2009 Reading Circle Choices

[Kell]

Want to know which books are coming up in the Reading Circle in 2009? Then this is the place to check!

 

All these books are available from Amazon

(please use the link at the top right of this web page)

 

 

JANUARY (CLASSICS READING CIRCLE):

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis, or for free in audio format from Librivox, or as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg.)

Far From the Madding Crowd is the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells of the young farmer Gabriel Oak and his pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads to both tragedy and true love.

 

FEBRUARY (MAIN READING CIRCLE) (Self image and identity theme):

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham - an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their personal welfare was crucial. But for what reason were they really there?

 

MARCH (CLASSICS READING CIRCLE):

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis, or for free in audio format from Librivox, or as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg.)

The Scarlet Letter is the tragic story of a woman's shame and the cruel treatment she suffers at the hands of the Puritan society in which she lives.

 

 

APRIL (MAIN READING CIRCLE) (Historical Fiction):

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable.

 

MAY (CLASSICS READING CIRCLE):

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis, or as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg.)

One of the first great novels of the Romantic era, Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame has thrilled generations of readers with its powerfully melodramatic story of Quasimodo, the deformed hunchback who lives in the bell tower of medieval Paris’s most famous cathedral.

JUNE (MAIN READING CIRCLE) (Mental Illness):

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian house in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules. There was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock-therapy machine under the stairs....

Edited June 20, 2009 by Kell
Updating list

[Kell]

JULY (CLASSICS READING CIRCLE):

The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis, or for free in audio format from Librivox, or as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg.)

A historical romance, The Three Musketeers tells the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman, D'Artagnan and his three friends from the regiment of the King's Musketeers - Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of Cardinal Richelieu, and the honour of the queen against the machinations of the Cardinal himself as the power struggles of seventeenth century France are vividly played out in the background.

 

AUGUST (MAIN READING CIRCLE) (Fantasy):

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

'It looks like he died from injuries sustained during a fall...'

Bestselling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant, Mary Mary, are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with. And on top of everything else, the JellyMan is coming to town...

 

SEPTEMBER (CLASSICS READING CIRCLE) Crime Fiction:

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis, or for free in audio format from Librivox, or as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg.)

The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand. T. S. Eliot famously described THE MOONSTONE as 'the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels'.

 

 

OCTOBER (Hosted by Kell):

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems. Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly, and terribly, it does - Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret.

 

NOVEMBER (Hosted by Andy):

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

 

 

DECEMBER (Hosted by ii):

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews:

(Available cheaply from Green Metropolis)

Hattie, living in Paris, has just been dumped by her boyfriend when she receives a phone call from her eleven-years-old niece. Hattie's sister Min is having a particularly dark episode and Thebes asks Hattie to come and look after her and her brother Logan. By the time Hattie arrives back in Canada, Min is on her way to the psychiatric ward. Suddenly responsible for two children, she realises that she is out of her depth and hatches a plan to find their long-lost father. With only the most tenuous lead, she piles Logan and Thebes into the family van and heads south.

 

At once hilarious and heart-rending, The Flying Troutmans tells the story of a fractured family on the verge of spinning off its axles and a road trip that just might keep them together.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Kell