Eat, pray and love is a touching memoir written by Elizabeth Gilbert.  It was the reading choice for our Second Tuesday Reading Group.

  It tells how Elizabeth Gilbert set off to find herself within three different cultures – Eat (exploring pleasure) in Rome Italy, Pray (exploring devotion) in Ahram India and Love (balancing the two) in Bali in Indonesia. The group thought the book was something they could relate to.  That is was spiritual and encouraged self reflection.  They thought it was a great relationship starter and did indeed lead to some interesting discussions within the group.

                                                                                                  Sarah’s pick

The sudden death of Richie Rossiter changes the life of his partner, children and wife.  Richie married Margaret when he was a young and struggling musician.  They had a son, Scott.  Richie later left them to live with Chrissie, who managed his successful career and had three daughters with him.  All these people are affected in different ways by his death.

Chrissie finds it hard to acknowledge reality and move on with her life.  Two of her daughters are selfish and unhelpful.  It is the youngest daughter, Amy, who can see things clearly; however this insight is hurtful to her mother.

Now Richie’s first family and second have contact with each other; initially due to the funeral and the will, then through Amy’s curiosity about her father’s early life.

Richie’s death is also a catalyst for change for Margaret and Scott, even though they had no contact with him for over twenty years.

Throughout the book the issue of why Richie never divorced Margaret to marry Chrissie is raised.  She starts to question whether he really loved her when she finds out he has left something valuable to Margaret and Scott.

The book os mainly set in London and also Newcastle and Tynemouth in Northern England.  It is easy to read with unbelievable characters.  My favourite characters were Margaret and Amy.  I found the ending satisfying.

If you like this book there are many other Joanna Trollope novels to try, or perhaps try these authors – Caro Fraser, Libby Purves and Elizabeth Buchan.

Imagine an Australia transformed by the War on Terror; Canberra destroyed in a nuclear attack; Australia in the grips of a police state where civil liberties have been suspended; suspect nationalities have been impounded "and worse – no one wants to play cricket with us any more". 

This is exactly the scenario proposed by Andrew McGahan in Underground, the book chosen by the Wednesday Book Club.  The group thought the subject matter interesting but not particularly well written.  The plot did draw the reader in and although it was far fetched at times it contained an overall plausible theme.  The bungles which occurred were believable.  The group did not think the destruction of Canberra was believable.  The group all agreed that the Prime Minister in the book, Bernard James, was a parody of John Howard – some even thought he was a mirror image. His brother, Leo James, is not an Australian Everyman.  He is a "chancer", a political, get rich quick guy but not a "decent guy".  The Group felt that Leo’s thoughts on the "Australia that was" at the end of the book was very well written.  The view may not be completely realistic but aspects of the Australian outlook were well depicted; that Leo’s thoughts on the parallel of society and the Roman Empire are very perceptive and do give him some decency. The discussion then moved to current views on multiculturalism and the immigration policy.  The group believes media over emphasise the amount of boat people as the total percentage of immigrants coming into the country.  Comments were made regarding immigration becoming a campaign issue for the next election.  The group also discussed the fact that mainstream TV is always in English or has English voiceover rather than being subtitled so that bilingual people can understand.

                                                                                                                                Sarah’s Pick

 In best selling Jodi Picoult’s latest book we meet Jacob Hunt, a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome.  Jacob has an obsessive interest in forensic analysis; and often knows more about a crime scene than the local police.  When his tutor, Jess, goes missing and her body is later found wrapped in Jacob’s quilt he is questioned by police. 

They do not understand that his avoidance of eye contact and inappropriate gestures and comments can be attributed to his Asperger’s syndrome.

I was interested in Jacob’s explanation of how the world appears to him and how he struggles to make his way in it,  He is easily upset by change to his routine or an over stimulating environment.  he likes routine and to follow rules (hence the title of the novel).  He knows he is different to the other kids at school.  He says "For me, being in social situations – whether that’s school, or Thanksgiving dinner, or the line at the movies – is like moving to Lithuania, when you haven’t studied Lithuanian."

It is also interesting to see the effect on Jacob’s mother, Emma.  Her husband left her when Jacob was three and his younger brother, Theo, was a baby.  She has organised her life around Jacob – working from home, constantly trying to make his path easier.  This is sometimes to the detriment of Theo who has his own secret that will effect Jacob’s trial.

The book is told from various perspectives in brief chapters.  This allows readers to see things from various sides of the story.  Mainly we hear from Jacob, Emma, and Theo but also from Jacob’s inexperienced lawyer and the police officer investigating the disappearance and death of Jess.  The brief chapters also keep the reader interested and wanting to read "just one more chapter" until the conclusion.

Recently my colleagues and I joined a bevy of Readers Advisors from all over New South Wales at the State library of New South Wales for a very interesting seminar on Crime Fiction and its cross over genres.  The seminar was entitled Murder in the Metcalfe, which I thought was a great title. It was held in the Metcalfe Auditorium at the Library.

  There was a very interesting group of speakers covering every facet of crime writing and the current trend of blending genres into the crime novel. It was apt that this seminar was on crime fiction because the very first novel published in Australia was a crime story. Quintas Servinton was originally published in 3 volumes in 1830-1831.  For those who are interested you can download a copy of this book.

 Our first speaker came to us via Skype from her office in the USA.  Diana Tixier Herald spoke of some of the authors she thought was worthy of mention in the Crime/Supernatural crossover genre.  The supernatural is well represented in such crossover fiction with authors like Charlaine Harris, who writes about vampires and werewolves and Jim Butcher whose main investigator, Harry Dresden, is also a wizard.  Other authors that Diana liked were Mark Del Franco’s Connor Grey series, Patricia Briggs, Madelyn Art,  and Linda Lael Miller. When asked to name her favourite author, Diana chose Kit Whitfiled who writes about werewolves and whose book Bareback (entitled Benighted in the UK) was well worth reading.

Peter Milne from Abbey’s Bookshop gave us a very interesting history of Crime Fiction and Rachel Franks spoke about genres in crime.  Arguably the first crime novel ever published was Caleb William by William Godwin published in 1794.  The first acknowledged crime novel is Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone (although the American’s like to claim Edgar Allan Poe as the first crime writer.)  I would suggest that the Woman in White, which was published in 1859-1860 was also a crime novel so prefer to say Wilkie Collins was the first published crime novelist and Edgar Poe was the first published crime short story writer. There were some wonderful crime novels published before the First World War with Sherlock Holmes making his appearance in the 1880’s, along with G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, R. Austin Freeman’s Dr Thorndike, Edgar Wallace to name but a few.  Between the wars arguably the best crime writer ever, Agatha Christie, tantalised us all with intriguing plots while Dorothy L. Sayers, Gladys Mitchell, Ngaio Marsh, Edmund Crispin, Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler provided further entertainment.  After the war new writers joined those well established authors.  These included Ross McDonald, Rex Stout and Ed McBain.  The sixties saw the advent of animals in crime, particularly Lilian Jackson Braun’s "The cat who…" series.  There was the Chief Inspector and his trusty side kick such as Caroline Graham’s Midsomer murder series, W.J. Burley’s Wycliffe series, Reginald Hill and James Lee Burke.  P.D. James introduced the first woman detective.  Forensic crime is represented in the works of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs.  For those who like a little history mixed in with their crime, Ellis Peters, Anne Perry, Margaret Fraser, Susan Gregory, Lindsay Davis, Paul Doherty, Elizabeth Peters, Van Gulik and a host of others will have you soaking up the atmosphere of Ancient Rome, Mediaeval England, China, Egypt and a host of other exotic locations.  Conspiracy theories have always been popular and none more popular than those told by Dan Brown.  Australia has some great crime writers as well.  Arthur Upfield, Jon Cleary, Peter Corris, Jennifer Roe, Katherine Fox – the list goes on and on.  I am sure everyone has a favourite author that has not been named.  Space prevents me from doing so.

Matthew Reilly was one of the most entertaining speakers I have ever listened to.  He was amusing, lively and not at all boring.  He  spoke about writing and getting published and how he published his own first book because no one else would do so.  Fortunately a publisher saw that first book and the rest is history.  He read some passages from his books and read some of the reviews critics have written about his books.  Those reviews were dreadful and only go to prove that what appeals to critics and what appeals to the general public are often two totally different things.

Sherry Quinn spoke to us about resources available to those searching for crime.  This very entertaining seminar finished with a Discussion Panel and question time.  All in all it was a great day – and lunch was excellent, too.