..and for 2009

Looking further back to 2009 our choices were:

• Did we meet in January?
• Wendell Berry 'Hannah Coulter'
• Wm Paul Young 'The Shack'
• Jack Drummond 'Avalanche'
• Chris Cleave 'the other hand'
• Gao Xingjian 'Soul Mountain'
• (July) G K Chesterton 'The Man Who was Thursday'
• (Sept) Marianne Fredriksson 'Hanna daughters'
• Jodi Picoult 'My Sister's Keeper'
• Danny Scheinmann 'Random Acts of Heroic Love'
• Maile Meloy 'Liars and Saints'

As before there's teasers from all these in my more-or-less weekly posts here but you will need to scroll down a bit!

BATS books in the last year

The approaching of the need to produce an annual statement on what we've done in the book group over the past year, causes this blog to spring back into life (and I'm hoping to keep it going!).
So in 2010 we read the following:

• Kate Summerscale 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or, the Murder at Road Hill House'
• Hans Fallada 'Alone in Berlin'
• Marilynne Robinson 'Gilead'
• Elizabeth Gaskell 'North and South'
• C J Sansom 'Dissolution'
• (July) Sebastian Barry 'The Secret Scripture'
• (September) Kathryn Stockett 'The Help'
• Marguerite van Geldermalsen 'Married to a Bedouin'
• Anne Tyler 'Noah's Compass'
• Sebastian Faulks 'A Week in December'

I don't think we met in August...but there's a good range of books there - they are chosen, in rotation, by members of the group. There's teasers from all these in my more-or-less weekly posts here.

Book swapping

Over the past months we have acquired a number of sets of books - we're now operating a different system and each member is buying one of the books. We still have 12 sets though and we had been thinking of trying to swap out sets with another group.
Cheshire libraries (or whatever has taken its place since the big split!) have now notified us that a book group book-swapping morning has been arranged on 26th September (Saturday) at Hoole United Reformed Church between 10 and 12.
I'm not sure if you need to register to attend but the more that attend the better the chance of getting something you don't already have and the better the choice!
At the moment I can't find a URL to link for this event. If you know of one please link to it in a comment.

Two more meeings

Things have fallen a bit behind here, I hope I'll add something to this, but we've discussed:

• Tracy Chevalier's Burning Bright - discussed in September
  
• Sadie Jones - The Outcast - October meeting
• And we're in the midst of Ann Marie MacDonald's The Way the Crow Flies
  

Meeting Schedule (for BATS)

Bit of a change around both of dates and places, so here's the latest state of things:

• November - 4th at Chris G's (Jacqui choosing the book)
• December - 8th at Chris CK's (Chris CK choosing the book)

Irene Nemirovsky

The exhibition devoted to Nemirovsky is now up on the web and well worth a visit.
Also springing from another comment here - the Knutsford Literature festival is in full swing.

I'm not afraid!

(Io non ho paura) July's book was Niccolo Ammaniti's novel about a young boy discovering unwelcome truth. I've seen the film twice - maybe a few more times than that, as I've also seen it on dvd. I was therefore gratefuly for the opportunity of reading the book - in English! Beautifully written but a deeply disturbing book. Good review here (apart from the unprintable characters!) - though it does give a little too much away! Another review at Valentina's room:

I was afraid of ghosts and my grandfather told me the same thing as Michele’s father once. He lived with Mafia all his life. He knew that men could be a lot more dangerous than monsters or ghosts.