News from the "Newby"

Hi,

So I've caught up, read 'Water For Elephants' and absolutely loved it. Sara Gruen is very good at making a heart heavy book seem morish and "easy-to-read", I didn't want to put it down. The glimpses back to the present and into the old folks home made it all the more richer and well rounded for me. Rosie was gorgeous, intelligent and emotive and made me fall in love with our elephant friends all over again. I was so relieved with the happy ending and felt it refreshing after the books I've read in the past that leave you wanting to crawl into a ball and stay there :-)

I've nearly finished the YA edition of 'Mao's Last Dancer' so may try and re-read it if I can get my hands on the un-abridged version before we talk about it in November. I have read The Memory Keepers Daughter in the last year but for the life of me can't remember the character's names :-) Will think up a chat question or two once I can get my hands on a copy and refresh my memory. Don't expect anything too profound from the newby :-)

There are a few books I'd like to suggest for next year...not sure if any of them were featured in 2009 or not but here goes:-

• 'The Time Travellers Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger
• 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver
• 'Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman
• 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Misty

All are on the Whitcoulls Top 100 and 3 I've been wanting to read as they look really good. 'The Poisonwood Bible' I've already read and really enjoyed and think it might be worth discussing.

Bye for now :-)

Megan

Possible Books for Next Year

Hi Bookmates,
Yes we have skipped right over writing the Christmas List to instead plan next year's reading list.

The following list is just some of the titles and authors we have been recommending to each other throughout the year in our meetings. It is by no means exhaustive (as someone may have misplaced their notes) so please keep posting your choices or bringing titles along to the next few meetings.

Daughter of fortune by Isabel Allende (Fiction)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Fiction)
Secret Scripture by Sebastion Barry (Fiction)
Agatha Raisin by M C Beaton (Fiction)
Hamish Macbeth by M C Beaton (Fiction)
City of Thieves by David Benioff (Fiction)
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett (Fiction)
People of the book by Geraldine Brooks (Fiction)
Downunder by Bill Bryson (Non Fiction)
The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (Non Fiction)
All this and a Bookshop Too by Dorothy Butler (Non Fiction)
Don't tell Mum I work on the rigs : she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse by Paul Carter (Non Fiction) SBC pick for July 2009
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Fiction)
Mao’s last dancer by Li Cunxin (Non Fiction) SBC pick for November 2009
The 10pm question by Kate DeGoldie (Fiction)
19th Wife by David Ebershoff (Fiction)
The memory keeper's daughter by Kim Edwards (Fiction) SBC pick for October 2009
The Fraud by Barbara Ewing (Fiction)
Stairway to the moon by Colin Falconer (Fiction)
Book Book by Fiona Farrell (Fiction)
Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman (Fiction)
Two Pillars by Ken Follet (Fiction)
The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles (Fiction)
Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee (Fiction)
Marley & Me by John Grogan Non (Fiction)
Water for elephants : a novel by Sara Gruen (Fiction)
SBC pick for September 2009
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (Fiction) SBC pick for June 2009
A spot of bother by Mark Haddon (Fiction)
Remember Me by Derek Hansen (Fiction)
Chocolat by Joanne Harris (Fiction)
Notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller (Fiction)
The Kite runner by Khaled Hosseni (Fiction)
A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseni (Fiction)
The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson (Non Fiction)
Five Boys by Mick Jackson (Fiction)
Three men in a boat : to say nothing of the dog! Jerome K Jerome (Fiction)
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Fiction) SBC pick for May 2009
Cathy Kelly (Fiction)
Marian Keyes (Fiction)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Fiction)
The life of Pi: a novel by Yann Martel (Fiction)
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Fiction)
No Country for Old men by Cormac McCarthy (Fiction)
Independence of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough (Fiction)
Atonement by Ian McEwan (Fiction)
Long way down by Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman with Jeff Gulvin by (Non Fiction)
The time traveler's wife : a novel by Audrey Niffenegger (Fiction)
Temeraire by Naomi Novik (Fiction)
Let me sing you gentle songs by Linda Olsson (Fiction)
The Bolter by Frances Osbourne (Non Fiction)
My sister’s keeper by Jodi Picoult (Fiction)
Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher (Fiction)
Nation by Terry Pratchett (Fiction)
The Godfather by Mario Puzo (Fiction)
Robert Rankin (Fiction)
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Fiction) SBC pick for August 2009
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (Fiction)
Anita Shreve (Fiction)
Longitude by Dava Sobel (Non Fiction)
The Planets by Dava Sobel (Non Fiction)
Q and A by Vikas Swarup (Fiction)
The meaning of everything : the story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (Non Fiction)
The surgeon of Crowthorne: a tale of murder madness and the love of words Simon Winchester (Non Fiction)
P G Wodehouse (Fiction)

October Book is "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"

Hi bookmates,

Just a quick post to confirm that we will be discussing Kim Edward's The Memory Keeper's Daughter on the 31st October.

At our last meeting it was obvious that not everyone would get a copy of Mao's Last Dancer before the October meeting. So we decided that we should swap the books around for October and November.

Please let me know if you haven't received The memory keeper's daughter yet, as everyone should have managed to get a copy by now.

Also please don't forget that we decided that we could come up with our own group discussion questions, if you could please post them to the blog or telephone or email them to Merrin or myself that would be fantastic.
The questions will also be sent out with our monthly newsletter and posted on the blog on Tuesday 27th October so please send them in by the 26th October.

cheers Natalie

Water for Elephants

I have to say that Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants has been my favourite book so far. The circus scenes captured my imagination, and the seamless moving between the present and past felt right to me.
The fact that I was able to read the book right through without any of the aborted attempts which I had with several of the previous SBC choices is always a good litmus test for me.
I know from our SBC meeting some of us preferred the circus scenes compared to the rest home scenes but I can honestly say that the pace of WFE worked for me, the characters and situations lingered in my mind, long after I finished reading it.
So yes, I would definitely recommend this book to others, and for the bean counters amongst us, I gave it a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.