2022

Members agreed you need to check your credulity at the door with this novel but they liked several aspects of it.

Most members enjoyed this entertaining history of domestic life in England and America. The author uses as an organising framework the history of his own house, an English rectory built in 1851.

This novel led to some interesting discussion, with members divided on whether it was a good read or not.

We liked this one for being a real page turner with an interesting plot, but we also all agreed that if you truly want to know about Nancy Wake, on whom the novel is based, you will have to read elsewhere.

Members almost universally gave a thumbs down for this book, describing it as too weird, too different, too black, too challenging, not funny, too anguished, too painful, too silly, too difficult and too avant garde to finish.

Damon Courtenay died at the age of 24 on April Fool’s Day, 1991, from AIDS- related illnesses.

This month it was almost unanimous. Nobody in the group liked A Spool of Blue Thread – except one.

Club members gave this book a rating of 8 out of 10 or higher, with most giving it 9.5.

Members’ opinions were quite widely divided about the novel The Bridge of Clay. Some of us couldn’t engage with the plot telling the story of the Dunbar family and the book was left unfinished. Others thought it was too sad. Others really liked it.

At our meeting several members admitted to not having read this novel for March. Fortunately, they still came along to the meeting and we had an interesting conversation