Category: Off The Shelf

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OFF THE SHELF

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A Little Life  – by Hanya Yanagihara

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This is a long read that is beautifully written. Set in New York, it follows the lives of Jude and his three male friends after university. Jude is the main character and as the novel progresses the effects of his disability and the horrors of his childhood slowly unfold. He is alone in the world, consequently his friends, especially Willem, are particularly important. It is not a book for the faint-hearted. The extent of emotional and sexual abuse can make it a difficult and upsetting read. Jude is highly successful in his business life and with the loving support of his partner Willem, he is able to tell his story. It is both sad and happy, clearly important to an understanding of the life-time effects of childhood abuse.

Some of us found this a very hard read. Others thought it was upsetting but gripping and quite a page-turner. This is reflected in a score of 7.

Tricia Coulthard

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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Shuggie Bain By Douglas Stuart- The 2020 Booker Prize Winner

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Douglas Stuart’s avowedly autobiographical first novel is a story about poverty, addiction and abuse and therefore was seen by members of the group as a grim experience. However, Stuart portrays such an understanding of the relationship between a child and a substance abusing parent that the book was held in esteem by most of the book club members. Stuart definitely has the ability to combine love and deep sadness, giving equal weight to both. The book is set in the 1980’s in Glasgow’s filthy tenements and progresses to the exploration of life in a mining village just outside the City.

Shuggie’s mother, Agnes descends through the degrading stages of alcoholism, ever more vulnerable to ever more predatory men. Her only constant relationships are with her children, whose knowledge of her disintegration is therefore intimate and private. The oldest, Catherine, marries in her late teens to get away from her mother and moves to South Africa. Alexander, “Leek”, is a gifted artist who carries around with him a two-year-old letter offering him a university place, stays to try to teach Shuggie how to “act normal” – i.e., appear to conform to the norms of working-class Glaswegian masculinity, which does not come naturally. Leek also stays in faltering hope of saving Agnes, until one day she throws him out, leaving the young teenage Shuggie as her sole carer.

Stuart’s depiction of women is very harsh and as one member said it is a book that is ‘heavy on lines, with colloquial dialect and language’. The work shares a picture of a roller- coaster life with immense highs and lows. As the book draws ever nearer to the ending, we are left reeling with many emotions but there was no doubt in our minds how wonderful Shuggie is and how we all shone the light for his future.

The group scored the book 8 out of 10

Isobel Davies

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OFF THE SHELF

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More Than A Woman. by Caitlin Moran

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The author of the international bestseller ‘How to Be a Woman’ Caitlin Moran returns with another hilarious feminist book. In ‘More Than A Woman’ Moran reflects on parenting, middle-age, marriage, existential crises and, of course, feminism.

A decade ago, Caitlin Moran burst onto the scene with her instant bestseller ‘How to Be a Woman,’ a hilarious and resonant take on feminism, the patriarchy, and all things womanhood.

As timely as it is hysterically funny, ‘More Than a Woman’ is brutally honest, scathingly funny, and a necessary take on the life of the modern woman – and one that only Caitlin Moran can provide.

However, our book club readers, apart from one reader, found the author opinionated and did not find the writing particularly insightful and generally found it an indulgent piece of writing. Having said this, it did generate a great deal of debate and discussion around feminism amongst many other things.

Chris Munro

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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Let’s not go to the dogs tonight. by Alexandra Fuller.

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Alexandra Fuller writes her memoirs of her life as a child in Rhodesia with her somewhat dysfunctional family. It is an amazing childhood, and she clearly evokes that life for the reader. I think we can all agree that we liked the book and it initiated lots of discussion especially around the author’s mother and father. They seemed a strong, resilient, and tenacious couple who strived to make a life in often dire circumstances. The impact on the lives of their children, both positive and negative comes out eloquently through her well written prose throughout the book. I think we all agreed that this book was an excellent read with an overall score of 10/10.

Tina Alwyn

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OFF THE SHELF

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  Pachinko By Min Jin Lee

Everyone in the group enjoyed this book. One member said it was one of the best books she had read.

A Korean woman, Sunja, is the thread that runs through this story of a Korean family from 1910 until 1989. Korea was occupied by Japan and many people went to Japan looking for a better life. However, they were met with hostility, poverty and discrimination. The characters are strong, well-written and believable. This is especially so of Sunja. Her dignity, respect, and love of family fuel her determination to succeed and survive in a culture that despises her and her minority origins. The descriptions of places and situations really made the story come alive. We had long discussions about the characters and why they did what they did. Ultimately, we thought that this story of immigrants trying to integrate into a foreign society is very pertinent to today’s world and attitudes to refugees.

We highly recommend Pachinko and scored it at 8.9 – which I would round up to 9!

Patricia Coulthard

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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  Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

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This month’s book was Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

This memoir was written in 2019 at the age of 87 by Anne Veronica Tennant, Baroness Glenconner. A British peeress who after a brief engagement to Johnnie Althorp, father of Princess Diana, was married at the age of 23 to avid socialite, and extremely wealthy Colin Tennant, the future Baron Glenconner. Tennant was part of the fast-living London set and a former suitor of Princess Margaret. He was a difficult, explosive man, and a philanderer whose idea of a Parisian honeymoon was to take his wife to visit a brothel.

Anne (Lady Glenconner) grew up with close connections to the royal family, her paternal grandmother was Edward VIII’s mistress, and her father was equerry to George VI. A confidante of Princess Margaret, she became her lady in waiting 1971 until the Princess died in 2002. She reveals many royal escapades in her book but does not disclose confidences. Soon after their marriage Tennant purchased the island of Mustique on which he gifted a plot of land to the Princess as a wedding present.

Lord and Lady Glenconner had five children, three sons and twin daughters. The couple were married for 54 years until Lord Glenconner’s death in 2010. For at least half their marriage they kept separate residences — hers in Norfolk, his in the Caribbean — and yet the marriage endured.

The insight into the Glenconners’ personal life was breath-taking. Tennant was handsome, witty, and a bully. He insisted on telling his wife about his holidays with his many girlfriends, he was mentally unstable and had several breakdowns. Lady Glenconner didn’t appear at all fazed at the arrival of an illegitimate son, fathered after Glenconner’s dalliance with an artist’s model. “I married all of my husband,” Lady Glenconner writes. “Colin could be charming, angry, endearing, hilariously funny, manipulative, vulnerable, intelligent, spoilt, insightful and fun’. Only a very few confidants apparently knew of the physical abuse she suffered and which she only divulged after writing the book

There was a final insult of mischief and malice from beyond the grave when it was revealed that Lord Glenconner had made a new will shortly before his death in 2010 aged 83 in which he left his £20 million estate, to his valet. The family contested this will, and after a legal battle that lasted several years, the estate was divided between the servant and the fourth Lord Glenconner.

Although autobiographies are not the preferred genre of some, the reading group thought this to be an entertaining read. Members objected to the excesses of Glenconner, but the group had great sympathy for the long-suffering author. Anne wasn’t a victim and was admired for getting on with life in her own way. The part many found most interesting was the author’s efforts in supporting her adult children. She suffered the death in adulthood of two sons; a third son Lady Glenconner nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. At such time, money didn’t help.

Overall, the group found the book to be good read and gave it 8/10.

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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  Book Review for Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

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Norwegian Wood by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, is a modern literary depiction of depression, suicide and the sense of grief born from loss. Although the novel deals with heavy themes, it leaves us with a positive message: ‘even though we may be lost, we can continue to live as long as we try’. The above review is beautifully said. The book became tedious in parts, but it holds your imagination and takes you to Japan. The characters are beautifully described, and I had great empathy for them. I would recommend his more recent novel, where I think he has progressed into a great writer, as he’s grown older.

Anne Gill

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OFF THE SHELF

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  Book Review for Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

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The plot is simplistic and was written as a comedy about rural life in the 1920s. When it was first published in 1932 it was not without its critics, but it did sell very well. Flora Poste, the main character, was orphaned at 19 when her parents were both carried off by the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic, and she was left penniless. Her only option is to throw herself on the charity of her remote Sussex relatives, the Starkadders who live in Cold Comfort Farm. This desolate and ominous place is full of miserable, brooding, and overpowering characters, where even the animals are all full of gloom. Big Business the dominant bull, reigns over a hopeless herd of Jersey cows, ridiculously named: Graceless, Pointless, Aimless, and Feckless. They do all add to some memorable, comical, and bizarre accounts, such as the references to the cow with three legs, which reminded one group member of the cleverly written Monty Python sketches. Cousin Amos preaching hellfire and damnation to the congregation of the Church of the Quivering Brethren is another such high point in the book.

As the rustic mayhem unfolds, Miss Poste, who is a modern bossy-boots, decides that it’s her mission to bring a “higher common sense” to the lives of her relatives.

There were divided opinions on the book as some felt that there were too many questions left unanswered, the ending was too simplistic and there was a condescending pitch that the Starkadders’ lives needed ‘mending’. Generally, a well-liked book and the group scored it 7 out of 10.

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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This month’s reading was a classic novel written in 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century. One million copies were sold in Great Britain alone.

The emotive story features Uncle Tom, as a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve.

Reading the novel more than a century and a half after it was written gave us mixed feelings. On the one hand, the brutal reality experienced by many slaves at that time was hard to digest. The racist language which represented the attitudes expressed by slave-owners of the period was difficult to read. On the other hand, we felt that the novel was over-sentimental in its depiction of slaves as being able to endure any form of hardship and mistreatment if only they had the Christian belief in a heavenly reward for their suffering.

Beecher Stowe was herself a fervent Christian and an anti-slavery activist. Her powerful novel was influential in aiding the abolitionist cause. It was also instrumental in stereotyping black people of the time as simple child-like, faithful creatures, eager to serve a good master.

Nevertheless, we considered the book a good if uncomfortable read, giving us a brutal insight to our shameful past. It was a particularly pertinent read in October’s Black History Month. We gave the book a score of 7.5/10

 

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OFF THE SHELF

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Several members were away in July and so we discussed two books at our August Meeting.

Sleepwalk on the Severn by Alice Oswald

Oswald is a contemporary award-winning poet, and this was our first venture into poetry.

The slim volume is one long poem set at night on the Severn Estuary. It describes the effect of moonrise on people, water, and voices during the five phases of the moon. Characters and events based on real people talk towards the moment of moonrise and are changed by it. The moon is personified as she keeps watch over the estuary and the writing paints beautiful dreamlike pictures of the landscape

Poetry is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’, so some members of the group were more enthusiastic than others. Overall, we gave it a score of 8/20.

The House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild

We all agreed that this was a good summer read. It is a comic satire on the English Aristocracy and their estates over time. There is the history of the long dead ancestors who founded and added bit by bit to the house and its surroundings. Then there is the quandary of their modern descendants left with the crumbling, dilapidated castle, a shadow of its former glory. The variety of characters of different generations are well described. The way they ultimately address their dilemma is the final twist in the story. It was a fun read enjoyed by all. We gave it 9/10

 

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