Book Club - 28.08.13

We had a nice cosy corner of the pub garden this week and it was lovely to take advantage of the warm weather; it may be our last chance to have an outdoor book club as next time we meet will be October (can’t quite believe that autumn is sneaking up on us).  We had a new recruit aswell Laura joined our gang, hoorah!  I’m thinking we need some more men too so if anyone knows anyone please feel free to invite!  Our book that we were discussing was ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus.  Unfortunately quite a few people didn’t manage to get through it, I think there were only 4 of us that finished it.  One of the reasons was because it wasn’t the easiest of books to persevere with.  Not that it was difficult to read in terms of language but that it was not particularly gripping.

Personally I found the beginning of the story quite interesting as the rats started to come out and the disease began to encroach on the people of the town, however quite a chunk of the middle became quite slow and repetitive.  But when we discussed this it made me consider the fact that by that point of the story that was what life was like in that town, it was monotonous and devoid of emotion because the people of the town could do nothing but try and carry on with their lives and detach themselves from what was going on around them, quote ‘great misfortunes are monotonous’.

Another quote that jumped out at me ‘their despair saved them from panic’ described perfectly the way the towns people reacted to the situation because on reading about the plague my first thoughts were of people screaming, locking themselves indoors and panicking about an epidemic, but in actual fact the complete hopelessness of the situation and being shut off from the rest of the world, watching loved ones pass away, people just fell into despair.

I think it’s a shame that the narrative didn’t invite me to become emotionally attached to any of the characters.  For this reason I found the book less enjoyable than many others that we have read.  Although it’s not my favourite of the books we have read, as always I like the fact that it is completely different to anything I have read before.

This month I decided to be a bit more organised and went through the list of books we have and printed off some blurbs so we could all read what these books are about.  It wasn’t until I did this and read them myself that I got more excited about them because to be honest I didn’t know what half of them were about! After doing this we picked three at random and then voted on the final choice, the result being…..*fanfare*

‘Everything’s Cool’ by Justin Carroll

 

 

Stan has always known how the world will end, and that only he can save it. And he's always known that someone will try to stop him. From his apartment, his thoughts hidden by static, trusting no one and eating and drinking only what he knows is safe, Stan seeks out the man his dreams tell him will be responsible for the apocalyptic 'Project Cassandra'. Faced with a potential spy in new colleague Rachel, Stan's increasingly frantic search takes him down dark paths to darker places. He will have to confront his fears, commit desperate acts and forget all he has known in his mission to save the unwitting, ungrateful world from its destruction. Everything's Cool is a black, paranoid and occasionally funny story of obsession, conspiracies and the end of the world. Stan might be insane, but is he wrong?

My copy has been ordered from Amazon (I couldn’t get a copy in the shops…and no I haven’t tried the library you know what I’m like) so I am eagerly awaiting it to drop through my letterbox!

Next Book Club:

Date: 2^nd October 2013

Time: 7.30pm

Location: As always ‘to be confirmed’ as I have yet to find the perfect venue, most probably the dragon but I will let everyone know nearer the time!

Enjoy!

A Self Portrait

I recently bought a book of photography projects to give me some ideas and encourage some creativity.  Although it is a photography project I've decided because I really want to draw more I'm going to combine the two. My first project is going to be portraits, so watch out I may come after you with my lens!

After taking a picture of myself in a mirror, I decided to draw from the photo and actually prefer the drawing, so this is the official start of my project.  You may think I'm cheating a little here as you can't see my face but essentially this is my self portrait as a lot of the time I am hidden behind my giant lens.  It also represents what I am about to do, I am going to photograph other people doing things they enjoy, love, something they are passionate about.  Primarily the images need to represent my friends personalities!  I finally had a reason to use my new funky sketchbook that I got for my birthday too which is perfect, charlotte you must be psychic. 

 

 

Volunteers with ideas welcome ;)

 

I was undecided on where to document this project, on my normal blog or my photography blog but I thought to start off with it might be more suited to Gem's blogspot as I feel I can reflect more on here for some reason.  Maybe I'll put the grand finale collection of portraits on the other blog as an official ta dah!

 

Book Club - 31/07/13

Great turn out last week sorry its taken a while to blog but I've been a busy bee this week! We met up in the Green Dragon which tends to be a favourite pub for most of us Croydon lot but it was a bit noisy so I'm not sure we've found our perfect venue yet! Venue for next time is to be confirmed, someone has suggested upstairs in the Spreadeagle so I'll let you all know nearer the time!

Well this was an interesting book club, we discussed 'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyes.  I'd say it was a pretty controversial discussion but I think the 5 women had a bit to say on this one when Bill immediately displayed his dislike for the book.  I think its fair to say that it is more 'girly' than any of the other books we've read for book club but I'm pleased the guys gave it a chance and read it! Most of us thought that although written in a chick lit kind of way, because it was quite a serious theme of disability and it wasn't all happy and fluffy that it didn't fall in the same genre.  Saying that it was easy to read and it turns out the girls much preferred it to the men!  And we do like a controversial discussion at book club it would be very boring if everyone had the same opinion about everything!

Personally I really enjoyed reading it, I liked the way their relationship grew from nothing.  They didn't like each other, for Lou it was a job she had to do because she needed the money and Will didn't want a carer/companion to baby sit him.  But as they spent more time together and became used to each others ways their relationship started to grow to friendship and then something more. Its a very sad book, in many ways.  The relationships between Will and his family are strained and in different ways to Lou and her family.  They both have personal struggles going on, but its the way that Will makes Louise come out of herself and develop as a person in such a short space of time which I liked and also how just through friendship Lou makes a big difference to Wills quality of life.  I don't believe if they'd met in other circumstances that they'd be together because before Wills accident he was a high flying businessman, who appeared to be able to get whatever and whoever he wanted and I don't think he would have given Lou, a quirky girl working in a tea shop a second glance.  But that's why it was interesting watching their relationship develop.  There were romantic parts in the story but I think the front cover actually puts some people off by saying its 'gorgeously romantic' because that's not how it appeared to me at all.

I won't give away the ending as some may not have finished and or read the book yet but i'd definitely recommend it, and it would be a good holiday read, although you may have to disguise the sniffing as hayfever!  We decided to let Bill choose the next book as he has been with book club since the start and none of his suggestions have actually come up yet! So our next book is....

'The Plague' by Albert Camus

'The towns people of Oran are in the grip of a virulent plague.  Cut off from the rest of the world, living in fear, they each respond in their own way to the grim challenge of the deadly bacillus.  Among them is Dr Rieux a humanitarian and healer, and it is through his eyes that we witness the devastating course of the epidemic.

Written in 1947 just after the Nazi occupation of France, Camus magnificent novel is also a story of courage and determination against the seeming absurdity of human existence.'





I have no expectations of this book as I've not heard anything about it, but it sounds interesting.  I'm looking forward to reading it because again its something completely different and also not something I would have read if it hadn't come up on our list so even if you're not sure you like the sound of it give it a go, you might well be surprised! I've ordered mine but it hasn't arrived yet but I will be diving straight in when it comes through my letter box!

Next Book Club:

Date: Wednesday 28th August
Time: 7.30pm
Location: TBC (Green Dragon or perhaps Spreadeagle, Croydon)

Get reading! :)