Book Club - 04/12/13

I seem to have neglected my book club blog this month, what with the Christmas shindigs and jetting off to Estonia for the weekend!  Apologies I'm back on it!! We met up on the 4^th Dec for Book Club and had a tasty dinner at Apatura in South Croydon to celebrate Christmas.  The book on everyone’s mind was ‘The Woman in Black’ and this had mixed reviews although personally I really enjoyed reading it.  Everyone had seen a mixture of the film adaptation and/or the play in the west end and so had different expectations of the book.  Some were not impressed at all…I think because it wasn’t scary enough and not a typical horror book because nothing hideous and gory happened.  But I thought it was gripping and suspenseful, had an eerie edge to it and I sped through it quite happily.  The book was quite different to the film but very similar to the play which I saw about 12 years ago and I'd like to go back and see the play again as it was such a long time ago. Parts in the book I could visualise in the show, like the Woman in her rocking chair in the child's play room which perhaps made me feel the spookiness of it a bit more.  The others were all somewhere in-between enjoying it but not loving it, giving it a wide ranging score from 2-7 out of 10. 

To be honest there wasn’t much talk about the book this time - I know its disgraceful, but we pulled our Christmas crackers, told silly jokes and stuffed our faces most of the evening.  The next book it was decided we would not vote out of three, and instead just pull one completely at random and the result was…

‘Tiny Sunbirds Far Away’ by Christie Watson

'Blessing and her brother Ezikiel adore their larger-than-life father, their glamorous mother and their comfortable life in Lagos. But all that changes when their father leaves them for another woman. Their mother is fired from her job at the Royal Imperial Hotel - only married women can work there - and soon they have to quit their air-conditioned apartment to go and live with their grandparents in a compound in the Niger Delta. Adapting to life with a poor countryside family is a shock beyond measure after their privileged upbringing in Lagos. Told in Blessing's own beguiling voice, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away shows how some families can survive almost anything. At times hilarious, always poignant, occasionally tragic, it is peopled with characters you will never forget.'

 

Next Book Club:

 

Date: 15th Jan 2014

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: TBC (as always) One day we will find the perfect venue!

 

Enjoy and look forward to seeing you all then x