their book club year!

Five folk were keen to start their book club reading for 2015. It was wonderful to hear the variety of books that our members had read over the break. Mysteries, biographies, histories, chick lit were just several of the genres indulged in. Some of our book club books from last year were re-visited and discussed anew as were some of their associated films.

We have rather a hefty tome to start the year but it is just so beautifully written, I'm hopeful our members will persist. Although set during and around the Second World War, to categorise Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See as a war story would be doing it a disservice and not giving any  indication of its scope.

Carmen Callil from The Guardian had this to say about the novel while William T Vollmann from The New York Times gave the following review.

Looking forward to hearing your views at our next meeting on the first Thursday in March at Mackay City Library at 6.00 pm!

Read to live!

 



Cityside Book Club kicks off tomorrow Thursday 5 February at Mackay City Library!

Hello everyone!

Just reminding you that we start our Cityside book clubbing year tomorrow at Mackay City Library at 6 pm!

Looking forward to catching up with your reading news and then giving you a taste of the first novel on the menu for 2015!

If you want to join our club, just come along! You do need to be a Mackay Regional Library Member so if you are not yet, just come a bit earlier and bring along some official ID with your Mackay residential address and our friendly staff will get you signed up!

Looking forward to another year of reading, discussion and laughter!

Caroline Overington's book stimulates passionate discussion!

I am finding it very difficult to summarise our discussion last Thursday evening as the ideas really ricocheted around the room.

As some of our readers had grown up in country New South Wales they readily identified with the novel's setting. From their experience they thought that the portrayals of Med and Haines were very real and unfortunately easily recognisable. One reader was particularly incensed with Med's attitude to his wife - the notion that a garden and a child would guarantee a woman's happiness was beyond anathema for her! Fat's plight evoked much sympathy.

Another train of thought that created much emotion was the notion that a biological parent would be almost by definition, the best parent for a child. One reader considered this limiting assumption made by the courts and welfare system in this novel, as the source cause of distress in the book!

Our readers seemed to consider that the use of personal letters as the basis of the structure of the novel to be very effective because the novel's content was so intensely personal. Utilising letters in this manner reinforced the effect that such tragic events have on families.

One reader had not progressed far through the book but following our book club discussion was keen to continue reading the book so that they could form their own opinion.

While not exactly uplifting, this novel certainly provoked opinionated discussion which is part of the fun of being part of a book club. It's a great way to extend one's experience of a book through the reactions of other readers. Through a book club one is able to read the same book with more than one set of eyes.

In Cityside Book Club we are going to read our own choice of books over the Christmas break. We will meet again on Thursday 5 February at 6.00pm at Mackay City Library.

Don't forget our MRCL Book Club Christmas Get-together at the Gordon White Community Meeting Room on Thursday 18 December from 6.00 pm till 8.00 pm. Please bring some finger food to share and some beverages that cater to your own taste. It'll be a great chance to meet folk from the other two MRCL book clubs! Looking forward to seeing you there!

Come to say "Hello" at Cityside Book Club

Well it's the last Cityside Book Club for 2014!

 I cannot say I am enjoying Caroline Overington's "I Came to Say Goodbye". I am finding it a very uncomfortable book to say the least and I certainly don't look forward to my evening reading session like I usually do. I hope to have it finished by Thursday but it is going to be close!

Hope you are having more success than I!

Looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday 4 December at 6.00pm at Mackay City Library!

Are we Closer to Stone this Thursday?

Hello everyone,

Well I'm sort of back and slowly picking up the reins again. I think Closer to Stone by Simon Cleary was the CBC book for October?

Looking forward to hearing what you thought of it. Unfortunately it seems to be a bit topical at present.

We'll meet this Thursday at Mackay City Library at 6 pm.

Until then, keep the pages turning!

'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!

Cityside Book Club meets this Thursday at Mackay City Library at 6.00 pm!

Hello folks,

Just a reminder that we are meeting the second Thursday this month, just to keep you on your toes.

We'll be discussing Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears. If you haven't read it or finished it, that's not a problem, come along anyway. It's a while since I've read it, so I'll have to try to get a quick skim in over the next couple of days to try to jog my memory.

See you all on Thursday, at City, at 6 pm!